Wellcraft Boat Owners Forum

Hi everyone,

2012 Coastal 290 here. Attempted an overboard discharge recently (20 miles out) and it failed with the pump triggering the breaker in the switch. Got some feedback over at the TheHullTruth that the boat should in fact have a Y-Valve somewhere that needs to be set to enable the overboard discharge.

I have invested a good amount of time looking for said valve behind every hatch and access cover to no avail. Does anyone have experience with this particular boat around this model year? Any idea whether the boat in fact has said valve and if so where it is located?

Thank you!

Can you locate the macerator pump and overboard discharge point? The Y valve should be in close proximity to them. Beside the Y valve, there are two other possibilities for the failure to pump out. The seacock valve at the discharge point needs to be open. Or, the pump might be frozen. There is a slot on the bottom of the pump where you can use a screwdriver to turn it by hand (similar to freeing up a garbage disposal).

Thanks for the reply!

I located what appears to be the discharge pump. It's a Sealand TW pump located on the starboard side under the live well. I haven't been able to trace where the outgoing hose routes to. I did find a Wellcraft owners manual that indicates that the discharge outlet is on the port side. That would seem very odd.

Unfortunately the Achilles heel of this boat is the very limited access to anything in the bilge. It makes some basic things like tracing a house overly difficult. I'm planning on another attempt at tracking the outlet house from that pump with an endoscope camera.

Thanks for the tip on the slot at the bottom of the pump. Will give that a try as well.

I see now that you have a diaphram pump. That is a different design from the macerator so won’t have the slot. It is vitally important that you locate all the underwater through hulls and work the valves. Some people prefer to shut them every time they leave the boat unattended. As long as they are double clamped and tight, I have no worry leaving them open. It is hard to believe a boat would be designed without proper access. The TV inspection is a great idea. You could cut a small hole in the deck and look around with the camera. Perhaps you could install some of those circular inspection ports in the deck.

Here's a question for you, if it's a sea land is it vac-u-flush? if so it flushes with fresh water from your tank not sea water(so no sea cock) Yes the coatal boat series have the worst access of any boat I've every owned but it 's had to beat the versatility. My 270 does not have a "y" valve like you would with a regular holding tank head system it uses what they call duck valves. My overboard discharge is located just above the water line on the port side, the vacuum pump is on the starboard side with a small tank and the 11gal holding tank is on the port side with the over board discharge switch near the vacuum pump, just hold the switch and it pumps overboard or just connect a suction line at the pump out and it sucks it out some how the 3 duck valves know what to do. I don't really like that set up but that is what it has so I learned to live with it. I suggest you go to Sealands web site and study the how the set up works. took me a while to figure it out but now I have a pretty good understanding of it

Correct, it's a fresh water vac-u-flush system. Your description roughly matches my current understanding as well although I didn't know about the duck valves. After understanding what they are, it makes sense that it would eliminate the need for the "y" valve purely from the standpoint of being able to generate the vacuum.

The toilet itself works completely as expected. It is able to generate, keep vacuum and flush. I have also successfully utilized a pump out station. The part that doesn't work as described in the original post is the overboard discharge.

Now better understanding the setup, it is looking more like the issue is with the discharge pump itself.

Like everything else good luck getting to it

After much disassembly, the puzzle was solved and the issue addressed. The boat does *not* have a Y-Valve. I found some references online to how the key+button combination that is needed to activate the discharge complies with the rules in the same way that a Y-Valve would. There is a discharge hose exiting the holding tank that goes to a T junction. The junction splits into a hose that goes to the discharge port on deck and one that goes to the TW discharge pump. The output of the TW pump goes to an outlet port on the starboard side of the boat.

In this particular case, the TW discharge pump was seized which explains the triggering of the breaker. Replacing with a new pump addressed the issue. The pump is on the starboard side of the boat under the livewell. Access to it required removal of the livewell.