Filling water tank

[michael bennett]

When I recently refilling my tanks with fresh water, it is my usual practice to leave the hose pipe in the filler and when the galley sink overflow runs I remove it.
However, I was distracted during the filling by doing something else and I heard the bilge pump start pumping out water, so I went into the aft cabin and looked into the bilge via the access there, and I could see water running from the small starboard side locker, and when I opened the door there was some 4 inches of water in there! seeping down into the bilge.
It was fresh water and I remembered the hose was still in the filler on deck, and water was gushing up out of it which I quickly removed.
After some searching as to where it was coming from I found it had come from the vent from the wing tank fitted on the forward bulkhead of the starboard cockpit locker, water running to the hull and down into the locker.
The hose pressure was higher than I normally would use which pushed the water from the filled tank up the vent, with a lower pressure the galley overflow copes well, so a lesson learned to fill a little slower, was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.
Luckily the weather is still very warm here so it all dried out well.

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