I see you didn’t install shutoff valves for the inlets. I was wondering if that’s a step that can be skipped?
Good question! It's a choice I made, after weighing perceived risks of various possible points of intake failure. How much safer, or less safe, would the final install be with vs w/o big valves?
For starters, those intakes, the way they have been installed, are many times more secure than all other factory through-hull fittings, cooling hoses and clamps, etc., so definitely not the weakest points for potential failure w/catastrophic water entry, at least not my mind, lol.
My thinking is/was - the FRP hulls of these newer Yami boats are so thin - I just didn't like the idea of having a bunch of heavy duty brass valves sitting there, each one w/~ two pounds of brass on a stalk wiggling about (assuming large enough size for I.D. w/o restrictions); I'd be worried about those things shaking back there and possibly cracking the FRP shell, especially when trailering, and we do trailer a bunch.
Personally, the way I ended up securing the intakes, considering the type of hoses and materials used, I feel much better about it as far as structural integrity and chances of failure as compared to having 4 heavy valves sitting in a small area at the bottom of the bilge.
The boat has been through a lot of highway miles and some very rough waters and everything holds up with no signs of material fatigue.
YMMV, that's just the way I think about it.
EDIT: and, of course, I do have excellent electric valves in the form of reversible pumps, that I operate from the dashboard, they are sitting two feet up in the wet compartments.
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