BG-ONE smart bilge pump

Connectivity is the new equipment buzzword, meaning the ability to easily link and monitor all systems for ease of owner operation. Blue Guard’s innovative new range of BG-ONE smart bilge pumps, which use highly accurate integrated sensors and smart alarms to detect fuel and oil in your bilge, are a good example.

Oil tanker spills make worldwide headlines, but Blue Guard’s president Zdravko Divjak says the source of 75% of oil pollution is from leisure and fishing boats. “Nobody does anything about bilge pollution – people just go out of the three mile coastal range and dump their bilges,” he says.

Following an approach by the sports fishing industry in south California, whose boat owners had been served pollution fines of up to $45,000, his company came up with a selective bilge pump that can stop oil being jettisoned.

The BG-ONE uses solid-state sensors that can detect liquid levels down to 1mm accuracy (versus around 5cm of conventional float switches). Fuel and oil floats on water so when the BG-ONE detects a contamination, it will stop the bilge pump running until the level rises above the pump and fresh/salt water is detected again – at which point it can pump out clean water.

The pump can link to a panel with audible and visual alarms and is Bluetooth compatible so its status can be viewed on an app.

Price: $219. www.bluebgi.com