page_title: Bilge
section_title: Bilge maintenance
hierarchical_section_title: Bilge / Bilge maintenance
caption_attribution_description: Español: Esquena de la sentina de maquinas. English: Engine room bildge
context_page_description: The bilge of a ship or boat is the part of the hull that would rest on the ground if the vessel were unsupported by water. The "turn of the bilge" is the transition from the bottom of a hull to the sides of a hull.
  Internally, the bilges is the lowest compartment on a ship or seaplane, on either side of the keel and between the floors.
  The first known use of the word is from 1513.
context_section_description: Methods of removing water from bilges have included buckets and pumps. Modern vessels usually use electric bilge pumps controlled by automated bilge switches. Bilge coatings are applied to protect the bilge surfaces. The water that collects is often noxious, and "bilge water" or just "bilge" has thus become a derogatory colloquial term used to refer to something bad, fouled, or otherwise offensive.
  Bilges may contain partitions to damp the rush of water from side to side and fore and aft to avoid destabilizing the ship due to the free surface effect. Partitions may contain limber holes to allow water to flow at a controlled rate into lower compartments.
  Cleaning the bilge and bilge water is also possible using "passive" methods such as bioremediation, which uses bacteria or archaea to break down the hydrocarbons in the bilge water into harmless byproducts. Of the two general schools of thought on bioremediation, the one that uses beneficial microbes local to the bilge is regarded as being more "green" because it does not introduce foreign bacteria to the waters that the vessel sits in or travels through. But archaea that are non-indigenous also can be used and discharged, since the archaea will die off anyway, leaving only local indigenous microbes remaining.
caption: Sentina is the Spanish for bilge
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