With regards to FF Operations, I have to agree with Dave T.
With any Fire pump, you are only allowed to draught clean water.
Draughting salt water after dropping a 6" Suction line into the water would only complicates things, strainer or no strainer.
Putting sand and silt through a pump periphery can cause all sorts of problems.
Get sand into a bearing and see what happens.
There is an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)here that says we are not allowed to draught sea water under any circumstances.
That is in combination with the corrosion factor.
