T minus 2 Days

Okay, 2 days plus a few hours, but only a day and a half left to prepare. Saturday morning is yet another work party, and I will be the first one lifted in on Sunday morning at 08:00 give or take a few minutes. And, were almost ready...

I haven't even touched the mast since the last post. It doesn't need to be done until next week, so I've been  concentrating on the things that were important to the lift-in. After the boat is in, Monday/Tuesday I'll finish up the mast and put it up. After that I am taking a couple of days off. Not to relax, but to get some more of the landscaping done at the house, its almost finished, but its like an albatross around my neck when I should be focusing on the boat.

Where to start.... Sigh...

 I guess with the bilge pump. Since ironically it is the last thing that has to get done before lift in. There are other things I want done, but none of them are as important as being able to get unwanted water out of the boat, should there be a leak somewhere. (Knock on wood). Anyway, Pride Marine got the rebuild kit in, and I picked it up on Tuesday when I went to get the discharge hose for the head, and a pile of other things. Put the new kit in, and kept the old ones as spares since they where still in really good shape.

Of course, silly me, I put it together in the shop with no thought as to the proper orientation of the inlet and outlet valves. So it is sitting in the cockpit of the boat right now waiting for me to tear it apart, put it back together the right way, and mount it below the back seat of the cockpit. Mind you, I didn't really think of that when I installed the new cockpit seat. So now I have to cut the center hatch hole in the seat so I can install the pump. Hind sight, what a tremendously irritating thing.

And on to the cockpit seat. None of this information is in any kind of order. In fact I have jumped around so much over the last few days, that I probably couldn't figure out which came first anyway. Wait, I think is was the chicken, or was it the egg, shit... Anyway; This is the beginning stages of the mock-up. Take lots of measurements, try and figure out what the hell I am doing. I decided how high I want the finished seat, then figured out where the bottom of the deck would lie, and then drew a line around the area. Next I screwed and glued (with thickened polyester resin), 3/4" x 3/4" cedar battens just below the lines to act as nailers for the front and deck of the seat. They stay there and get glassed in. In fact, after the seat is done I will epoxy the underneath as it will be much stronger, but the top needs to be polyester resin so that I can use gel-kote on it. Also notice the front of the new seat is clamped in place, next the top.

 And here it is, looks good eh... Okay, looks better than the gaping hole that was there.

 Its hard to tell in the photo, but I removed the battens and ground off the gel-kote all around and up above where the pieces fit. I beveled the glass in a little everywhere as well so that I would have somewhere to lay the fibreglass tape and cloth. Then I put everything together for the last time. I still need to fill in all around the outside crack, and make a nice little fillet in all the joints before taping, hopefully tomorrow. I would like to have this in there good before lift in. There is no picture, but I figured out where and how big the hatches will be and drew them on the top. This seat will have three hatches, a center one for access to the back, steering, hoses, and for fender storage. The other two will be for propane lockers, one on the starboard side for a spare, and one on the port side for the primary with the regulator.

Next the engine. It is a matter of pride that a boat when lifted into the water motors to the slip under her own power. And even though we are in the middle of a huge renovation, I still managed to get the engine running with a jury rigged setup. I mentioned before that I was moving the engine controls up from where my feet were, and I had removed them and cut the hole. Well, I built a box to fit that hole, but used epoxy for the fillets, and then decided to make it out of polyester resin so that I could, once again, gel-kote it. The gel-kote matches the original surface, assuming I can get the colour right. Anyway, I mounted the box temporarily and put the engine controls in it, looks sharp eh? I used the old battery cables and hooked them up to my new starting battery, reconnected the water intake, put a new impeller in the water pump, lubricated it with O-ring lube, and started the engine. First try, she purred like a kitten. Now, with any luck it will do the same thing on Sunday, fingers crossed, pray to god of choice......

Oh boy, this is going to be a long post....

Next was the cockpit drains. In the original survey the cockpit drains were picked up because the elbow going into the sea-cock was plastic, and apparently the insurance companies have a hissey with this. It might be because this same type of fitting has been responsible for sinking several boats over the last bunch of years, but who knows.

 It was probably a good idea to get ride of them, after all when I took them out, there were kind of squishy. I tried to find bronze fittings to replace them, but to no avail. So I ended up using galvanized. The surveyor said there was nothing wrong with galvanized. I would like to shake him now..... But the insurance company was happy with the change.

Then sometime in the fall when I was loafing around Pride Marine, I spied a pair and grabbed them up. I am not a big fan of galvanized, and given the opportunity I would rather use the proper equipment. Lucky thing too. When I removed the galvanized ones to replaced them, they were all rusted out inside, from one season. Just imagine what a year in salt water would have done. I wish I had taken a picture to show how bad it was, but they were dropped off at the dump with a bunch of scrape metal a while ago.

And tada.... the finished product. If you can see through all the dust. The original drains used PVC fittings down to a 1 1/4" pipe, then a piece of exhaust hose from there to the elbows attached to the sea-cocks. Of course finding a hose to fit the new proper size bronze fittings, and the PVC would be impossible, so I ripped out the old PVC mess. It wasn't very strong anyway, and I was worried that it might give away at some time. So I switched to good quality 1 1/2" head discharge hose, and few fittings, that are a little tougher than the original. I learned something during this process though, and that is to heat the hose with a heat gun until it is just about liquid, and then and only then will it go on to the fitting. Don't ask how much time I spent trying to get these puppies on. Hot water, cold water, dish soap, sanding the rings off of the fittings, you name it, and in the end only massive amounts of heat got the job done. Very important lesson learned, and it made installing the new head a breeze.

Now onto the head. I wanted this done prior to launch, just because part of the system attaches to a sea-cock. And that's the only reason. I figure any system that goes through the hull blow the water line should be taken care of while the boat is out of the water. A personal preference really, because this could have been done anytime. The first picture is of the old head in my little garbage pile out beside my shop, and this is as much respect as this piece of crap deserves. I can find nothing nice to say about a Jabsco, except maybe they are cheap. I know dozens of people who have them, and many of them like them, well all I can say is, they can keep them, I want the Cadillac.

 Start by positioning the head and figuring out where the first two holes go.

 Then install the first part of the hose from the head to the pump. Remember, lots of heat.

 Then install the second part of the hose from the pump up to as high as possible, and then down to the waste holding tank.

 Lots and lots of heat here.

 Through the hanging locker. I just know this will be my side.

 Then install the water inlet line. Look, its toilet spaghetti.

 Here you see the two hoses with their loops up nice and high. It helps prevent anything from moving the wrong way when the boat is healed way over. You can't see it, but there is a hole drilled in the incoming water line, right at the top of the loop. Then there is a plug, provided with the head, that has a small hole in it that is shoved into the drilled hole. This provides air in the line to prevent siphoning of outside raw water into the boat. Very important piece of kit. Neat too. When I tested the system with the sea-cock closed, the little plug whistled me a tune as it equalized the pressure in the head and released the toilet lid seal. If you are considering replacing the head on your own boat, you should look this one up. Lavac.

 More holes in the bottom of the hanging locker.

 The incoming line. And more heat.

 And this is what the finished product looks like. The handle removes so the door can open. I used a piece of hickory under the pump, and a couple of pieces of 3/4" plywood inside the locker to stiffen everything up.  It worked well, when I operate the pump, nothing moves except the stuff that's supposed to.

 Head done, I moved on to the 110v electrical. I wasn't even going to put this in, but along the way, my mind got changed. However, I am not ready to set up, build, and install the electrical panel, and I wanted 110V available on the boat during the refit, so I made up this little panel in the interim. The breaker panel will eventually go somewhere around there, and the outlet will move a few feet forward beside the nav station. This will work great for now.

Tomorrow is a little fibreglass work, the bilge pump, and start cleaning the mess, oh boy its messy. Perhaps I'll get this all done before Serena kills me, or gets fed up and leaves.

Fair winds.

Rob :-)