Lets all do the Organization Shuffle ...

Even after paring down a lot of our belongings that we had in our apartment and separating into "things to take to the boat" and the "get rid of" piles, we still had a LOT of things we were thinking we would be taking to the boat.  We started to get nervous, but each load we took to the boat found a home and we were starting to feel pretty good about the amount of storage the boat really has.  We still have behind the settee's we can fill up, but I still have a slight leak where the Chain Plate comes trough the deck.  It is never a lot of water and if I put a wash cloth there, it tends to dry before the next bit comes on board, but if we were taking green water over the deck for days at a time, it would e an issue.  So…  I need to mix up some epoxy with a bit of filler and will fillet it along that seam.  The moral of that story is that I think we still have another bunch of storage area that we will be able to use there as well when I fix that leak.

We certainly want to be comfortable where we sleep and installed a memory foam mattress (12" thick) in the owners stateroom.  It is almost too thick.  I have raised up and bumped my head before on the ceiling under the aft deck :)

Given this is an older boat (1978), it was before all the manufacturers started looking at putting center line queen berths in the boat.  So this one is the traditional U shape, wider forward than aft with a removable section to convert it all to bed.  We decided to set this up so it will be our permanent bunk and wanted it comfortable.  The problem was that the bunk fore to aft is about 4" inches shorter than a king sized bed.  At the aft end of the bed, it is about 8" narrower than a king sized bed, and at the forward section, where our feet would go, it is actually about 9" wider than a king sized mattress.  Knowing that we could sleep comfortably with something narrower than the king, we cut our memory foam mattress (all 4 layers of it) to fit tightly in the aft end of the bed (where our heads go) and then we sleep at an angle with our feet toward the Starboard forward part of the bunk.

This opened up 26 inches of available space on the port forward side of the bunk which in the long run we will likely build storage and drawers for a nice permanent solution for storing clothes, etc.  Before building it, we bought some cheap plastic drawers and a frame to sit in that spot so we can see how well it works for keeping things there.  The 24" of height of the drawers makes it perfect to keep the satellite/cable receiver on and just below where the TV is mounted in the rear stateroom.

You can see from the pictures a bit of the open and available space on one side of the bunk.  Right now, it just drops down off the side of the mattress, but we will get creative on what we build here.   Whatever it is we will have to make sure it still allows access to all of the openings below to access the steering quadrant, steering cable and pulleys and air conditioning duct work.

We also started to bring the clothes we will need on a regular basis.  We gave SO much away, I am still shocked how much we still have.   Really, I gave over 20 shirts, 12 pants, 9 pair of shoes, boots, etc.  It is crazy how much stuff we acquire through our lifetime.  I had 2 pair of cowboy boots that I just don't see being worn and used on the boat…Gone.

We converted the hanging locker in the rear stateroom to a series of shelves to store folded clothes on.  We will still have the hanging locker in the walkthrough and across from the forward head.  I suspect that we will be replacing the rear air conditioner unit that was mounted right in the middle of a hanging locker rendering it completely useless for any storage, so I am fairly certain we will install that somewhere else and will get that locker back as well.

My biggest clothing challenge that I still haven't come up with a great solution for yet, is my suitcase.  I travel for work a lot, and normally at home, I would pack my suitcase the day before a business trip and off I would go.  Even a small carry-on roller bag is pretty big to have on board, so right now I am keeping it in my car and taking my clothes to it in a bag that I then transfer in the car as I leave for my trip.  There may be a better way, but so far, I haven't figured it out .

Lastly, we decided to move the fan in the rear stateroom to a location that may get a bit more circulation.  I tapped into the 12volt power at my light fixture and mounted the fan right near the ceiling aiming at the bed.   One of these days I will write a blog on how you can take a fixture you like from the hardware store designed for 110v household wiring, add a switch and convert it to a DC fixture to run on the boats 12v system.  I have also converted some of these fixtures to LED lights as well to reduce the amperage they use.  The one in the picture below is not LED but is 12v DC.  Being Texans we really like the single star on these lights.

DC Distribution Panel

In the last couple of weeks we installed the new electric head in the aft stateroom and also the new Technautics Cool Blue compressor for the refrigerator and freezer.  When we got ready to install the head, I had to find a proper breaker location for it.  Originally I was hoping I could just tap into the 12 volt lighting circuit in the head.

As I read the instructions, it called for a 20amp circuit, so I ran the correct gauge wire to the distribution panel and used a breaker that was not being used for anything else.

Over the years since 1978 when the boat was built, much of the labeling on the wires from the breaker to the distribution bus have come off and some new wiring was not labeled.  I took the time to sketch out the back of the panel and then trace all of the wires from the 12Volt battery selector to the positive bus bars to the breaker to the distribution bus.  Like most things as we have worked on this project, if it was not documented, then we have created and saved the documents into a new Boat Book to capture all wiring, plumbing, networking and any other diagram that I may need later when working on, or enhancing the boat.

The next step is to add the Refrigerator/Freezer to their own dedicated breaker as well.  It will end up being breaker 9 because the windlass is actually on it's own high amperage switch that must be activated from the engine room.  (Due to the high amperage required when pulling up many feet of chain with the windlass, it was made it a point to not run the windlass unless the engine is running and replenishing the batteries)

The next step will be to create a similar schematic for each of the different AC panels.  The reality is I likely won't do it until I need to rewire something on the AC side of the panel.  So maybe it will be within the year when we end up replacing the rear air conditioner with one that doesn't sound like a freight train.