Final leg to Kemah

The Southwest International Boat show was going to be the weekend we needed to move the boat and we really wanted to go to the boat show, but also didn't want to chance waiting until Sunday to move the boat in the event that something came up with weather, the boat, etc.  The Marina we were staying at was charging me $75 per day so I didn't want to stay another week if I could avoid it.

Interestingly enough, we had several friends all come down on Friday and were staying through Sunday to go to the boat show.  It was Mike and Kerry O'bar, Robert and Mary Fields and Oday and T Roark.  They got in on Friday so we went and had dinner with them Friday and then decided that we were going to hit the water early on Saturday to get the boat moved and be back in Kemah in time to get to the boat show for a little while and more importantly the Cruising Outpost Cruisers Party.

A few years ago when the magazine sold and the new owners screwed it all up, the previous owners decided to bring it back again.  They needed some people to commit to a long term subscription and we really enjoy this magazine as well as the couple that have sailed around the world and are the inspiration for so many that are living their dream on a boat.  We helped out at that time and became part of what they referred to as the Founders Circle.  Each year, they throw a cruisers party after the boat show with free pizza and beer and a live band.  It is always a good time.  But not to get ahead of myself, we still had to sail the rest of the way to make it...

We tossed the dock lines early Saturday morning and motored into the rain and strong wind as we headed to the east.  Barge traffic was still pretty heavy but things were starting to move again so the barges were not sitting along the banks.   We worked our way along East Bay, passed Offats Bayou, and worked our way under the I-45 Bridge between Houston and Galveston.  

Going under I-45 in the rain and spray

Things were fairly smooth and as we started to hear the ICW, Galveston Ship Channel, Texas City Channel and the Houston Ship Channel the water was rough, the wind was strong and it was raining on and off so visibility was good but not good enough to read boat names with the binoculars.  

We had to cross the Texas City Channel and should have crossed the Houston Ship Channel as well but there was SO much traffic out there now that the channels were open, I had a hard time feeling comfortable that I could cross the ship channel in enough time.  With the wind and waves we were making slow progress and the last thing I wanted to do was be half way across the channel when an tanker or 1000 foot ship was bearing down on me at 18-22 knots.    

Perkins poking his head out to see what is going on

The cat does not seem to like the rougher water.  The first day of this trip he had blood in his stool and the vet ended up thinking it was stress related.  We did find that if we put his carrying case out, he would go in that to feel secure and when it is rough, we take him up top in the cockpit so he gets some fresh air.  On this particular trip, he actually ventured his head out the front of the carrier for a few minutes.

It was a little hairy there for about an hour and a half until we go through all of that and settled into a rhythm running north along the Houston Ship Channel but a few hundred yards west of the actual channel.  According to the charts that seemed to be a good path as there was enough depth for me to keep out of the channel and from getting run down by a big ole' ship.  To give you a sense of the size of some of these, we took this video as we passed one of them after things calmed down a bit.  He was making about 17 knots.

We ended up passing Red Fish Island where these is a pretty major dredging operation going on in the ship channel in that area.  For those that don't know, there is a good country sound about this little island.  Listen to "Red Fish Island" here..  The song is by Kelly McGuire  We made it to Kemah, passed through the cut and the boardwalk and turned into the Marina.  We backed into our slip and got tied up in time for our friends to come pick us up and take us over to the boat show !

Freeport to Hitchcock

We knew we would not have a long day today since the distance we could go was limited due to the closed waterways from the oil spill.  We slept in until about 8am and pulled off the dock around 9 or so.
We pulled off the dock in a pretty good cross wind.  I ended up rubbing the hull on the side of the rubber dock protector as we left.  I turned into the ICW and Deb came up the companion way and in a very direct voice, said "Gil, I need you down stairs now"   I had someone else take the helm and quickly went to see what the issue was.  The engine room was full of smoke.  I could tell right away it was the smell of rubber and likely a belt that was a bit loose.  I had Deb turn on the exhaust fan and took the helm again keeping a very close eye on the temperature gauge in the event the belt gave way.   I reduced throttle and radioed to the tugs approaching in both directions to let them know I was going to be pulling an about face and then heading to the South side of the channel to get back into the Marina due to a mechanical issue.  Both Tug captains were great and the one coming from the West slowed to let me pass in front of him.

I pulled right back into the slip and in the end only made it about 1/4 of a mile or so in all.  It was a loose belt, I tightened it real good, checked it all the way around for any worn spots and we were back on our way within 30 minutes.

This was a pretty uneventful part of the trip.  It was fairly short.  About the most exciting thing was to

Dodging Barges - They were stopped everywhere along the ICW

navigate the traffic of barges and tugs EVERYWHERE.  With the ICW closed down to most traffic and vessel traffic service allowing some commercial traffic through, the barges had to radio and get a "slot" to pass through.  Because of that, many were just nosed up on the bank since there was no room at the barge docks or dolphins to tie up.  Sometimes they would be on the north or south side of the channel.  It was hard to know which side of them you needed to pass on so I would first check the AIS to see if they were broadcasting their vessel name.  If they were I could radio them directly.   If they were not, I would get the binoculars and attempt to read the name on the back of the tug and then radio for them by name.  It was like running a slalom course.

We made it to Hitchcock and got tied up on Wednesday (a day later than we anticipated being all the way to Kemah).  Deb and I took a taxi from there to where my car was at our intended destination.  Our friends/crew stayed at the boat while we picked up the car.  When we got back to the boat, it was about time to get them to the airport.  We dropped them off at the the airport, with enough time for them to have dinner before their flight.

Kenny wanted to see if he could sleep in rough water - Yep!

It was great to have our friends with us on this trip and I think Kenny really had a great time, he just kind of rolled with the flow and this was something he always wanted to do, so the oil spill delays, the rough weather, the delays, none of it bothered him at all.

 We haven't spent much time with Jim and Karen in a few years since we left Lewisville so it was cool to catch up and spend a few days together again.  When we lived in Lewisville and our boat was 2 slips away from theirs, we
spent every weekend together and then got together 2-3 times during the week for dinner or a sporting event or something.  I miss that so it was great to get a little of that time back too.

Jim and Karen

When we got back to the boat, they had cleaned everything up, dishes, put away all the clothes/blankets/towels, etc.  It was a really nice surprise and allowed Deb and I to just relax that night, which was great.

I ended up working on Thursday and Friday from that Marina and we planned on sailing the rest of the way ourselves over the weekend.  On Thursday they opened up the ICW and Houston Ship Channel for recreational boaters, as long as you had a specific destination and were not just out joy riding around in the area they were cleaning up.

The last leg of that trip will be covered on the next blog post...

Working from the Boat - Day Job

People often ask me if I am retired, or how I can live on a boat while working.  The reality is that if you have the type of job that doesn't require you to be in 1 spot, this is a very workable solution.  In my case, I travel often to customer sites and to see employees and prospects.  If you do any kind of traveling for work, you have likely already adapted to being able to work remotely.  For example, I have found I can be fairly productive while at an airport, a hotel, or even while realaxing and enjoying a meal out.  

When I am home (on our boat) that also means that I can work and be productive there as well.  The boat has a Navigation Station like most sailboats (Think Mini office without the doors).  In my case, this consists of a monitor that is mounted in the center of the Nav Station that both doubles as an extra monitor for my laptop when I am working, or the heart of navigation and computing for the boat itself.  

In the picture in the sidebar, you can see that my desk is as messy as most desks you see in someone’s office.  Sadly in my case, it is also filled with a pair of sailing gloves, some line, a bunch of wires for the electronics like the router and my headset.

To make hearing and speaking to people, I have a pair of pretty good headphones to use on my cell phone or my laptop whether I am taking a call on my cell phone, or Voice over IP software such as Skype.  They are noise canceling which comes in handy when the wind is howling through the rigging above.  (See video clip a little later to see why this can come in so handy)

When Deb is not on board and I am working, I will use the large LED TV in the Salon as my monitor and sit on the salon settee.  It is a bit more comfortable and I like the extra real estate for the screen.     This was the case last week as I was sitting in the salon working.  It was a great day because it was still warm but overcast so no bright sunlight for a change, I had the hatches all opened up and had a nice gentle breeze running through the boat.  Half way through the call the wind started to pick up, then it started to pick up a lot, and I could hear the howling in the distance as the wind blew through the rigging of the row of sailboats just upwind of me.  While on the call, I muted my microphone and closed the large forward hatch.  As I finished that the sky opened up with a torrential rain pour.  I was quickly closing the 4 hatches in the roof that I had open and another 7 opening ports on the side of the boat.  All of this was going on while I was still on this conference call and un-muting the microphone to respond to a question or comment then muting as quickly as I could again.  

By the time the call ended, the wind was blowing a steady 20 knots and gusting to about 30.  The rain subsided for the most part and when I went back up top, the temperature felt like it dropped 15 degrees in that hour.

I continued to work the rest of the day on meetings and phone calls remotely, however the wind really had the boat hobby horsing and rocking pretty good.  When the wind starts to blow that hard, there are a few interesting sounds that happen on the boat, that we are just used to, but others wonder what they are.  I attached a small video below that shows me sitting on the salon settee working.  You can get a sense for how much motion there was on the boat this day, and we were tied up to a dock.  If you listen closely you can hear a few things in the background.  The first is the wind that you can still hear howling if you listen carefully.  This is with all of the hatches battened down and closed up tight.  You will also hear a bit of a ringing sound or long dull clank.   This sound is actually made from two different things that run up the inside of the mast.  There are wires that run from the base of the mast to the top of the mast for lighting on top of the mast, antenna, etc.  This is combined with the lines that run up the mast for raising the sails.  When the boat rocks a certain way they hit on the inside of the mast making this sound.    The other is a loud thump , this is actually something that you should not hear, but I still had an antenna for the TV run up on the flag halyard and when the wind would blow it hit the stays (the metal wires that run from the sides of the boat to the top of the mast to stabilize it).  It is a lot like a giant piano or guitar string being plucked.

So there you have it, a little insight into working from the boat.  98% of the time, it isn't much different than working from your office, but on some days the office is bouncing around a bit.  

Enjoying our time in Corpus Christi

It has been a crazy couple of months.  As most of you know, Deb had partial knee replacement surgery at the end of September and with that came 6-8 weeks of recovery time.  While considering a date for the surgery, Deb was weighting a planned sail from Kemah to Corpus to spend a couple of winter months a bit further south.   Additionally, Deb and I are planning on a vacation and she wanted to get the surgery done as far in advance of that as possible so as to be very mobile for our vacation.  This meant that when we were planning on sailing the boat to Corpus, she was still using a walker and NOT able to get on and off the boat, never the less up and down the companionway.

At the beginning of October, our friends from Dallas came into town and planned to make the trip with me (See previous blog posts on the actual trip) and I am still blown away by their generosity and willingness to help out with this.

Night time view, Downtown Corpus is just at the end of the dock

Slowly we began to settle in to our new location.  We are actually on a dock that is right off the road.  I was worried about this at first, but after a few weeks, I am finding it to be pretty workable and convenient since we can keep our car just about 20 feet from the stern of our boat.

The Marina here in Corpus Christi is having some renovations done on a few docks so there was not enough room for any more "live-a-boards" on the other docks (with privacy locked gates).  We rolled with it; (Because what else could you really do) and we moved into our current slip.  I was not happy that the pump out service was not available on this particular dock but in the end, this is turning into a good thing.  It forces us to actually get off the dock every 2 weeks at the longest and at least motor over to the next T-head to pump out.  (for those that are not familiar with this, it is the unpleasant task of removing the contents of the holding tanks (think septic tank on land).  Not a romantic subject but certainly part of living aboard and keeping our waters clean.

There is a lot of foot traffic that walks down the sidewalk and passes the boat.  Most are just out strolling for the day/evening and some are walking to the restaurant that is at the end of the street we are on.  At first I was concerned about privacy, but we have not had anyone walk down the pier on the side of our boat.  There is a small wire gate we can close when we are on the boat for the night to keep people from walking down the dock.  We see quite a few people snap a picture or comment on the name of the boat.  If we are outside, we have had several stop and wave or even chat for a while.  The boat name and the fact that it still lists Panama City FL as the sailing port usually brings many questions.   We don't mind, we are excited about our lifestyle and don't mind sharing it with others.

We did have an interesting experience however when trying to order high speed internet service from ATT U-verse.  I figured it was going to be interesting when I called to order the service and attempted to have it installed.  The conversation went something like this…
AT&T: "May I have your address so I may check for availability in your area"
Me: "Well, there is not really a specific address, I am about half a block from the intersection of X and y"
AT&T: "Right, but can you just provide me your address, even if the house is not complete yet"
Me: "No, see that's the problem, it is not a house, it is a boat that is tied up along X Street"
AT&T: "I don't understand, you want internet on a boat??"  This was asked with utter disbelief.
Me: "Exactly"
AT&T: "Well if you can provide an address I can help, but I don't think we can get internet to a boat"
Me: "Ok. Thanks, I will think of another way to ask and call back later"

Then it dawned on me, I called back again and I ordered the service and provided the Marina's address.  Then I waited for the AT&T truck to circle the marina office repeatedly trying to figure it out and I went out and spoke to the man.   In the end, I was able to convince him to just run me a long wire down the sidewalk from the small little green tower where they connect the houses and I would take care of the rest.  He did, and I stapled the wire along the underside of the wooden bulkhead down to my slip.  I then wired in a telephone box in the breaker panel for shore power.  I then just hooked up a phone line into the boat right by where I connect Cable TV, Water and Electric.  It worked like a champ so I have high speed internet and can work very productively from here.   It was a bit comical however.

Relaxing in the Cockpit (writing a blog post)

All in all, we like it here.  I can't ask for much more, here it is in mid November and I am in shorts and a t-shirt sitting in the cockpit with a beautiful breeze blowing in on me while writing this blog.  In the mornings, the sun rises right over the palm trees at the end of the T-head and it really is pretty.  The Marina has really nice showers and laundry facilities when I want to take a long shower (it is a guilty pleasure).  Heck they even have free ice for Marina Members.
The only real downside of this location has to do with the flights in and out of the airport here.  They are not all that convenient and there are not many per day.

I will end this post with a nice little view of the sunrises from the boat.

First 2 days of the trip from Kemah to Corpus

The trip has been really nice so far from Kemah to Corpus.  We headed out on Saturday morning from Kemah, TX on Clear Lake.  We made our way out to Galveston Bay, ran South down the Ship Channel.  We went West on the InterCoastal before going out Bolivar Point to the Gulf of Mexico.    From there we just went a few miles to Harborwalk Marina in Hitchcock, TX.

We had a real nice slip and were able to all shower and then head over to the pool for a nice refreshing Dip in the pool.  After having a few drinks in the cockpit for a sun downer with the sun setting, we all changed and went up to the restaurant at the Marina.  It was "Floyds on the Water" and the meal was really good.  The Service was even better and it is so true that a server can make the experience.  She was so attentive and even when asking for things like "where is the restroom" she would walk you there instead of just pointing and saying "that way".

We woke to a nice cool morning of low 60's and heavy overcast skies with a forecast of high winds and rain.  Early in the morning we saw some lightning off to the North, but it faded quickly.  We got under way about 10am and headed into the wind and weather.

Dark skies as we departed Harborwalk

The bimini and eisenglass worked great keeping the majority of the water out and people warm in the cockpit.  We had a nice relaxing trip for just a short 30 miles or so.  The newly installed AIS was great to provide warning and ship data for all Tugs and Barges encountered.  We could get a warning of a ship approaching even when around the corner in "the ditch".  It allowed us to see their name and call them to discuss the best approach for passing.

Loaded down for the passage

We tied up for the night in Freeport at Surfside Marina.
They have Transient slips with Power, Water and nice floating docs.  They have showers, ships store and security 24 hours a day.    We were able to top off the water tanks, took on diesel to make sure we have plenty for tomorrow and created our routes  and waypoints for tomorrows departure offshore.  We programmed it all into the Helm GPS, the IPAD and PC as backups.  

After getting the fuel and relaxing for a while, we walked over to a little place called "Cast-Aways" for dinner.  It was a dark little bar and we didn't have high hopes, but it was one of the best burgers I have had in a long time.  We watched a little bit of the Cowboys game, had a beer and then walked to the little corner store and picked up some small munchies for the trip. Since we will be running a 25-30 hour passage, we grabbed some sunflower seeds, beef jerky and what not to keep the people on night shifts busy and occupied.  As we walked back to the Marina, we were greeted with a beautiful sunset over Freeport and all of the refineries.  They look like Christmas if you forget the fact that they are stinky and dangerous.

Red Sky at Night - Sailors Delight

We should be  departing out the Freeport Channel (as this is blog post is going live) to the outer light about 4-6 miles off shore.  From there we will turn Southwest and head toward the Port O'Conner outer light marker.
From there we will head toward the Aransas Pass outer lighted ship marker and at 27 51.55N 96 55.23W we will bear in toward the first channel marker for Aransas Pass.
From there it will be in the ship channel and over to the Corpus Christi Municipal Marina.

This will be our offshore route leaving Monday 10/6 at about 10am from Freeport

Getting the most from your Provisions

As you likely know from reading this blog, we tend to blog about projects and things we are doing or refitting on the boat.  The thing is now that we have moved aboard, we don’ just work on it every waking hour (though at times it seems like it). 

This morning before the heat of the day, I was relaxing in the cockpit and decided to do some food preparation for the upcoming week.  Deb and I had made a roasted chicken for dinner earlier in the week.  We had wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.    While living in our house, we would have left it in the fridge and either heated up a bit or tossed it in the trash when it had been in there a “little too long”. 

Rather than do that, we decided to prep all of the chicken for use in other things this week. 

First I stripped all of the skin from the bird (there was still a whole bird short of one breast and one wing).  The next steps was to remove the chicken from the bones.  Breaking off each piece (Breast, thigh, wing, leg) I just pulled the chicken from the bones being careful not to get any of the cartridge from the joints.  Each piece of chicken was pulled into a small ¼” to ½” wide strip of meat.

 All of that went into a Ziploc baggie to be used late.  We can make chicken sandwiches, chicken soup, or even to be seasoned up and rolled into a tortilla for a quick lunch/dinner.   This would be a great meal to do quickly and easily while under way.

To make sure we get the most use out of this, we also broke the carcass into two parts and put it in a pot of water along with the chicken leg and thighbones.  We added, salt, pepper and just a bit of cayenne and heated it up on the stove.

 This will then be strained and cooled, when cool, we will scrape any fat off the top of the stock and put it in a sealed container to use as chicken stock in rice or soup later in the week.

I know this is a departure from our typical blog, but hope that over time these become more about what we are doing and where we are going than just what we are rebuilding J. 

Until next time, we will be enjoying our upcoming meals.

Bones simmering to make Chicken Stock

May the wind fill your sails, and your keel stay down.

Continuing to complete the little tasks...

It seems that the major tasks that needed to be done before moving onto the boat are done.  There are a lot of little ones and today was one of those days filled with little tasks.  Deb was taking care of some final prep on storage areas before putting pots, pans, food, and storage bins in all of the little hidey holes that will become our the equivalent to a house "pantry"
Here is some video of Deb doing the work on this task.  She actually does a LOT of the work on the boat and helps with most projects but sadly she is usually the one filming so you rarely see her 'doing' the work.

In addition to this today, we were also able to get a third coat of varnish on all of the new teak cabinets
in the Salon.  In the picture to the right, you can see that we still have all of the cushions out of the salon so we don't get any varnish on them.

Salon starting to come together

With those missing, it seems so disheveled.  Today, I was also doing some work under the companion way steps, so you see those leaned up against the mast in this photo.  The cabinet doors are all inside getting varnished as well and I am hoping by early next week they will all be installed.

Things Deb completed today.

• Loaded pots and pans for the boat
• Organized several air tight containers (Lock & Lock are the brand we really like) in the pantry behind the stove. 
• Started to put some condiments into the refrigerator (Ketchup, mayo, salad dressings, etc)
• Finished organizing all of the screws from our projects (which we had in about 40 small plastic cups)  She sorted and tossed any flat head screws, and kept all bronze and stainless screws.  We threw away all zinc ones due to the possibility of corroding on the boat in the salt air.  

Things I was able to complete today.

• Installed House Battery (Big ass 8D battery) into the new battery box with tie downs in the engine room (With a stroke of genius, I was able to use the companion way stairs and a couple of dowels to roll the battery from the walkthrough up onto the new shelves in the engine room without having to lift the 75lb battery while contorting my body in the engine room)
• Rerouted the large battery cables for the starting battery, house battery and both charging banks
• Cleaned and services both batteries
• Installed molding under rear stateroom door frame and around shower
• Put engine room door back on as well as forward engine access panel that has been out for months
• Another coat of varnish on the cabinet doors (insides this time)

Aft Head - Teak and Holly and Epoxy, Oh My !

We now have a working rear head with electric flushing head (toilet), new counter and Teak wood sink basin.  

We removed the artificial marble that was in the head for an old counter.  It was stained and not installed at the right angle and sadly after showering, the water would puddle on the countertop and not run off the front.

We pulled all of that out, repainted all of the walls with a porcelain paint to refresh all of the walls in the shower.  We also decided to make the counter out of Teak and Holly.  To do this we used 3/4" marine grade plywood with teak and holly veneer on it.  

After dry fitting the counter and vertical wall, we cut all of the holes we needed for the storage access, shower pump switch, sink drain, faucet and shower knob.  

Because this is also the shower, it was important that we consider how to avoid rot from the water.  To do this we decided to cover all of the wood in epoxy.   After mounting, we have used painters tape to protect the newly applied porcelain paint, and then did an initial coat of Epoxy.  After dry, we sanded with 220 grit sandpaper to get it very smooth.  The next step was to wipe it all down with a tack cloth and then apply another coat of epoxy.  I noticed in the first coat that by the time I was finishing up the work the epoxy was starting to get too thick to work well with.  

To combat this, I mixed smaller batches and focused on specific parts of the counter starting with the top because I wanted that to look the best of all of it.  I applied a fairly thick coat of epoxy with a chip brush on the wood, and then gently stroking in the direction of the grain to blend it all in and ensure any bubbles in the epoxy were popped.

I added the shower control and the sink faucet and then installed our favorite feature and that is the sink carved out of an actual teak log.  We bought the sink online and when installed it leaked around the drain.  We contacted the company and without much help from them other than an assurance that the movement and gaps in the drain would not be a problem (turned out it was), we did what most boat owners end up doing, we figured we could do it better.   We removed the old drain from the log, cleaned out the sealant that was used by the place we bought it from to seal the drain.  From there I carved the drain a bit deeper so that the flange of the drain actually sat lower than the lowest portion of the bottom of the sink.  I thickened some epoxy with sawdust to a peanut butter consistency and applied it in the newly carved drain seat.  After installing and letting it dry, this worked great and was no longer leaking.  I still need to anchor the sink to the counter (likely will use silicone to do that in the event I ever need to remove it I can) but will do that after the fact.

In the end, we loved how this turned out.  The epoxy coats are thick enough to protect the wood for many many years even when getting wet during showers.  The finish is so shiny that it is reflective.  In the top picture you can see the reflection of the outlets.  Now I may have to make an outlet cover out of some spare teak that I have and epoxy them so they look close to as nice as the counter.

When we finish all of the work such as hanging the mirror back up, finishing with the outlet covers and doors for the counter, I will post more pictures.

Plumbing Project Continued (Joining it all together)

In the last post we talked about the new plumbing project that we were undertaking but could only take that project so far until the engine room was ready to connect it all together.

Part of the work that was going on in the engine room (and in a different post detailing that project) was to install holding tanks for waste water.  To do this, the old floors and platforms that had some rot in them had to be replaced.  A new floor was built, frame for the tanks, tanks installed and a new subfloor on top of those was created providing a new platform to mount the batteries, pumps hot water, heater, etc.

Early on during this project we wanted to make sure we had a way to filter water for use in our boat.  We have seen other boats that would put a canister style filter in the galley on the main sink cold water supply to ensure drinking and cooking water is filtered.

We decided to to create a 2 stage filter that will filter all water whether it has come in from a dockside pressure line or water from either of our two water holding tanks on board.  (We store 115 gallons of potable water on board in 2 tanks)  Because there may be times that we take rain water into the tanks, we wanted to be sure that we can filter it completely.    The first stage filter is a 5 micron sediment filter and the second stage is a 2 micron carbon block filter.  This not only filters the water from impurities, but the carbon block will remove any bleach that we may add to the tanks to purify any suspect water we may take in.



With the engine room complete enough to get back in there, we have been able to put the fresh water pressure pump in, the hot water heater, and start to combine all of the water lines that are replacing all of the old PVC flexible hosing that was starting to break down.

The picture on the right shows a small shelf I installed to mount the new fresh water pump to.  This pump is a variable speed pump that eliminates the need for an accumulator tank.  Above the shelf there is a wooden plate mounted over the soundproofing material (1-1.5" thick soundproofing covers all walls in the engine room)  This wooden panel will be the place to mount the manifolds to distribute the lines to the different portions of the boat.

I was able to find these extendable diffuser connections.  Basically it looks like a tee with PEX connectors on 2 sides and the 3rd side fits into one of the other tees.  The more you push together the more connection points there are, and it would be real easy to add an additional port for a future expansion.

One of the things we liked about PEX was that all lines can be color coded making the designation between hot and cold obvious.  In the picture on the left, I had connected cold water supplies to both the Galley/Front Head and also the Rear Head.  On the left side the hot water connections are made to also go to the Galley/Front Head and also the Rear Head.

I started with these lines mainly because when we ran the pex, I had left quite a bit of extra in the engine room and it was rather cluttered with every one of those lines having an additional 4-5 feet of line in the way.  I knew I bought more than I needed so I was ok wasting a bit to make sure we had plenty in there until we knew exactly where we were mounting it all.

You can see a bit of the finished connection points in the photo to the right.

Before this project there were flexible hoses and hose clamps and tees all over the place and it looked like a real mess.  I am glad to see this organized like it is in the picture on the right. Now with that said, I can tell you that as I have been planning and imaging this project, I had envisioned all of these really straight lines all mounted flush right up along each bulkhead and corner.  That would have been great, but as it was I think we spent about $250 on tees and 90 degree connections.  If we had done this the way I envisioned we could have easily tripled that, so I am satisfied with this and it looks MUCH better than before.

I also started to remove the connections from the old hot water heater and noticed that it had a horrible oder in the water inside the tank.  It smelled like sulfur and we had noticed this prior to starting this project as well.  In the end, we decided that if we were going to look at replacing the hot water heater now was the time.  We considered an on-demand style but after doing the calculations quickly realized that even the smallest load required would be 20amps at 120 volts.  This would translate to no less than 2400 amp hours and more than I would be able to supply with the current inverter and I like the idea of being able to make hot water in a bind by running the engine for 10 minutes or so.  We have mounted the hot water heater and ran the cold and hot water lines to this location.  This model does come with the ability to circulate the engine coolant water through the hot water heater to generate hot water without electricity, but sadly the hot water lines from the engine won't reach this new location for the hot water heater so will need to be replaced with longer ones.

New Plumbing Lines installed

It appears back in 1978 when the boat was built, some of the water lines that were run were 1/4 copper tubing. At some point in the past one of the previous owners replaced that copper plumbing with reinforced hose. The down side is that there had been many places where it was run in small runs and then joined together or sections replaced and joined to the old.

 The results were a spaghetti twined mess in most cases with plastic Tee's and hose clamps. In the engine room there were 3 or 4 Tee's as things were added over the years and it just appeared to be a bit unmanageable. While cleaning in the engine room we decided to scrub the hoses and as we did noticed they were "gummy" When doing some research what I found out is that the "gummy" feeling was the material starting to break down.

Under Galley

This was the birth of a new project. Run new water lines for all fresh/pressure water throughout the boat, clean up and organize the plumbing runs and add water filtration to not only filter what is stored in the tanks but also the standard city water input when at a Marina. We started by running new hot and cold water lines from the engine room to the galley. We welcomed this change because someone in the past ran the 2 Flexible hoses for water along the floor in the galley (Rather than under a floor or through a compartment).

 From the Galley, we ran the new lines forward under the sole to the forward port hanging locker. From there we chose a new route over the previous one by going from section to section up to the V-Berth, across the v-berth and back down the starboard side into the forward head under the sink. We also ran hot and cold lines from the engine room to the rear head as well. In the rear head we added tee's and cutoffs so we could feed hot and cold water to the sink as well as the shower. We also added a fresh cold water line extension to provide water to the rear head rather than pumping in from a through hull.

We chose to instal Pex lines rather than the flexible hosing that was in the boat before.  After doing some research and finding out that many new boats are being made with Pex, we decided to give it a try.  In every place where the lines go through a bulked we installed a PVC protective sleeve to protect the Pex from any wearing with movement.   We also supported all Pex with clips (as seen in the picture above as well).  Pex lines are now run to the Galley and both heads. We still have to bring it all together in the engine room and connect it to the hot water heater and filters.    Like most projects, we created a map of what we intended to install so that we can keep it for reference and with the boat documentation.  Below is the diagram of the fresh water plumbing.