Moved aboard !!!

It has certainly been a long time coming.  We had bought the boat just over 2 years ago.  We originally planned to take a year or so to refit it and move aboard.   We found out the true meaning of "Boat=Bring out another thousand" as we found more and more things that made sense to repair or replace while we had things torn up.  The 1 year plan turned into 2, but with our lease up at the end of July where we live, we confirmed with our landlord that we would not be renewing and that put the deadline firmly in place.

That lease is up at the end of July.  We intended to be on the boat by the end of June in the event we needed that bit of a time cushion.  We made it... for the most part.   I keep hearing how cruisers have to adapt to changing plans and not tie themselves to deadlines so I am ok with "for the most part".

To add a little more detail, we have been sleeping on the boat since the 30th of June with the exception of July 3rd when I had a problem with power and there was no 110v and no air conditioning.  Since we still had the apartment, we decided to sleep there that night and I would look at the problem the next day.

Bottom line is we are still working on finding homes for all of our stuff on the boat.  We have, for the most part, setup the major electronics for comfort and pleasure while living aboard (internet, TVs, wifi, and laptops and of course have all of the marine electronics as well)

So here I sit at the Nav station writing my first blog as a live aboard.  I am reflecting back to 2 years ago.  Deb and I had bought the boat, and with a few of our experienced sailing friends not being able to make the trip from Florida to Texas with us, we decided to give it a shot on our own.  So 2 years ago today (on July 5th) we had pulled out of Houma, LA on the Inter-coastal waterway, heading west through what can only be described as something you would see on that show "Swamp People"   It was beautiful and gave us a taste of what it would be like one day living and traveling on the boat.

Salon - Port Side forward (DURING) I can't find a true before

So far so good, This is the first day, that Deb and I have been down on the boat and just relaxing or chilling out in almost 2 years.  We heard some loud booms outside and realized that there was a big ole firework display over the water in Kemah.  We walked to the end of our dock where there were another 6 or 7 live-aboards sitting on dock boxes and enjoying the show.  It was a good time and relaxing :)

 We thought we would show a picture of what it looked like the first day we actually moved aboard.  We knew that as soon as the last coat of varnish was dry, we would be ready to move on.  Each coat we added, we kept hoping "Maybe this will be the last coat"   But... Deb and I like to have a really thick rich coat of varnish so the wood looks like it is almost encased in glass.

Salon - Port Side forward (AFTER)

So, this time it took about 7 coats to get to that point.   You can see the difference with the before and after shot of the same area.   We still have to add the door catches to the teak salon cabinets, but we sure like the way they came out.  They are all solid teak frames for the cabinet and doors.  The door inserts are 1/4" teak plywood that has been sanded, sealed and varnished.

At some point in the next year or so (low on the priority list right now) we will end up recovering all of the cushions in a nice plush white leather like material that is soft but can be cleaned and withstand the environment.

All in all it has been a crazy, busy, educational, fun and frustrating time to get to this point.  I wouldn't trade it for the world because I am excited about what the future holds for us.

Below is a 360 degree view of the salon from the bottom of the companion way stairs.  If you drag the picture right and left you can do a full circular view as if you were standing in that spot.

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)

Starting to organize and Clean

The galley has been a mess for 6 months now.  It has turned into a great place to store things and has been the most logical "workbench" in the boat.  I have cut, sanded, carved, planed, sanded, epoxied, hammered and cursed at the surface of the galley counters and the epoxied piece of wood that I keep over one side of the sink for additional "Workbench" space.

Today I had one of those reminders on how this project has really shown Deb and I how well we work together most of the time.  It is not uncommon that she anticipates what I am working on and if I need that 'extra hand' or the next tool, she is right there with it.  It is one of those things I didn't even realize at first.  The seed was planted by my Dad during one of his visits last April.  Deb and I were working on some project (I don't even recall what it was now) but we had it set-up in our storage shed.  As we were working on whatever it was, my my dad commented that we work well together and everything seems planned or synchronized.   At the time, I just took it as a passing comment and thought, "yep, we do" and went on about our project.

A few weeks later, I was working on something when Deb was not around and I realized how much "back and forth" I was doing to get some tool off he shelf and then put it back, when I was done with the jig saw, I rolled the cable up, put it away and dragged out the vacuum.  When Deb and I are working on the project, I set the tool down and move to the next task and it gets miraculously put away neatly.  When cutting wood by myself, I was using clamps and pushing the wood up against the lathe to keep it from sliding as I made cuts.  These are the little things I didn't notice at first.
Yes, We Do Make A Good Team.  More importantly, Deb makes a great team-mate.

With that supportive and intuitive notion, Deb has also realized that I am getting a bit worn out on this refit.  I am ready to have part of the boat back into a usable state.  Something I can go down to and feel proud and enjoy it when I am there.  It was getting to the point where every time I went down below decks on the boat, I came back with a list of things that needed to get done.  It was starting to get frustrating.  This week, Deb has been getting things "setup".  For example in the rear head, she brought towels, toothbrush, soap, shampoo, deodorant, shaving supplies and all of the things needed to shower and make it usable.

Today, she cleaned up my "work bench" and organized the galley.  It is not complete like it will be when we move aboard, but I can get to the cups, and there is some food in the cupboards and some cold drinks in the fridge.  

The navigation station has been the sorting table for screws and small parts (smaller than a quarter) for the last 2 weeks and finding half used boxes or bags of screws everywhere.  Most all of the screws have been sorted by size, stainless or non, put into compartmentalized storage bins and tucked away in some little nook or cranny.  When that is cleared off completely, it will be a wonderful feeling.

Ok, I must confess, I am typing this blog sitting in the salon on a folded old towel because all of the cushions are out of the room preparing for varnish.  I looked up at the nav station and started to giggle a bit.  It is a disaster, I had to take a picture and just give you some insight into what a mess it is right now.  I think this is going to be the thing that Deb and I will struggle most with when living aboard.  No room to leave "stuff" out.  If you need something, dig it out of it's hidey hole and when done, put it all back.  The put it all back part is going to take some getting used to. :)

Air Conditioner Condensation problem

Today I hope I have solved the problem with condensation in the forward air conditioner condensate tray.  Typically these are supposed to gravity drain and people either put them into a sump or into the bilge.  I have an issue with this on our boat.  When we bought the boat, it you can tell there was an air conditioner in this spot but it was not there.  It had all the hoses going to that location including a drain hose to the bilge.  The problem was that the drain hose ran parallel about 4 feet before it went downhill toward the bilge.  The problem is that it would not gravity drain out.
There were NO other routes to a lower space without drilling holes through a stringer and I feared doing that not knowing exactly where the 115 gallons of water tanks are and how far they extend.
I have spent countless hours trying to come up with a solution that did not involve taking up the flooring.  I looked into the Mermaid Condensator, but it doesn't appear that Mermaid sells them any more even though I found a ton of references to them on the web. I thought about making my own, but would have a similar issue with routing the suction tube to the through hull location on the discharge side of the water circulation.

In the end, I went old school low budget and I sure hope it works for me.  Basically I put an automatic bilge pump in the condensation tray, I ran a 3/4" tube from that pump to a vented loop above the water line and then tee'ed it into the galley sink drain above the water line.  The vented loop will prevent sink water from ever running or siphoning back to the condensate tray.

So now in the Galley I will have a modified bilge pump switch that will be labeled as Air Conditioner Condensation Pump

As a side note I tested this out by pumping the condensation into a bucket before I plumbed everything in.  In South Texas where it is between 85-92 this time of year.  The 16,000 BTU air conditioner for the forward salon extracts about 3/4 to 1 gallon of water an hour.  That actually shocked me, I didn't expect there to be that much.  It just goes to show I want to do something with the rear air conditioner now too in order to avoid all of that water going into the bilge.

In the event anyone is interested in the parts I used for this solution, I have put links below.

                

Water Circulation Woes...

As you may know we have been working on an engine room redesign/refit.  The start of this project was driven by the need to remove a rotted subfloor and add holding tanks.  To access all of this, essentially everything but the engine had to come out of the engine room and then start the process of rebuilding.

So the good news is we are really close and as we have been doing down this path, I have been planning how I would mount all of the pumps and strainers back in the engine room to make them easy to service.

The plan was to mount the water intake strainer for the engine and air conditioners on the side of the subfloor with easy access just sitting inside the doorway of the engine room.  I planned on using a single strainer for the air conditioner circulation pumps, so essentially water would come into the water strainer and then on the outbound side, I installed a tee fitting with one line going to the salon where the forward air conditioner water circulation pump is mounted.  The other side of the tee went to the rear air conditioner water circulation pump which was mounted in the engine room.

In the diagram below, Pump1 is mounted in the engine room and is a 1000 gallon per hour pump and runs water circulation for the owners state room air conditioner.  Pump2 is mounted in the Galley and is a 500 gallon per hour pump and runs the water circulation for the main salon Reverse cycle Air Conditioner/Heat pump

When we connected everything and ensured no leaks, we turned on the Air Conditioning in the main salon fed by pump2.  When the compressor kicked on, the pump did also and began circulating water and we had good discharge out the boat, I was feeling pretty good.  When we turned on the owner's state room air conditioner fed by pump 1, it would stop the feed of water through pump2.  I suspect this is due to being closer to the water strainer and also the fact that the pump is a higher capacity pump.  I really do not want to put another through hull in the boat so have at least come up with my next plan of action.

In the morning, I am going to remove Pump2, and just connect the lines together where the pump was.  I will then re-plumb the sea strainer to only feed to pump1, out of pump 1, I will locate a tee and feed water through both air conditioners.  The down side of this is that I need to either install a relay so that the pump kicks on when either Air Conditioner compressor runs, or I can connect Pump1 to it's own 110v breaker and just ensure that when either air conditioner is on, that breaker is on and the pump is running all of the time.

I do believe I may add valves to each output side from the pump so if I want to, I can turn off the water flow to either air conditioner if I need to service one without having to turn the other off.

I will be a little nervous wiring in the 110 volt pump to the breaker panel.  The good news is I can pull the shore power cord so I know that we will have no power coming into the boat while I am in there working on the back side of the distribution panel.  It should be a short cable run for the pump given it's proximity to the panel.  I will also need to disconnect the power to pump 2 from the inside of the Webasto Control unit in the forward salon.

Sadly, it looks like some more time in the engine room.  I don't mind it so much except after a few hours of being contorted into whatever position was required for the given job, I seem to end up with quite a few stiff muscles a few hours later.

All the while I was working on this today, Deb was sorting every single stainless steel screw, nut and bolt that I have managed to gather over the last 2 years of work.  She organized them all by size and put them in small waterproof containers.  She also sorted and organized all of the varied electronic, electric and plumbing spares and parts that we have on board.
In the last 2 weeks she has painted all of the bilges and storage behind the settees and the V-berth.  She started to organize and put the navigation station back together (we had relocated all of the items to another location when we rebuilt that).  She also cleared and organized the Galley and Tool storage.

June 2, 2013 - Update
The plumbing has been re-arranged and working as described above and outlined in the second illustration.  I opted for a seacock under the galley sink for the forward air conditioner rather than at the actual pump location.

Engine Room (Side of subfloor wall) | Left strainer for A/C and right strainer for Engine | Pump with split outputs

New additional Electric Panel and Air Conditioner

A few months ago we purchased a new combination unit for the salon that is an air conditioner, reverse cycle heater and dehumidifier.  We had been waiting until the salon was a little further along and any leaks were resolved and we were not filling the salon with saw dust before we put the expensive unit in place.

We were able to resolve the leaks that we had from the ports as well as the chain plates and the building, cutting, sanding in the salon was finally wrapping up, so we loaded the Webasto FCF 16,000 BTU unit into the dock cart and hauled it on board.

It fit well into a spot right under the settee in the salon and is accessed by removing the slide out bunk in the salon and dropping it into the storage area from above.  When adding this unit to the boats total Electric supply it was just pushing the limit of our 30amp service.  The existing panel in the boat has separate breakers for both a forward and rear air conditioner, but given that this size air conditioner runs at about 9 amps (with a startup of about 15), and the rear air conditioner (as old as it is) runs at about 12 amps with a very high startup of about 18amps.  So if both units were running and the microwave was used or a hair dryer, this would likely pop the 30amp main in the boat or at the shore power supply panel.

We decided the best approach was to add a second electric panel and 30amp service into the boat and leave the rear air conditioner on the existing original panel and the new air conditioner on the new panel.  We decided to go ahead and add plenty of room for expansion and selected the Blue Sea 8074 Electric Panel.  It comes with a volt and amp meter built in to monitor usage through the panel.


It will notify you of reverse polarity from your dock power service so you can know that information before you start turning on breakers. We love this feature since we plan on visiting marina's and you just never know the quality of the power or wiring that may be in place.

I normally like to do most of the work on the boat myself, but was nervous about doing this job for 2 reasons.  First it requires drilling a hole in the outer hull of the boat and also it required wiring in the main electric feed to this breaker box.  Because of that we hired someone do to this and he was able to complete the whole job in about 4 hours or so.

He started by drilling a hole in the outside of the boat right above the existing 30amp service line.  The boat side connector was installed and matches the other style of waterproof connectors as the other 30amp power service, telephone and cable inputs.

The wire from that service line runs through the existing wiring channels across the engine room and toward the existing electrical box where it is routed just about a foot forward of the existing one to the new panel.  The bulkhead between the engine room and walkthrough had to be cut to attach the flush mounted panel  (See photo on right).  This went just below the Xantrex remote panel for monitoring battery bank charging and battery levels when not charging.

From the panel, the one and only used breaker, runs to the new air conditioner.  So we have 7 more available breakers that can be used in the future.  After the electric was run to the new unit, I plumbed in the sea strainer, sea water circulation pump and it was also connected to the unit.  The thermostat wire was run to a forward bulkhead wall.  So the moment of truth was here and we tested out the unit.  It ran but we were not getting water circulation.  I took the lines apart and luckily it didn't take too long but the culprit was a bit of a clog in the exit through-hull.  I suspect dirt dobbers or something had tried to nest in there but after a quick clean out, all was circulating and working great.  The good news is that we now have enough air conditioning to keep the boat cool even in the heat of southern summers.  When it gets cold, we also have the heat capability and if we are going to be off the boat for some amount of time, we can set the unit to auto dehumidify as well.   Making progress, slowly but surely.

Stateroom Coming Together

About 3 months ago we started the Salon refit.  Early into the demolition we found that the Chain Plates were leaking and started to worry about their strength given they are 35 years old.  As you can read in an earlier post, we replaced them.  Once complete we slowed down through the holidays while traveling and are back at the work again.  

So far, we have removed the salon cabinets (behind the settee), Built new seat backs in the Salon, Built new countertops behind the settee's.  We removed the Atkins & Hoyle hatch that was leaking around the glass and sent it back to the manufacturer for rebuilding.  (I would recommend this to anyone that has Atkins and Hoyle hatches.  They are still in business and family owned.  A complete rebuild with new glass, gasket and overall tune up was 1/2 the price of a new hatch and matches all the others on the boat).  We build new Teak walls behind the Settee's as well as along the coachroof.  We painted all of the inner settee storage with a nice new coat of white paint.

Insulated the entire ceiling with 3/4" insulation and installed the Pine Slat ceiling like in the rest of the boat.  This went on the ceiling, including the angled section that goes on to the Galley.  We installed the new duct work and new register boots in the Salon in preparation for the new Reverse Cycle A/C Heating unit that we will install.  

The salon was wired first for LED accent lighting, fans, reading lights as well as surround sound speaker wires.  I know that I won't likely remember the locations of each of the wires so made a quick video to outline where they are run.

One of the challenges we had was that when we made the new counter tops, we had a need to get creative on how we wanted to protect and decorate the raw edge of it.  We wanted to install a fiddle rail, much like what is in the galley.  The down side is that I couldn't find any place where I could buy fiddle or bunk rail that was over 5' long and I didn't want to have a joint in the middle of the counter.  So, like we have found ourselves doing many times in the past, we had to figure out another way.  We purchased raw teak wood at 1/2" thickness.  After ripping it to 2 and a half inches wide, we routed a groove in the bottom, used a round-over bit to ensure that the top of the rail is round.  I think they look pretty good and will be installed shortly.  We ended up making 2 8 foot lengths of this fiddle rail and another 5 8 foot lengths of thin trim molding to go around the cabinet facing that we are building for the salon.

NOT what you want to find in the middle of the job

The work on the Salon continues and we have removed the rest of all cabinetry.  2 opening ports have been removed as has one of the hatches in the roof that was leaking.

Removing the hatch took several hours to break the aluminum frame from the rise as well as breaking the riser loose from the actual deck.  Both had to be removed to inspect the core where the leak was.  We do have softened core in a small section along the opening, it is being removed and filled with a thickened epoxy.

The deck around the openings have all been cleaned and all silicone and adhesive removed.  Acetone worked well along with some 3M pads and razor blades for removing the material.

All of that was going according to plan, what was not going according to plan was noticing down below that water was slowly coming in along the forward port chainplate.  (The Chainplates are what attach to the hull and then the Standing Rigging, the wire that holds up the mast, is attached to).

After further inspection, I can see that at some point in time, this chain plate had some type of service done to it.  The wooden toe rail that the chainplate goes through, has been cut and then patched back in.  (Below in the image, the blue arrows point to the spot where the toe rail had been cut to gain access to the chainplate.  The red arrows point to the spot that the water is getting into.  I noticed when pouring just a couple of ounces of water on the deck in front of that patched part of the toe rail, some of it is running in.)   I could likely just run a bead of silicone along the joint between the toe rail and the deck, but I suspect that if this has been leaking for a while, I really want to see what is going on in there where that patch is.  This is one of the benefits of having the boat down to bear hull.  I would have never seen this otherwise and in the end, it is not a lot of water coming in, but a little bit every day would cause serious damage.  Now I know why I am having to replace the wooden countertop in the Salon, I suspected a leaking port, but I don't think that is the bigger problem here.

The strange thing is that it was not raining, this leak became evident just from the dew that was on the deck and starting to pool along the edge of the patched part of the toe rail.  Needless to say, I will be removing the patch and inspecting this closer.  This is a delay I certainly did not anticipate.

I am starting to see why I have heard that when starting a boat project, estimate the time line and the cost accurately and realistically, then double the cost and triple the time and you will be about right for the job.  That has certainly proven to be the case in most of our ventures so far.  :)  Ahhh boat ownership.    I joke, but really wouldn't trade it for the world.

The Salon Remodel begins

This is an old post from September of 2012, I just noticed that it remained in draft mode and was not published according to it's schedule

Now that we have wrapped up the Navigation Station, Galley and Walkthrough, we had friends in town and did some nice sailing, now it is back to the next bit of work on the boat.

So yesterday it started, cushions removed, everything removed from the storage below the settee, cupboards emptied and the demolition begins.

Salon - Port Side - Before

In the "Before" picture you can see both Red and Blue arrows.  The blue arrows point to places where we have noticed water coming in when it rains hard.  The odd thing about a boat is where you see it dripping from is typically nowhere near where it is actually leaking.  In this case most of the dripping was coming out of the florescent light fixture mounted on the ceiling behind the settee.  

The leak actually appears to be coming from 2 places.  One is from a poorly bedded opening hatch about 6 feet from that location.  The other culprit appears to be the opening port just above the light itself.  

The red arrows point to all of the areas where the wood will need to be replaced.  This falls into 2 categories.  The peeling veneer on the back wall is rather easy, typically it is just a thin 1/8" thick piece of veneered plywood as a decorative piece.  The flat top of that counter behind the cushion is a little bit more complex and is 3/4 inch teak veneered plywood and helps to provide structure and strength to the boat by locking the galley and Vbert bulkheads together.  

That is the countertop that the cupboards are mounted to, it is also the top of the storage area behind the seat back and houses the air conditioning vents for the Salon area.  

Salon - Port Side - Wood removed

We removed the cupboards, removed the decorative veneer wall from behind it.  Removed the face of the storage area (Also the back of the salon seats) and then removed the horizontal piece that was rotting. 

As we typically do, we have taken these wooden pieces to our storage unit where we will sand the moulding and all of the good pieces of wood down to fresh wood with 220 grit sandpaper.  For the pieces that are rotted, we will use the old ones as patterns and make new ones.  

The big decision now is if we will put it back the way it was, or try to improve upon the storage that the boat has, and we will likely need when living aboard.  I think we will be doing the later and likely will make new cabinets that are deeper than the previous ones.  We will also work to create dividers and doors across the entire countertop so that we have storage all the way across.  By doing these 2 things, we should more than triple the amount of storage that was above the counter on the Port side of the boat.

The hole in the bottom of the seat is the access panel to the 16,500 BTU air conditioning unit that will be installed as soon as the leaking ports have been repaired.  

The realization hit both of us today, it is amazing that in just 2 day of working  (about 7 hours total) we have gutted this section of the boat again down to bare hull and fibreglass in areas.   It will take us 3 months to build all the new stuff and install it again.  And as we all know Murphy's law (I am convinced he was a sailor) kicked in and it started to rain today and will for the next 3 days when I really need to remove and rebed 2 opening ports and 2 opening hatches in the roof.

We did a small video showing what it looks like in more detail now that we have removed the old "stuff"