May 10, 2024

Calliope Girl 120

Friday

I spent the bulk of the day focusing on the various items on my electrical list, starting with the battery wiring.  All the basic wires from the original electrical setup were in place and ready, but several of the cables required new lugs, and a few wires and cables required extension to reach the new battery locations.  Working through the requirements here took several hours, and while by the end I had all the cables terminated and wires extended, I couldn’t finalize the connections because I ran into an issue with cross-threading on two of the battery terminal fuses that were in place.  The first I definitely caused myself, as I was struggling to get the nut started in an awkward corner of the battery box, but when I tried to swap out this fused terminal with another one (there were three in total–two on the house bank (2 of 3 batteries) and one on the starter bank), I had the same problem even with a dry fit in an accessible location.  So I ordered new terminals and would await final connections till they arrived.  I installed the one terminal fuse that still had good threads on the forwardmost house battery, which was the most difficult location to access.  If I had the opportunity to start over, I would have made the entire top of the battery compartment removable for access.  I thought I’d built an expansive lid when I laid it out, but as I discovered earlier it wasn’t large enough to install all four batteries, and now, during the wiring, I found myself fighting the overhangs in a couple places.  In any event, it was adequate to get the work done–just not as easy as it might have been.

To extend the one black ground cable that required lengthening, I installed a power post in the port locker and used it to connect an additional cable; this also worked well to accept the ground cable from the windlass, which also wasn’t long enough to reach the batteries in their new location.

Now I moved on to the head locker, where I reconnected the various wires for the stereo and windlass breaker; I’d had to remove all these early in the project so I could remove the panel in which these instalations were located.  I also reinstalled and reconnected a light fixture and the stereo speakers on both sides, routing the cables as needed.

On the starboard side, I reinstalled the propane heater to the bulkhead, and reconnected its wiring, and, finally, in the bilge I remounted the terminal block containing all the wiring for the bilge pump; I’d removed this from the transverse floor when I was modifying the height and painting the space earlier.

There was still a new light fixture to install in the galley, around the corner behind the electrical panel, but it was a difficult place to access and in any event it was late enough in the day that I had to start final preparations and do a thorough cleanup so I could apply a coat of satin varnish to the cabin sole which, if the coat turned out well, would be the final coat for the sole.  I did a pretty through cleaning of the interior to prepare, and cleared out various tools and detritus from the cabin in the process, leaving only what I needed for the final stages of work to come.

To finish up the day’s work, I applied satin varnish to the three pieces of cabin side trim and the head sole grate, and applied a coat of white semi-gloss to the galley bowl shelf.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 35°, mostly clear. Forecast for the day: Increasing clouds, 57°