Lackey Sailing | tim lackey

(page 67 of 165)

Lyra 5

January 28, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Thursday

After a morning appointment away from the shop, and which inevitably took much longer than I’d intended, I got back to work on the transducer installation.

To help create the integral fiberglass housing that would accept the transducer on the hull, I cut some prefab 1/2″ fiberglass to fit the transducer, and just slightly larger all around.

After some final assessment, I settled on the cut lines at the leading edge of the keel, marked here with numerous arrows. I transferred the lines to the port side of the keel as well to aid in cutting. Then, I used a grinder and a cutoff wheel to score the lines and cut as deeply as possible before finishing up the cuts with a reciprocating saw. The aft end of the cut was just a little bit into the lead ballast keel, which was surprising on one level and totally predictable on another. The cutoff would make a unique paperweight and weighed around a couple pounds.

With the bite taken, I prepared the hull all around the area by grinding away the paint, barrier coat (gray), and gelcoat in a wide area, preparing for fiberglass and fairing compound. I cleaned up the cutout as necessary. During an initial test-fit of the transducer, I found that I needed just a bit more room at the aft end, so I pared back the vertical face of the cutout as needed to allow the transducer and its fiberglass top plate to fit.

The plan to secure the transducer, generally speaking, was to build a fiberglass housing that would extend over the red prefab fiberglass and as far down as the black portion of the transducer, covering the stainless steel body of the unit. This would leave the transducer itself (the black portions) free and clear for its visionary needs all around, while securely holding the transducer in place within the molded housing (and well-bedded within as well). I don’t know why transducer manufacturers insist on placing stickers all over the transducer face.

To start this process, I first had to secure the fiberglass plate to the hull, so after final cleanup and preparations I pressed it into a thick bed of epoxy adhesive. Using extra epoxy, I began to shape and fair in the protruding plate, though for now it was just a base coat, with plenty more to come to create a fair and generally hydrodynamic form at the forward edge and elsewhere as needed. I initially registered the fiberglass plate with a short length of 1″ diameter tubing through the hole in the hull, as seen in the first photo, but removed this once I had the plate epoxied and taped in position. I left the initial application of epoxy to cure overnight.

Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 30°, cloudy, light snow shower. Forecast for the day: Light snow showers, then cloudy, 33°

Lyra 4

January 27, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Wednesday

The last major portion of the interior left to sand was the forward cabin, and I spent the morning completing the surface prep there, and in the chainlocker. Much of the paint here was in fairly poor condition but was easy enough to remove down to a sound substrate.

After a break to take care of some plowing, I turned to the various settee and underberth lockers, sanding these as needed. Access was limited through the small hatches, but fortunately the hull surfaces within were already in quite good condition, and a light sanding was all that was needed. These areas were not particularly photo-worthy.

The cockpit would require additional work soon, but for now I worked on preparing for patching several old engine instrument holes, the old icebox drain hole, and a hole leftover from some other installation, grinding away the paint and gelcoat and exposing the laminate beneath to accept patching and fairing.

Meanwhile I continued with the cockpit lockers and spaces aft of the cabin, all of which were relatively accessible now. There were a couple old supports from something or another still in place on the port side, but these were easy to remove with light hand pressure. Afterwards, I scuffed all the surfaces to prepare them for future work, including repainting. As with most of the other “hidden” areas of the hull, these surfaces were in decent condition to start with and didn’t require major sanding to prepare. Afterwards, I spent some time cleaning up from the week’s efforts: I’d kept ahead of the worst of the sanding debris each day, but with the worst of it now behind me, and quite a lot of leaves and other debris from the after lockers, it was time to go a step further, both inside the boat and on deck, where I cleaned up the bulk of the dust that had settled there.

There was more surface prep and the like ahead, but for now I needed a change of pace, so I turned to the transducer installation for the owner’s new electronics. We planned to install this large, rectangular transducer forward of the keel on the centerline, and this location would require a sort of “shark bite” cut in the leading edge of the keel in order to mount the transducer properly. This location was preferable as far as the transducer’s efficiency was concerned, but in this case there was also a lack of better options to begin with, and, as I’d done a similar installation many years before, working with the forward centerline location appealed to the owner for all these reasons.

Inside the boat, in the forwardmost section of the bilge, I determined the location for the transducer stem, using its fixing nut to ensure appropriate space in the flat spot in the bilge.

I marked the center of the nut, then used a long drill bit to drill through from inside; I wasn’t sure how thick the keel was at this point. With the bit all the way through (and slightly off center on the exterior, though that could be fixed with the larger hole and the shark bite cutout), I marked its depth so I could ensure that the transducer stem was long enough to work here: It was, with plenty of room to spare. The existing thickness was roughly 3″, and this would actually be reduced once I made the cutout.

Next, I drilled a 1″ hole through the centerline from the inside out. This was the size required for the transducer stem. I dropped a length of tape through the hole to allow me to attach the transducer cable and pull it through, which I needed for the next step.

I rough out the shape of the cutout required, I pulled through the transducer cable and then inserted the transducer stem in the new hole, which gave me the angle and orientation of the transducer housing as dictated by the through hole and stem. I transferred this line to the hull with a steel rule, then began to guesstimate how I should cut the hull in order to partially insert the transducer housing. I’d have to research the directions more thoroughly, but I suspected that most of the black part of the housing needed to be exposed, assuming the transducer included side-scanning capabilities. So I needed ultimately to find the right balance between how deeply into the keel to set the housing, versus how much of the housing had to extend exposed anyway.

I’d work that out soon, but in any event once I made the cut in the hull I planned to build a fiberglass housing into which the transducer would fit the appropriate depth, and then glass and fair the whole arrangement into the hull as smoothly as possible. For now, I’d gotten along far enough, and in any event I didn’t have the blades I needed to make the keel cut just yet, so I’d fine tune the details as needed and proceed once I could.

Total time billed on this job today: 6.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 28°, cloudy, 2-3″ snow down overnight. Forecast for the day: Light snow, then cloudy, 35°

Lyra 3

January 26, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Tuesday

I spent the day working on interior surface prep, starting in the main cabin on the port side below deck level.

I continued by sanding the cabin sides and overhead. These surfaces were in poorer condition to start with and required somewhat more aggressive sanding to remove loose and suspect material and provide a sound substrate for new coatings.

After lunch, I got to work in the head, sanding all surfaces including inside the various storage lockers and shelving.

Now, after sweeping the bulk of the dust and debris out of the bilge, I lightly sanded the bilge (which had been previously painted and was in almost startlingly good condition), then the floor boards and settee front panels from the head aft to the engine room.

After cleaning up the bulk of the spoils, I had a bit of time left in the day, so I tried my hand at cleaning up the varnished paneling on the main bulkhead, starting outboard on the port side. In the short time remaining, I stripped the outer two planks, and would continue with the remaining parts of the bulkhead in due course over the next few days. This solid wood paneling was in fair condition, with some splits and other issues, but ought to clean and finish up fairly well.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 14°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 32°

Lyra 2

January 25, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Monday

After a meeting with the owner at the boat over the weekend, mainly to discuss aspects of the project scope, I was anxious to get to work. This boat had a checkered history, but about 10 years ago the previous owner had some structural and cosmetic work completed by another yard somewhere, including some deck core repairs and new paint on hull and deck. Then, for reasons unknown, he left the unfinished project to linger in various storage yards before the current owner obtained the boat at no cost from its last and final storage yard, whose proprietor was anxious to free up space for paying customers.

This long period of inaction and neglectful storage had taken its toll on the “new” paint, and the decks in particular were filthy from their time exposed, and there were various current and forthcoming issues with the deck paint (and possibly underlying structure, but more on that later) that, alas, we largely wouldn’t be able to deal with during this phase of the project, since the original project scope and goal was to get the boat back in the water and sailing in a usable and safe condition for the upcoming season. With limited time and shop availability, the project would have to focus on the more pressing requirements. The deck paint was in fair condition despite its neglect, but there were signs of ongoing or pending failures that pointed to insufficient prepwork during the last round of work. The filth would clean up with a solid application of elbow grease outside of the scope of this project in most cases.

For now, what we did plan to accomplish on deck was the following:

Install new, modern forward hatch to replace the original wooden shoebox type
Patch the old icebox hatch in the port forward corner of the cockpit
Install new access hatch in the cockpit sole (for access to the shafting, stuffing box, and the like)
Patch several old and now obsolete instrument and control holes in the cockpit well
Refresh the cockpit cosmetics to take care of the repairs and to deal with the failing paint
Install deck and sailing hardware

Most of the upcoming work list revolved around the interior, including basic systems work and installing a new propulsion system. The interior in “as-arrived” condition was pretty typical for the class, with a mishmash of past work, paint coatings in fair to poor condition, and most of the demolition work, as the current owner had removed the old galley, engine, and icebox during the past year, leaving these spaces empty and nearly ready for new work. But the interior and bilges were mostly clean (relatively speaking), lacking at least the usual oily mess, water, and other substances that so frequently begrime old boats and especially bilges. The large fixed deadlights had been removed sometime previously, but the six bronze opening ports were still in place for now.

Work planned for the interior and systems:

Surface prep and painting throughout, including bilges
Remove small shelf from starboard side of main cabin
Renew scupper hoses
Install electric propulsion motor, shafting, and related wiring
Determine location, and build boxes for, 4-12-volt propulsion batteries
Determine location for 12-volt house battery
House wiring as needed and possible
Conceive, layout, and build replacement galley and other interior components to the extent possible

After getting set up with lighting, power cords, and various tools, I got started on the opening ports. The owner had previously removed the small screws securing the exterior bronze trim rings in place (and which also secure the port bodies), but he reported he’d been unable to remove the ports from there. Since initially I wasn’t sure if this meant that the ports had been installed in permanent sealant/adhesive, I kept expectations low for their removal, but decided to start with the two forward-facing units in the main cabin, replacements for which the owner had obtained from a salvage yard.

Fortunately, I found that the ports weren’t that hard to remove–just well-bedded in sticky, but still pliable, butyl-type sealant from many years past. So in fairly short order, and with a bit of judicious prying as needed, I removed first the forward-facing pair from the main cabin, then the remaining four from the head and forward cabin. I set all these ports aside for the owner to recondition and prepare for reinstallation later in the project.

To make getting around the cabin easier, I’d tried to put in place the various small bilge access hatches, but found that the supporting cleats were largely in such bad condition and loose that the hatches were more dangerous than the openings. I hadn’t intended to do much in the bilge just yet, but in removing the damaged cleats so I’d not be at all tempted to step on them, I found that two tabbed-in old wooden blocks that had been part of a dining table leg arrangement (and which the owner had told be he had no plans to use) were quite rotten and that the tabbing was loose enough to pull out by hand (polyester), so in a stream-of-consciousness I removed these blocks, the tabbing, and the piles of black, rotten wood remnants, freeing and opening up the bilge satisfactorily. I also removed a plastic strainer/mount from an electric bilge pump that the owner had had trouble removing.

The upper part of the hull in the forward cabin, and the lockers outboard of the head on the port side, had some questionable paneling/insulation installed, some old material that was vaguely fibrous in nature and which, under any circumstances, needed to be removed. Unsure of its makeup, I wore a respirator during its removal, which fortunately was straightforward enough since all this old material was apparently just a friction fit, though there were small wooden blocks visible on the back side that might once have been attached to the hull with spikey fasteners projecting into the insulation product. I didn’t know and didn’t care, since the old material was, and had to be, gone.

Continuing my quest to rid the cabin of all unneeded old materials before I got into the surface prep, I removed the old scupper hoses from the cockpit, including both sets of the sidedeck and seat scuppers at the forward end (old, dry, hard hoses in need of replacement), as well as the two main scupper hoses leading from the cockpit well to the hull. With the owner’s plans for the boat, and assuming that the original fiberglass tubes were sound (to be determined in due course), the plan was to maintain the original setup with no changes other than replacement hoses. I removed even a newer hose that the owner had installed so that it wouldn’t be clogged with debris during the cockpit and nearby work, and to ensure that in the end all hoses were sound and fresh. The fiberglass tube attached to the starboard sidedeck broke right off near its top when I removed the hose (this was the worst, oldest, most brittle hose of the four), but I’d be able to reattach the tube to its stud later in the process.

Now it was time to get into things, and to begin I used a cutoff wheel to remove the forward hatch coaming, the first step towards its replacement with a new, modern aluminum hatch. Once I got the new hatch on hand and built its wooden support/coaming, I’d cut the deck opening to its final shape and size.

In the cockpit, I cut out the little raised coaming from around the icebox hatch and ground the area flush to prepare for patching sometime later in the project. Belowdecks, I ground the underside as well.

Next, I cut the tabbing that was securing the plywood shelf on the starboard side of the hull, and removed the shelf. While I was at it, I used the grinder to remove two old through hull stubs (fiberglass tubes glassed through the hull in the engine room and head), and also cleaned up some tabbing remnants leftover from the original galley installation.

With the roughest demolition now out of the way, I used what remained of the day to begin some of the surface prep in the main cabin. I started with the underside of the starboard sidedeck, then worked my way down the side of the hull and the top of the settee platform before the end of the day, preparing and as needed removing old paint and coatings. In this area, I found that much of the paint was sound and well-adhered, so I saw no reason to strip everything back to bare fiberglass.

The underside of the deck here showed the bottom side of a deck repair (as did the underside of the deck in the starboard forward cabin). This patch was still shiny and smooth from whatever molding material someone had used to support it from beneath, and the edges were a bit rough from oozing resin, but I cleaned this up with the sander as much as possible and scuffed away the shininess. I might do a bit of basic fairing work there to improve the potential final appearance.

Much more sanding and bulk surface prep to come in the days ahead. But for now, that was all I had time for.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 14°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 31°

Lively Heels Phase 3-10

January 22, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Friday

I finished up the battery reinstallation by leading in the cable bundles I’d removed earlier and making all the connections. This went more quickly than the removal. At the same time, I replaced the terminal-mounted system fuses with 200-amp versions, instead of the 150-amp fuses that had been there originally. This was because the owner had an issue once when the windlass overloaded, which, because the system fuses were the same amperage as the windlass circuit breaker (150 amp), the overloaded windlass blew the system fuses rather than simply tripping the breaker–clearly an unsafe and unintended situation. The larger system fuses were well within specs for the 12-volt system as installed and used, but would ensure that any future windlass overloads would trip the more easily-resettable breaker.

With the wiring back in place and complete, I could button up the battery box and call the work in the engine room complete for now.

Next, I took care of a quick item from the list: Installing a brass oil lamp in the main cabin. The owner had this lamp from a previous boat, and he suggested we install it to cover the hole left from the old heating thermostat. This was a simple installation.

Sticking with the themes–lighting and simple and leftover from other boats–I next installed an LED lamp in the large locker forward of the galley, which I might even call a closet from time to time. This lamp had some minor cosmetic damage, but was perfect for a hidden space like this. I wired and installed the lamp on the aft bulkhead, and ran the wires down and beneath the main shelf where there was a spare circuit and wire terminal available to easily connect to. Once I figured out which circuit breaker in the panel was the correct one (heretofore unused), the new lamp tested operational, and I added a label to the breaker for future use.

When this owner purchased the boat six years earlier, one of the things we added was a rubber shield at the stem to help protect the fiberglass from the anchor. This simple installation, which used a firm rubber with a self-adhesive backing, had held up and worked surprisingly well over the years, but now had come slightly loose in a couple areas near the bottom. Years of use in the real world had also suggested that the padding might extend further down the stem as well, with one large ding in the center of the stem (just below the current padding) as visual proof of this.

Quite frankly, I would have happily chosen the same material again, perhaps thicker than the original, but I couldn’t find any self-adhesive product in appropriate sizes: Lengths long enough to extend the protection as we wanted were too narrow, and wide enough widths were not long enough (the original piece used a full length of the material). So instead, we decided to use a non-adhesive product and install it with a shop-applied adhesive. I chose a material with appropriate hardness and durability characteristics and available in a precut size (24″ x 48″) that would work for the application.

With the loose edge, it was easy to remove the old rubber by hand, leaving behind some adhesive residue (not as much as I would have feared) that I removed at some length. I found that much of the old adhesive could be rolled off by hand like rubber cement, but there were some areas that required use of solvent to clean up.

Using the old rubber as a general guide, I made a cardboard pattern to the new shape desired, extending the length to 48″ to match the new material. Then, to test the fit on the stem, I transferred the shape to some clear pattern material, which I taped in place on the stem. This fit fairly well, and the extra length would give greater protection when raising the anchor, but the plastic formed a few wrinkles that I wasn’t sure how they might translate to the rubber material. I left this as is for now, and with an owner meeting scheduled for the weekend we could discuss the details before committing to final installation with permanent adhesive.

Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 24°, snow shower with a dusting. Forecast for the day: Scattered snow shower, 36°

Lively Heels Phase 3-9

January 21, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Thursday

First thing, I reconfigured slightly the new potable water hoses and valve system to change the alignment of the hose connection for priming and winterizing, returning it to its original orientation.

Several years ago, an accident damaged irrevocably the starboard water tank, leaving it without a top. With tank repair or replacement in kind not practicable, the owner used the remaining plastic bin for storage in the meantime, but for his future plans hoped to add at least a bit of extra potable water storage on board to replace the missing volume. His idea was to install a bladder tank inside the old shell, with whatever capacity it could give. Studying the available sizes of these tanks, we eventually settled on a 13-gallon model that would fit physically in the space; others with larger capacity were the wrong shape, too long or too wide to work here. I test-fit the tank to be sure it would work, and to get a sense of where the fittings should go.

Before I could install the new tank, I had to install three fittings: fill pipe, vent, and supply. This was a straightforward, if occasionally frustrating, process involving cutting holes of the exactly correct size and pushing flanges larger than the holes themselves somehow through the holes, before installing clamp rings and washers that secured the parts together and provided a watertight seal. I installed the fill and vent near what would be the top edge of the tank, and the fill down near the bottom.

Now I could lay the tank in the clean plastic remains of the old water tank (this would cradle the filled bladder very well, with no sharp edges or rough spots to worry about), and connected the fill, vent, and supply hoses, installing new, longer hoses as needed for the supply and vent. After temporarily moving a wire bundle to make room for the new supply hose installation, I resecured it where it belonged.

An upcoming project on the boat was to add some shelving and improve storage in the large locker across from the head, which now had only two widely-spaced shelves. To that end, I measured up the space so I could get materials ordered, and to give the owner some sense of the available shelf space for ordering storage bins to maximize the utility of the revised spaces.

With the regular arrival of the shipping courier, I could get back to work on, and finish up, the engine bypass/heating system plumbing in the engine room. Specifically, I’d been awaiting a replacement hose nipple with female threads to fit the water heater coolant outlet so I could attach one of the existing hoses leading to the coolant recovery tank next in line. I had also needed a splice fitting so I could interconnect the remaining two hose ends, which would complete the circuit from the coolant tank to the pilothouse fan heater and beyond. This new plumbing plan greatly simplified and cleaned up the chaotic, tight space around the water heater. Note that the clear potable water hoses still dangling are the way they are here because of how the owner winterizes the water system by bypassing the water heater when running through antifreeze; the two clear hoses dangling from the tank itself normally get connected to the ends of the loop dangling low.

After some final cleanup in the area, I could reinstall the removable platform with the electric bilge pump, and reconnect the pump’s hoses and wiring. I’d removed this early in the process to improve access to the after corner of the engine room.

With the work in the engine room wrapping up, and a little time left in the day, I reinstalled the port battery box, then installed the batteries and their watering system. I’d finish up the cable reinstallation next time to complete the work here.

Total time billed on this job today: 5.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 12°, partly clear. Forecast for the day: Partly sunny, 27°

Lively Heels Phase 3-8

January 20, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Wednesday

I spent the bulk of the day working on reconfiguring the old heating system, picking up where I left off by beginning to make order of the remaining hoses, and working up a plan for the new and simplified engine-based system.

Considering the various components at hand, and taking the most logical and streamlined approach possible, I came up with a new plumbing plan to guide me through the physical work. The new system would begin at the engine’s calorifier outlet on the starboard side, incorporate a system drain at the low point, and fire first the water heater, then the two cabin fan heaters, before returning to the port side of the engine at the calorifier inlet. Shutoff valves near the engine on each side would allow the entire heating portion of the system to be shut off and isolated should it be desired or necessary.

Sorting through my abundant collection of plumbing fittings, including some that had been part of the original system, I eventually determined a few additional pieces I needed and placed an order so I could get them here soon, which would allow me to wrap up the reconfiguration work. Before beginning, I had to drain the rest of the coolant from the engine side of the system, which I’d hoped not to, but there was simply no way to avoid it given the changes in the hoses and fittings ahead.

Working with fittings on hand, I strove to complete everything that I could while I awaited the new fittings, starting with the return line from the cabin fan heater to the engine, which led from beneath the helm console. I chose to secure this hose to the pair of mounts leftover from the heat exchanger that I’d removed the day before, since the mounts would cradle the hose well and because I couldn’t easily remove the brackets anyway, since they had blind fasteners through the engine room panel. I chose to mount the shutoff valve on the panel just aft, making a more convenient and cleaner installation as I finished the hose run to the port side of the engine, which was the calorifier inlet.

Note that many of the progress photos show pieces and remnants of the old system that are not part of the revised setup, and would disappear in due course.

The domestic water heater had originally been plumbed with shutoff valves beneath the coolant inlet and outlet, but along with the various plumbing changes and desire for simplification, now I elected to remove these hose stubs and reconfigure entirely how the water heater fit into the plan. Also, I needed to change one of the outlet fittings to accommodate the hew hose connection that would lead from the water heater outlet to the coolant expansion tank, so I simply removed both threaded fittings and their attached hose stubs, since this was frankly easier than trying to remove the hoses from the barbed fittings, given the tough access to the space and the myriad other plumbing and wiring runs in the area.

The new fitting for the outlet was one of the things I’d had to order, so I couldn’t complete that side now, but for the inlet I installed a new 3/4″ hose barb on the water tank, then attached an overlong length of hose that would eventually connect with the engine coolant outlet. Three remaining hose ends, marked with green tape, awaited final connections with the new fittings when they arrived. For now, after a couple fits and starts as I worked out the best hose run, I secured the coolant inlet hose to the nearby cockpit scupper hose, running it down towards the centerline and the aft end of the engine.

To complete this hose run, I modified the existing (old) coolant hose by changing the position of the shutoff/isolation valve and drain fitting, again striving for simplicity, appearance, and convenience of use, as well as rerouting away from chafe points. The drain fitting featured a garden hose attachment on the end that would allow ease of draining or even filling using the electric pump the owner had for this purpose.

For the moment, that was as far as I could take the job, but once I received the plumbing fittings I needed I could (hopefully) finish up the replumbing work in relatively short order. In the meantime, I took a few minutes to reinstall and reconnect a terminal block in the engine room, near the forward end of the port side, that provided a circuit and attachment point for the electric coolant priming/draining pump the owner used. I’d mistakenly removed this terminal block and wiring earlier in the dismantling process.

Next, I moved across to the starboard side, in the utility space above the tankage outboard of the engine room. Over the past years, the owner had traced some frustrating potable water system priming problems to the potable water filter and its oversized hoses that had originally been mounted in this space, and he’d removed the filter at some point, which cured the problem. However, some of the larger 3/4″ hose remained, and to bring the whole system back to overall spec we decided to replace the larger hose with the 1/2″ hose used throughout the rest of the system.

I removed these pieces of hose, along with the priming spigot built into the system, and took it down to the bench to rebuild with smaller nipples and new hose. This part was straightforward, but I found that the two barbed fittings I had to changed up in the boat–at the water supply manifold and at a tee fitting just before the water pump–the pipe dope I’d used during initial installation years before was extremely tenacious and resisted removal, so eventually I had to use some heat to loosen the grip, after which replacing those fittings with 1/2″ barbs was easy.

When I reinstalled the hose and fittings section, I’d forgotten how it had been routed originally, but discovered as I reviewed photos for this log that I’d not installed things in the correct orientation; the priming nipple, with garden hose connection and which the owner used for winterizing as well, would certainly be more convenient in an up-facing direction as it had been (see photos above), so I planned to rotate and reroute things as needed to correct this small error.

Thus endeth the day.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 23°, overcast. Forecast for the day: Cloudy, isolated snow showers in the afternoon, 32°

Lively Heels Phase 3-7

January 19, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Tuesday

I got started back at the holding tank vent, beginning by drilling a new hole for the replacement hull vent fitting. For the new vent, the owner requested a normal bronze through hull, which not only would resist the corrosive influences of the effluent (even for the affluent), but would be easier to clean and maintain if necessary; apparently this had been an ongoing problem with the old system, though that was probably related to the supposed “treatment” of the waste with the old Electro Scan.

I installed the new 3/4″ fitting with plenty of sealant, and, once installed and cleaned up, ran new 3/4″ hose from the hull fitting into the compartment where the tank would ultimately be installed once it arrived. Fortunately, the hole through the bulkhead, leftover from the original vent hose and located in a tight, nearly inaccessible V-shaped corner, was large enough for the new hose, so I was spared the challenge of enlarging it.

While I was in the space, I decided to re-secure the wiring leading to the head shower sump pump. This wiring had originally been led, along with some of the cabling and wires for the old electric waste treatment system, along the top and side edge of the port partition in the locker, but now I decided to run it along the underside of the locker opening, which made sense now anyway, and also allowed me to clean up those loose wires now.

Until the new tank arrived, I was done with the head and environs, so next I turned to the other continuing dismantling/reconfiguration project to remove the remnants of the old diesel boiler system and simplify the plumbing for use with the engine alone.

After deciding, in consultations with the owner, to use only the engine coolant bypass to operate the pair of fan heaters (pilothouse and main cabin) and the water heater, most of the complicated plumbing from the original system was now extraneous and could be removed. This would greatly clear up the clutter in the engine room and elsewhere. In order to get at parts of the old system, however, I first had to remove the port battery box, which contained two 6-volt house batteries and the engine start battery, and blocked access to some of the components. In theory this was straightforward enough, but in practice it was time-consuming and complicated, as there were myriad wires and cabling running through the box, along with a battery watering system for the house bank, and not only did I want to ensure it was easy to reconnect and reinstall everything, but also strove to minimize as much as possible how much I needed to dismantle.

After documenting and labeling all the connections (the wires and connections had been labeled by the owner at some point, but I did my own too), eventually I disconnected and moved temporarily out of the way all the wires and cables, leaving the batteries clear for removal. I secured the cable masses up at the forward end of the engine room for the duration.

With the way clear, I removed the watering system from the house bank and replaced the original battery caps for now, then pulled out all the batteries. This exposed the fasteners that held the battery box to the structural members beneath, and from here removal was as easy as one would think. The hull beneath the batteries wasn’t as dirty or full of dropped things as I had expected; I knew I’d dropped things down there myself during past work sessions on the boat over the years. I spent a little time cleaning up the hull and removing the minor debris before continuing.

Ready now to remove the old hoses, first I needed to drain the coolant from the heating side of the system. For this, I planned to use a portable pump that the owner and I had set up years ago to help charge (or drain) the system, but when I hooked it up to a battery the pump didn’t run for some reason. This was frankly unimportant at the moment, so rather than waste time troubleshooting I drained the coolant into the bilge, where it ran out the garboard drain to be caught in a bucket outside the boat.

With the bulk of the old coolant drained from the system by gravity, I started on the starboard side, removing mounting ties and eventually removing the red hoses that led to and from the green coolant expansion tank mounted there. I cut the hoses as needed in strategic locations to ease removal and avoid fighting the hoses off hose barbs. Later I planned to salvage hose clamps and good plumbing fittings, but for now I just wanted all this stuff out of the boat.

The photos below strive to show the existing plumbing (all red hoses) in their existing state around the forward and starboard sides of the engine room, as well as in the starboard compartment outboard of the engine room leading to the coolant tank. Once I’d removed all the hose I could remove the green tank and its cradle, freeing space and mindset.

Continuing, I removed the rest of the red hose from the system, now on the port side of the engine room, along with the heat exchanger that had allowed use of either the engine heat or old boiler heat to run the system–the long green one that had been located outboard of the battery box. I also removed the old line pump, no longer needed. The black hoses left behind near the engine and in the after part of the engine room (near the not-seen-here water heater) are either parts of the engine coolant bypass system (equipped with valves that I shut off before cutting the hoses beyond them), or parts of the heating system that will be reused, and cleaning up and connecting these various pieces and parts into the new configuration would be in the docket in the coming days.

With the old plumbing out of the way, I spent the remainder of the day re-securing the potable water hoses in the starboard locker outboard of the engine (their ties had been cut in order to remove the heater hose), and securing the wire bundles along the starboard side of the engine room.

Total time billed on this job today: 6.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 18°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 28°

Lively Heels Phase 3-6

January 18, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Monday

Looking to make some progress even with the holiday, I started a short workday by preparing, then filling with thickened epoxy, the old hole left from the holding tank vent in the hull. The new fitting was slightly larger and I’d need to redrill the hole, so filling the old one was the easiest way to provide me with the necessary center for the new, larger hole. I expected all of the old hole, and its epoxy filler, would be eliminated when I drilled the larger hole later.

Seeking additional storage, the owner inquired about one or more deck boxes in key places on deck (aka places there might be room), and one of these was to be on the centerline forward of the pilothouse, where there was ample open space that wasn’t used for anything else. I made some initial measurements of the space to determine the possible dimensions of the new deck box. To leave clearance aft of the mast, and for the rigid boom vang, it looked like an overall length of 48″ would work (and also use the sheet goods efficiently), and by overhanging somewhat the 11″ wide raised center portion of the deck, the width could be made as needed to accommodate some of what the owner hoped to store. Height-wise, the box had to be deep enough to be useful, but couldn’t extend too high lest it block too much of the view from the pilothouse windows; the owner had suggested that roughly the height marked by the lower window frame in its open position would be OK. This was around a foot.

One thing the owner hoped to keep in the new box was a spare propane tank to fit the small propane locker in the cockpit. The tank was just over 12″ tall and a bit over 11″ in diameter, so these formed the basis for my calculations on the new deck box. To keep the height from growing too much and being an impediment to visibility, I thought I could create a recess for the bottom of the tank that would minimize the space required for it, as well as holding it in place inside the box. Therefore, I decided to make the sides of the box 12″ tall, and the overall width of the box 15″ to easily fit between the deck hatches, but not overhang the raised portion of the deck by to much (14-1/4″ inside width). I hoped these overall dimensions would make the box useful without being too bulky.

To this end, I cut to size the sides, ends, and bottom from 12mm marine plywood. I routed out a circular area to fit the bottom of the propane tank, which allowed the tank to fit within the 12″ tall interior of the box. To support the box on deck, I planned to add plywood feet to hold it just off the deck for drainage, and I planned for one of these plywood additions to reinforce from beneath the section beneath the propane tank.

To showcase the size of the box, I temporarily taped it together to hold the sides and ends in place. Once I confirmed that the box would be adequate and suit the owner’s needs, I’d start assembling, fiberglassing, and finishing the box.

Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 30°, mostly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Clouds and sun, 39°

Lively Heels Phase 3-5

January 15, 2021 / tim lackey / Comments Off

Friday

With the old sewage system out of the way, it was time to turn to the replacement system. The owner requested a simple system that would send all waste to a new holding tank, and from there the tank could be either manually pumped overboard in appropriate waters, or discharged to a shoreside facility when needed. In the time since I finished removing the old system, I’d ordered the new tank, though it had not yet arrived, as well as other components of the new system, including the manual waste pump: Another Henderson/Whale Mk IV like the toilet pump itself.

Now I prepared to install the new waste pump. The instructions for the through-deck (or through-bulkhead) talked of a mounting template, and it seemed I might have used a template for the original head pump I installed in 2014, but I could find no such template available, so I made my own template to show the cutout required for the pump handle and four mounting bolts for the pump itself. I also rotated the pump’s cowl to change the flow direction from the standard vertical orientation to a horizontal orientation that would better match the installation specifics at hand.

In the compartment beneath the forward berth, I removed a side panel to gain better access to the existing sewage hoses.

There were severe space constraints for the new pump, between the height of the berth platform, the nearby faucet controls, and the head platform and toilet itself (for pump handle clearance). Ultimately, these various obstructions, along with the bulk of the pump itself, more or less dictated only a single possible location for the pump, which fortunately happened already to be a clear space within the forward compartment.

With the basic location determined, I used my homemade template to mark the mounting holes and pumping slot on the forward side of the bulkhead. I drilled a pilot hole through the rough center of the slot to double-check that there would be handle clearance in the head compartment; even in the best location the clearance was tight, but it was sufficient to allow full throw of the handle in both directions, without interference with the toilet. From there, I could cut the slot for the pump handle.

As essentially straightforward as this installation was in theory, in practice it required a lot of back and forth between the forward cabin and the head, a process complicated by needing to continually clamber in and out of the tight (and high) opening to the forward cabin, and into the adequate but still tight space where the old holding tank system had been, and so forth. I had to do this multiple times as I laid out and drilled the four mounting holes for the pump, as well as securing each of the bolts in turn, since I couldn’t access both sides of the bulkhead at the same time. I sealed each bolt penetration with a large washer and butyl sealant, and eventually the pump housing was in place.

Now I could finish the installation with the rubber bellows and cover plate from the head side. I’d forgotten from my last such installation nearly seven years earlier that the top two holes in the bellows mounting ring corresponded with the top pair of bolts securing the pump, so I had to remove these two bolts and reinstall them through the plastic ring–no trouble, just more back and forth and repeating the processes I’d done earlier. In addition to the rubber bellows, which flange extended behind the entire mounting ring, I added more butyl tape sealant behind the ring to seal all the fixing screws.

To finish off what I could of this installation for now, I installed a new discharge hose from the pump to the existing, and nearby, loop that led to the overboard discharge through hull. The proximity of the two connections required a hose loop to accomplish; the hose threading the needle through the loop is the actual and original discharge line from the toilet, which I would later connect to the inlet of the new tank once it was installed.

Meanwhile, while working in the head space I took care of a couple smaller removals. First, I removed the small control panel from the old electric head treatment system, leaving a 1″ hole in the bulkhead that I’d cover with something or other for cosmetic purposes in due course. I also removed the associated cabling that had led to the control box that I’d removed along with the old holding tank previously.

Because the owner wanted a different type of through-hull vent for the new tank, I also removed the old vent hose and vent fitting from the hull, which was located in the space behind the head panel. I’d replace the fitting and hose in the near future.

Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 32°, cloudy. Forecast for the day: Becoming sunny, 37°