Lackey Sailing | tim lackey

Thursday

I spent the first part of the morning continuing and completing the core cleanout from around the edges of the two repairs as needed. Once I was satisfied with the preparation, I completed a final cleanup of both repairs.

I used paper to make simple patterns of the areas to be recored, pressing the paper into shape in the recesses and marking along the edges with a marker. Then, I transferred the patterns to sheets of 3/8″ balsa core and cut out the core pieces for a trial fit. At the aft end of the cockpit around the rudderpost, I left out some of the core material so I could install solid fiberglass in these areas later for additional reinforcement and improved protection against water ingress in this area.

For the poop deck core, I omitted a large rectangular area in way of the mooring cleat; I’d fill this with solid fiberglass later. I also masked over the cleat holes and old hawsepipe hole from beneath. Later, once the core was in place, I planned to add a fiberglass patch beneath the hawsepipe hole, but for now I just needed to fill the hole flush during the recore.

Satisfied with the coring as cut, I began the installation by wetting out inside the deck edges with unthickened epoxy, and saturated all sides of the core pieces with epoxy. While I let that soak, I mixed strengthened, thickened epoxy mixtures to fill all the voids beneath the deck edges, starting with the cockpit sole. Once I’d filled all the edges and skim-coated the inner deck skin, I applied epoxy adhesive with a notched trowel, then installed the new core, weighting it down beneath plastic sheeting. (Sorry, I have to keep moving too quickly to stop for photos during the various epoxy steps.)

I repeated the process with the poop deck core.

With the new coring in place, I could work at a more relaxed pace to prepare, fill, and, where needed, fiberglass patch some of the other holes in the cockpit, including the old shifter cable holes at the aft end, and the wiring holes in the port cockpit bulkhead. There were still a number of small fastener holes and other preparations to do in the cockpit, but I’d get to those in due course once I had a cockpit to work in again.

Meanwhile, I continued the early outboard bracket installation. Armed with some new information about the outboard, a Tohatsu 6 HP 4-stroke with 20″ shaft, I could get some basic dimensions (mainly the distance from the mounting bracket on the outboard to the anti-ventilation plate, which in this case was 22″) and build a simple template to show the proposed mounting in three dimensions.

I used a long level to transfer the height of the anti-ventilation plate forward to the hull so I could get a better sense of the true depth of the prop in this situation. I couldn’t photograph that process while underway, but I put a tape mark on the hull to show the level of the plate; the prop would be a few inches below this. I thought the prop depth looked pretty good, particularly since the actual load waterline was somewhere in the middle of the boottop as currently painted.

Satisfied with the basic position of the mount, I fine-tuned the bracket base from side to side with a level and revised my layout marks on the transom.

Thus endeth the day.

Total time billed on this job today: 6 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 28°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 41°

Wednesday

On the starboard poop deck, I marked off the outlines of the cut I needed to effect the core repairs, striving to stay within the boundaries of the existing nonskid pattern as much as possible and streamline the cosmetic work later. This worked at this location because the natural edge of the core was set in substantially from the deck edge, which meant that my cutlines would still enable me to pull the core out from beneath the remaining deck edge.

Thusly marked, I made the cut and easily pulled off the top skin and most of the saturated core beneath.

Next, I spent some time removing the rest of the core and reaming out beneath the edges with a variety of tools. After a while, it became clear I needed to extend the cut forward, since the core extended all the way to the edge of the cockpit well, beneath the traveler, and I couldn’t reach in far enough to pull out the damaged core as required. This meant cutting into the smooth-gelcoated area of the deck aft of the traveler, but I could handle that with a change to the nonskid arrangement when I repainted later.

Once I’d removed the additional skin, I reamed out the rest of the core from the newly-widened area. I removed two of the traveler bolts that were in the affected area so I could work without impediment.

On the port side of the poop deck, no repairs were needed, but it would make sense to at least repaint the nonskid to match the repaired starboard side, so with that in mind and tools in hand I removed the port mooring cleat from the deck as well.

Now I moved on to the cockpit sole, where I laid out similar cutlines with green tape for visibility. The cockpit sole featured a molded gutter along the outer edges, leading to the scuppers, and the core ended within the same area, so again I left enough original top skin to allow tying in the new laminate later, but not so much that I couldn’t get beneath it to ream out the remaining core.

Working for the moment on the forward half of the cockpit–I perched on the aft part for this cut–I made the cutout and again easily lifted the skin and much of the sodden core. Then I scraped up the remaining core bits and pulled the bulk of the old core out from beneath the deck flanges.

To remove the after half of the cockpit sole, I stood in the starboard locker and worked from there to cut out the skin and remove the core as before. There was a solid fiberglass piece around the rudderpost, and eventually I extended the deck cut aft so I could clean out the rotted core behind this areas as well.

With most of the core mess cleaned up and out of the way, I continued work on the hidden areas beneath all the deck flanges, working to remove all the old core bits from within. Once I was satisfied with that for now, I used a grinder to prepare the deck edges around the cockpit and poop deck repairs, removing gelcoat and slightly tapering the laminate around the perimeter to provide the necessary bonding area for the new top skin laminate.

At the same time, I prepared a few of the larger holes in the cockpit and nearby that I’d be patching later.

When vacuuming up the mess from the grinding, I’d unintentionally pulled pooled water out through the starboard cockpit seat drain and into the cockpit, and this combined with the fine grinding dust to make a sort of messy, sticky paste that got into the deck flanges and resisted immediate efforts to fully remove. So after doing what I could, I left the cockpit area to dry out overnight so I could better finish cleaning and preparing the area.

With a bit of time left in the day, I decided to begin layout for the replacement outboard mount, which featured a small aluminum base into which a heavier steel bracket could be mounted or easily removed for storage. Working from the marks I’d made from the old mount, I roughed out a position for the new hardware, keeping top edge of the pad just a bit lower than the original one, which the owner had suggested was necessary to keep more of the outboard in the water. This meant that now the top edge of the pad corresponded roughly to the second mark I’d made earlier, the lower one indicating the top of the outboard bracket itself.

Once I had enough of a mark, I drilled a hole for one temporary fastener so I could assess the position and fine-tune the layout and level of the pad once I’d confirmed everything was in the right place. I wanted the holes for the new bracket in place before I began patching the old, as I didn’t want to lose the rough layout marks from the original mount.

Total time billed on this job today: 6.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 39°, mostly clear. Forecast for the day: Partly sunny with slight chance of showers in the afternoon, 44°

Tuesday

With the departure of one boat from the shop on Monday, I could move Arietta inside and prepare for the project ahead. The boat was wet from recent rain, and once she was indoors I chose to work on another project in the shop and let her dry off for a day.

The known scope of work included some deck repairs in the cockpit and poop deck, plus a moderate list of smaller jobs and improvements. To get started, I inspected the hull and documented its initial condition. The original gelcoated surfaces were in generally good condition with a few minor stress cracks and the usual collection of dings and chips from docking and mooring accidents over the years, and the owners had indicated that the waterline as currently painted did not accurately reflect how the boat actually floated. Assessing whether, or when, to possibly address the hull cosmetics, bootop, and waterline was part of the inspection at this time, but for the moment the only planned hull work was to remove the existing, bulky, and non-functional outboard bracket on the transom and replace it with a new, removable one the owner supplied.

The decks also featured original gelcoat and nonskid throughout, and generally were in good condition for the age. The sidedecks featured various stress cracks extending athwartships across the decks in several areas, particularly amidships and near the rigging loads, but closer inspection and sounding revealed no noticeable problem areas within, other than obvious moisture in the deck immediately surrounding the foredeck-mounted hawsepipe.

In the cockpit, the sole was heavily cracked with obvious core damage beneath, and repair of this area was already included in the project scope. The cockpit seats and bridgedeck appeared to be sound and would not require repairs, though with a variety of other small repairs in the cockpit, including patching numerous obsolete holes and removing additional old hardware, the project scope included refinishing the entire cockpit.

Additionally, the owner reported that the core was damaged on the starboard side of the poop deck, and inspection and sounding confirmed this. However, the port poop deck did not have any apparent damage, so repairs would be limited to the starboard side.

In the cockpit, there were several now-obsolete holes left over from a now-removed remote engine control and its cables, and on the aft cabin bulkhead were additional unused holes, plus a pair of old wiring plugs that the owner wanted removed and repaired. In addition, someone had secured a buss bar for the electrical system with bolts from the outside, leaving exposed screw heads, and the owner requested that I remove those and secure the buss bar in a different way from within.

The obsolete wiring plugs to port were straightforward and quick to remove, and so was the buss bar once I opened the electrical panel inside. For now, I left the buss bar unsecured pending the completion of the repairs to the old holes in the bulkhead.

At the stern, I removed the lazarette hatch with its solar panel attached, which meant I needed to pull through the solar panel cable, which led through an old transom hole (to be patched) and into the main cabin through a hidden route. Not knowing what was in there at the moment, I attached a messenger line from inside before pulling the cable through. I removed the hatch partly for access, but also because the owner reported that the hatch hinges were slightly misinstalled and didn’t allow the hatch to operate properly. I planned to fill the old holes and reinstall the hinges appropriately during the course of the project. Later, during installation, I’d run the solar panel cable through a new waterproof deck fitting as well.

Next, I removed the old outboard bracket, which was secured with four carriage bolts through a reinforced area of the transom. But before I removed it, I made some notes on the height of the existing bracket pad so I could properly locate the new bracket at the right height later. For this, I used a level to transfer the height of the top edge of the old pad, plus another mark showing where the old outboard’s mounting bracket had actually been on the pad, as there was a slight discoloration and depression visible in the pad. These two pairs of marks would help determine the location of the new bracket soon.

Continuing in the area, to prepare for the deck repairs, I removed an anchor hawse from the starboard poopdeck (not to be replaced later), a hasp from the lazarette hatch, and the starboard stern cleat.

In the cockpit, I removed all the hardware I could, including cockpit locker lid hasps and hinges, a pair of padeyes in the cockpit well, some snaps from cockpit cushions, and a pair of old winch handle holders forward. I decided to leave the locker lid hinges in place on the decks since access was difficult to impossible, and the exisiting fasteners were extremely long and gave all indications of being recalcitrant to remove, so I thought the potential risks and time consumption far outweighed the minimal benefits of removal in this case.

Preparing for the eventual paint work, I removed the compass and sailing instruments from the forward end of the cockpit, setting them aside for later reinstallation.

Finally, I removed a wooden trim block surrounding the rudderpost, which opened up access for the upcoming repair, and, to round out the day, I collected tools and equipment so I could get started on the deck repairs next time.

Total time billed on this job today: 6 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 58°, light rain. Forecast for the day: Cloudy, rain, and showers, 60°

Monday

I’d left Skeedeen in the shop for an extra week or two–much of which was holiday time–to allow time for me to frame, and the contractor to measure for and build, the winter cover. But now, she was headed to another location for indoor storage and, later in the year, the completion of the repower project. The cover had been built but not ever completely installed because of the boat’s departure, so the only photos I have are during the initial fitting process with the cover blank. To prepare for the boat’s departure, early in the morning I dismantled the winter frame, which went pleasingly quickly and well. I hoped it would always be so straightforward in years to come.

A little later in the morning, the transporter arrived to pick up the boat, and in short order she was on the truck and headed out. It was nice to see the paint job and especially the transom out in the daylight for the first time.

Total time billed on this job today: 1 hour

0600 Weather Observation: 32°, mainly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Cloudy, with rain and wind developing, 55°

Monday

Over the long weekend, the owner and I met at the boat for a meeting to discuss some of the upcoming and potential jobs on the list, and with a fresh outlook on things and various confirmations for the way forward, I was ready to get back to it.

Finishing up a couple loose ends as I continued with the heating system removal (with much more to come), I installed a little cap over the end of the now-defunct fuel shutoff valve at the aft fuel tank, and removed the thermostat from the main cabin. The owner and I had discussed a couple options for the location, and I’d deal with the screw and wiring holes later. I also removed a long wire pair that the owner had used to run the heating system’s circulation pump while it was jury-rigged last season, as this pump would be removed later on during the ongoing heat system reconfiguration.

My main focus for the day was to remove the Raritan holding tank and treatment system that I’d installed new in 2014. With great fortitude, the owner had worked doggedly with this system despite numerous sensor and pump failures over the years, and while my own impatience would have had me removing it in a huff long before, in any event now was the time to make a change to better suit the owner’s ongoing needs and to simplify the waste system. The system incorporated a plastic holding tank with molded space for the electrically-operated treatment unit, which supposedly zapped the waste and magically made it OK for overboard discharge. To accomplish this, it required only several mysterious control boxes and a mile or so of wiring.

To begin, while I was in the engine room and at the wiring console, I removed the external 60-amp circuit breaker/reset for the Electro-Scan system, disconnecting and terminating the end of the positive wire but otherwise leaving the cable runs in place, since removing them from their torturous run through the boat to the forward cabin seemed unnecessary.

At the business end, in the large compartment beneath the vee berth, I removed the other wiring and components as much as possible, starting with the control display from the starboard storage locker. Then, I undid various wire clamps and removed the control boxes to streamline the eventual tank removal as much as possible. To completely remove all the applicable wiring, I had to undo much of the other wiring in the space, but I’d re-secure all that in due course. For now, it was best to keep it out of the way till I could remove the tanks.

I cut short and terminated the ends of the main positive and negative cables at this end as well.

The only way this tank fit in and out of the boat, because of the passageway width and pilothouse door opening, was through the overhead hatch in the forward cabin. The overall dimensions of the unit as delivered were just barely smaller than this opening, and it was through this opening that I’d originally installed the tank as well.

The system was designed with the blue-colored treatment unit strapped into a molded recess in the tank, which was how it had originally been delivered and installed, but now, to make removal easier, smaller, and more lightweight, since I had to get it through the overhead (and the system was now no longer new and clean), I decided to remove the treatment unit separately, which I did after cutting through the discharge hose and removing the strap and the inlet hose leading from the tank-mounted macerator pump. I found that the treatment unit was completely full of liquid, some of which spilled into the space as I cut the hoses, but I was able to get the thing off the boat and dump its contents appropriately. The owner had always been worried about the ability to properly purge and winterize this system, and with good reason, it seemed. (He’d had the boat in a heated building till this year, which reduced the freezing threat, so it hadn’t been a serious problem till now.)

With that out of the way, there was nothing else standing between me and the tank removal. I removed the four bolts that held the tank to the floor, and with some effort eventually got it up on the berth top: Space was tight, and I had to remove the shower hoses for more clearance, and I discovered there was quite a bit of (ahem) water in the tank so it was quite heavy. With the tank on the platform, I could tip it and drain its contents into a nearby bucket, which unfortunately had some rags in it already, but it got the job done. We’ll leave this unpleasantness behind soon.

Once the tank was emptied, it was easy enough to pull through the hatch opening from above (there was no way I was going to be underneath it while lifting), and soon it was on the shop floor to await its final fate.

To round out the day, I cleaned up the space where the tank had been, as well as the adjacent areas, to remove spillage and generally get things sanitary. There’d be more work ahead to reconfigure and prepare for the new tank installation, but for now the worst part was over.

Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 32°, mainly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Cloudy, with rain and wind developing, 55°

Monday

Picking up where I left off, I continued the tine-consuming work of removing the components of the old heating system, still focused mainly on the wiring for now even as I absorbed the existing hose situation in person and determined how to proceed on that front.

There were 6 or 7 wires I’d removed from the main heating control board in the engine room earlier, and now I had to pull them back into the console and eventually remove them entirely. This took quite a bit of time since I had to determine their paths, and carefully remove various wire ties and cable clamps to release the wires, before finally tracing them to their ultimate connections, which in this case were mainly on a terminal block on the port side of the console, though two now-unneeded wires led to the thermostat in the main cabin. I consulted and modified as I went a wiring list I’d made at the time of installation to ensure the numbered wires I was removing were the right ones, and that they were removable without affecting anything else.

Access was tight, as always, and these wires had been installed very early in the original wiring process, starting in 2012, so they were pretty buried and contained within several ever-growing wire bundles, but at length I removed them all cleanly, along with the main circuit breaker and power cables for the defunct boiler. The old wires joined the control box and parts of the fuel system that I’d removed before.

Meanwhile, I continually assessed the heating system hoses which the owner had temporarily jury-rigged and connected after removing the boiler earlier. The original system had been configured to allow heat and domestic hot water firing by the diesel boiler (now removed), or by the engine’s coolant bypass system, and for the moment this meant that the engine could and did still work to heat the system by way of a slim heat exchanger located down behind the port battery box. Under this setup, the engine coolant warmed the heating system coolant (currently an entirely independent system), and a circulator pump moved that coolant through the system fixtures, which included the domestic water heater and two cabin heaters.

The project goal was now to simplify as much as possible the existing setup. One option was to keep things more or less as is, which would be more straightforward in terms of actual work now, but would have only a minimal effect on removing excess hose and equipment. The electric circulator pump would still be required in this scenario, and if we went this way I planned to wire it through a new switch for ease of operation. There was still an opportunity to clean up and somewhat simplify the existing hoses, but they’d mainly be required and stay in place as is.

A second option that could greatly simplify the system was to plumb the engine’s coolant bypass (currently used only to run through the heat exchanger as indicated in the above schematics) directly into the heating system, using the engine’s coolant pump to circulate through the water heater and two fan heaters. I contacted a knowledgeable source at Beta Marine about this to confirm, since I was unsure about the ultimate capacity of the engine’s coolant pump. Under this scenario, I could remove a large portion of the old system, including hose runs, a separate high-mounted coolant tank, and the heat exchanger on the port side, and this would lead to a greatly simplified plumbing situation. Shutoff valves in the coolant bypass (already in place in the existing system as well) could isolate the heating runs if needed or desired. This option would require a substantial amount of work now, but the boat might benefit from the greater simplicity in the future.

For the moment, I didn’t know which way we would ultimately choose, and other considerations remained, so I wasn’t ready to start the work just yet.

In the meantime, I addressed another of the owner’s concerns. Because of the radar’s location on the mizzen mast, back in the day during the original project I’d located the radar network interface and connection box at the aft end of the engine room, where it was convenient to the radar’s cable that had to be removed each winter when the masts were unstepped for storage. The first picture below is from the original installation of this interface box on 9/9/2012; the other ones from now.

This location was fine except it was difficult to reach when the engine room was fully put together with the removable after support beam in place (not shown in these photos). The owner indicated that for such a simple and necessary job twice per year, it was unnecessarily difficult to access the box, since removing the heavy support beam also required removing all three pilothouse floor panels completely. So he requested if I could find some other location for this interface that would be easier to connect and disconnect each time.

I wasn’t immediately sure what I could do with the box, but I determined there was ample excess wiring tied up nearby, which at least offered some options. After releasing the wire bundle, and detaching the box itself, I considered a few different locations, none of which were suitable for one reason or another (impractical; wires too short; no room to mount the box; etc.) before eventually zeroing in on the mounting panel on the port side of the engine room, where the boiler and its related components had been located. With some minor rerouting of the existing wire bundle that I’d only just remounted earlier in the day, there was an open and convenient space for the radar network box, and plenty of cable length to lead it there.

This location would be much easier to connect and disconnect, though the radar wire itself, which led through the cockpit deck just aft of the pilothouse, would have a longer run to reach it, but I checked the original photos and logs from when I installed the radome on the mizzen in 2015, and determined that there was plenty of cable length available for this, so I went ahead with the move. This had the benefit of enhancing the bundled cable runs around the aft corner of the engine room from how they’d been originally.

Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 48°, showers. Forecast for the day: Heavy rain, 53°

Thursday

After spending additional time going over some of the details of the original installation process of the hydronic heating system, regaining an understanding of what I’d done between 2011 and 2013 (conceived and installed over many days between 7/11/11 and 2/3/13) during the original project, I eventually felt ready to start attacking the removal of as much of the old, complicated system as possible.

My first order of business was to remove the remnants of the boiler’s fuel system, which included a copper line running to the aft fuel tank, and a pump and valve assembly on the port bulkhead. Once I removed the compression fitting at the shutoff valve at the tank, the remaining assembly could be removed all at once along with its mounting plate, which I’d long ago made of prefab fiberglass and screwed to a beam bracket in the engine room. This removal was straightforward and began to clear the way for the next steps.

Next, I moved on to the exhaust pipe and intake vent leftover from the diesel boiler. These led from the through hull fittings on the upper port quarter to the location of the old boiler, and access to the top ends, where they connected to the hull fittings, was through a pair of 4″ inspection ports in the cockpit–large enough to reach through, just, or to peer within (more specifically to hold the camera through for a view), but not both at the same time.

At the engine room end, the exhaust and intake lines disappeared aft into a tangle of other heat-related hoses, scupper drains, and wiring, which access had been tight enough during the original installation, but now, with engine exhaust, battery boxes, a new bilge pump installation, and more in the way, access was virtually impossible. Complicating matters was the fact that the exhaust pipe was secured to a bracket beneath the cockpit, well out of reach, and the air intake hose was similarly secured to a clamp that was going to prove to be difficult to reach as well.

There was no alternative in the engine room but to remove temporarily the diaphragm bilge pump that I’d installed for the owner a few years back. The pump itself was installed on a bracket that the owner had designed to be removable without too much effort, and after removing the hoses and wiring, I was able to clear out the pump and its bracket to improve (haha) access to the depths beneath the cockpit, where I had to get to in order to release the clamps securing the exhaust and air intake lines I was trying to remove.

At the top end, with some effort, I eventually removed the clamps securing the two lines to their respective hull fittings, releasing the hoses. I couldn’t get the air intake line off the barb completely and would have to try cutting it to release it later. Then, I finally figured out a way to contort myself in the tight confines of the engine room to get an arm back far enough beneath the cockpit and laboriously undo the hose clamp securing the exhaust hose, and clip the wire ties holding the intake hose in place. I couldn’t really get into the space because of various obstructions such as the engine exhaust elbow and, especially, the house battery box, both of which prohibited me from actually getting into a workable position. I thought I might have to actually remove all this stuff, which I didn’t want to do unless absolutely necessary, but fortunately, somehow I managed to get the job done, and with great relief removed the insulated exhaust (the engine end of this was saturated with diesel fuel for unknown reasons) and the thin, flexible air intake hose.

With the bulky exhaust now out of the way, I turned to the wiring leftover from the boiler system, none of which would now be needed. Before I ran out of time for the day, I removed the SureWire board (the main control board for the old system), and released all associated wires and most of the old clamps. I left the now-loose wiring as is for now, but next time I’d get behind the electrical panel and remove the other ends to clear space and simplify. Reconfiguring and simplifying, to the extent possible, the hose runs would also be part of the works ahead.

This system really had been mind-bogglingly complex, and between the installation frustrations at the time and the challenges in getting the system up and running in 2015, I’d long ago reformed my flawed thinking (flawed in allowing myself to install something so complicated). The owner’s reports of the system’s foibles and eventual unacceptable failure only reinforced my forever-strong bias towards simplicity at all costs. While the owner wanted to maintain the use of the system by continuing to use the engine’s coolant to run the water heater and dual cabin heaters, I looked forward to cleaning up the remainder as much as possible to make its ongoing use much more straightforward.

Total time billed on this job today: 4.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 18°, clear. Forecast for the day: Mostly cloudy, 39°

Wednesday

Returning to the shop after six seasons with her new owner, Lively Heels was in good shape, but the owner had come up with a list of miscellaneous projects and minor changes he hoped to make based on his own usage of the boat, as well as to address a few problems with some of the original installations.

After arriving at the shop in early October, the owner went through his winterizing tasks and unloaded the boat, and once he was done, as time allowed, I moved her into the second shop bay, where we’d arranged for her to spend the bulk of the winter while I worked on the sundry task list.

After getting set up with work lights, protective cloths and towels, and the like. the time came where I could start to look into one of the items on the list: Cabin heat. Somehow inevitably, if disappointingly, the expensive and complicated hydronic diesel heating boiler I’d installed at great length during the original restoration (which at the time I was doing for my own eventual use) had started to cause problems for the owner the year before–it had always been a fussy little thing anyway, but after experiencing problems lighting the boiler, he took it out and sent it to the service shop in Seattle.

There, the technicians opened the unit and discovered extensive corrosion and other terrible damage: The white pasty material in these photos is what forms from corroded aluminum.

This was obviously beyond repair, and diagnostics for the problem varied between the pH level in the coolant level being wrong to galvanic problems related to dissimilar metals and marine air. Whatever the cause, it was clearly a devastating and disappointing development, but rather than attempt to install another, expensive boiler, the owner decided he preferred a simpler approach anyway. As part of the work ahead for me in the shop this winter, the owner requested that I replumb parts of the existing heating system to simplify and to allow the engine coolant to heat the hot water and the circulation lines for the two heater fans in the boat. I’d get to that in due course.

But for now my initial focus was on the other part of the new program to replace the heating system which, as requested by the owner, was possibly to install a small wood stove in the main cabin. The owner selected the Cubic Mini, a compact, well-rated stove, and to begin the process I spent a fair bit of time researching the unit and various installation options and requirements so that I could determine how, where–and if–the stove would work as the owner hoped.

Armed with useful information regarding the minimum clearances from combustible materials and nearby surfaces, I could start planning the potential installation.

Minimum distance from the overhead: 30″
Minimum side distance from combustible materials: 20″ as is; 3″ with a metal side shield
Minimum safe distance to a bulkhead: 3″, which is easily accommodated by using the installation shield shown in the photos and diagrams above
Minimum bottom clearance (below stove): 1″, also pre-incorporated into the design of the shielding above
Minimum flue length: 40″
Minimum height of pipe above deck: 12″
The owner wanted enough space below the stove so that a person lying on the settee could fit their feet beneath the stove platform.
Through-deck hole is 5″ diameter to accommodate the 3-1/4″ OD double-wall flue pipe, and should be lined with metal for additional combustion protection; however, fully insulated pipe was not required.

In addition to the stove and its related installation parts, for installation on a boat the flue required use of a Dickenson deck fitting and a couple different options for the Charley Noble.

The location the owner envisioned, and frankly the only possible location on this boat, was the main bulkhead on the port side, at the forward end of the dinette. Using the basic measurements listed above, and taking into account the required minimum clearances, I laid out the various installation measurements on the bulkhead, using green tape and a marker as needed.

First: The minimum height of the top of the stove (i.e. the required 30″ from the overhead). For this initial line, I chose the practical low point of the overhead above–just inboard of the light fixture on the bulkhead–since the overhead featured a camber and was thus lower further outboard than towards the centerline.

Clearly, any installation here was going to require that the existing backrest cushion be removed permanently, so I removed it now and continued with the initial layout measurements. Here, I’ve marked the overall height of the stove and its base platform, measuring down 11-13/16″ from the first line. This represented the lowest possible installation of the stove and its installation shielding based on the worst-case 30″ overhead clearance scenario I started with.

I also marked the top of the 4″ settee cushion, and measured between that and the bottom of the installation tray, which turned out to be 6″.

Next, I determined the nearest combustible material to the side, which in this case was the cushioned backrest/locker door located adjacent to the main bulkhead. I used tape to make a mark on the main bulkhead to represent this. Then, to ensure that the hinged backrest would ultimately clear the stove when installed, I made a mark roughly approximating the arc of the door’s operation, since the backrest was only a few inches aft of the bulkhead, and with a 10-9/16″ projection from the bulkhead, the stove would need to be located appropriately.

It was already pretty clear that the stove would require a side shield on the outboard side, but to be sure I measured 20″ from the point of closest combustible (the cushion in its closed position) and marked this accordingly. Then, I marked the 3″ distance that the side shield would allow, if installed. As expected the 20″ unshielded clearance requirement pushed the stove too far inboard on the bulkhead to fit, so the side shield would be required no matter where the stove was mounted.

The next consideration was on deck itself: Wherever the stove was mounted, its exhaust pipe needed to extend straight up (elbows were strongly discouraged by the stove manufacturer, though some installations apparently did use them), and there were limitations on deck as to where the deck fitting could be installed. On this boat, there was a handrail with molded bases to port, and a raised section of deck along the centerline, both of which served to confine the practical mounting possibilities for the deck fitting and smoke pipe to a fairly narrow band, more or less in line with the 12″ deck hatch seen here.

Here, I saw no beneficial reason to force the stove outside these limits, since the downside of using any bends in the flue pipe more than outweighed any benefit for the potential stove location anyway (given its already strident limitations), so I planned to limit installation options to those places where the flue could remain straight.

Back in the cabin, I laid out the rough limits for the deck fitting on the overhead, and slightly down the bulkhead.

Now I made a simple cardboard template to the overall dimensions of the wall-mounted stove shield, which I could use on the bulkhead to illustrate the possible mounting locations while staying within all the required measurements and clearances I’d determined before. I started out mounting this template in the center of the space I’d marked. What the template doesn’t show is the depth of the stove, but other than appearance and functionality, there were no physical constraints to worry about in that direction. If needed, I could make a 3-dimensional box to represent the stove’s actual size from here.

However, one final consideration that further limited the final stove placement was the overall base diameter of the deck fitting, which in this case was 7″. So that meant that I needed to keep the edge of the stove pipe at least 3-1/2″ in from the edges of the deck area I’d marked out. I made these marks on the bulkhead.

Now I could set up the template with the flue shield (and thus the flue itself) at the maximum limits of the space athwartships, given the requirements of the deck fitting flange, and with all other considerations also taken into account by default: First all the way to port (where I made additional tape marks to show the stove location); then all the way to starboard. The port-most location caused the edge of the stove shield and platform to interfere slightly with the arc of the hinged backrest, so in the final analysis and practically speaking, the furthest-to-port location would be an inch or two further inboard than shown here.

To my own way of thinking, I saw little benefit to installing the stove anywhere but the middle of the space (i.e. with the deck fitting and stove pipe in the center of the available deck area), but the ultimate height and choice of the Charley Noble and how that interacted with the boom vang or other such considerations still needed to be taken into account, even though the Charley noble would be removable and replaced with a rain cap that would minimize the height of the chimney during most sailing maneuvers. Still, we must thusly consider all variables.

With the initial layout possibilities complete, and a better understanding of how the stove and its venting would work, now it was up to the owner to decide if the proposed installation met his expectations or not. If so, we’d be able to order the stove, which had a fairly lengthy lead time, in order to ensure it arrived with plenty of time to do the installation.

Total time billed on this job today: 4.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 27°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny and windy, 31°

Tuesday

The project was mainly finished for now, other than a few final details. In the morning, Jason, the contractor building the winter cover, came by to measure for the cover so he could begin building it before a final fitting in a week or so. Afterwards, I reassembled and reinstalled the companionway hatches and bifold doors, the last of the brightwork to go back aboard.

To finish up the through hull patches on the bottom, I applied a coat of unthickened epoxy to seal the fairing compound and new fiberglass. Once this cured overnight, I’d lightly sand and apply some bottom paint over the patches.

The last detail on the transom was the flaps over the cockpit scupper openings. The original flaps had been a sort of cobbed-together arrangement of something like Irish felt and half oval, and while these may have been effective they were not overly attractive. So early in the project, the owner and I decided to replace them with new plastic flaps, but as the transom work progressed it became clear that installing molded ivory plastic flaps in the middle of the beautiful “wooden” transom would be a travesty. Fortunately, I was able to ask Renee, the artist who did the transom work, to take the new scuppers and similarly faux-finish them so they’d blend in better with their surrounds. With the completed units back on hand, now I could install them and complete the transom work.

Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 36°, partly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Partly sunny, 43°

Monday

For the long-term benefit, and also to protect the new paint from damage from standard tarps, the owner ordered a custom, fitted winter cover for the boat this season, and to begin the process my first step was to build a solid, simple, and hopefully easily-reusable frame for the cover. Once that was done, the contractor could come in for measurements and fitting.

I’d been unhappy using dimensional lumber for frames over the years, as the lumber tended to twist and warp out of shape, causing installation and other problems. Finding ways to join pieces of lumber and connecting them easily, strongly, and in a removable/reassemble-able way also had caused issues, largely because the wood would swell around bolts and make removal or installation difficult, sort of at odds with the entire premise.

On a small frame I built earlier in the year for a small boat of my own, I tried flush T-nuts as a way to secure braces and joints in a 2×4 frame, hoping that the threaded inserts would make installing and disassembling the frame easy, but found that the wood was too unstable and soft, which allowed the barbed nuts to spin within the lumber, and ultimately I had to replace them with through bolts–exactly what I’d been trying to avoid. This was a disappointment since this small frame was intended as a sort of test bed for Skeedeen’s frame, but ultimately it served its purpose, both as a frame and as a learning experience.

Ultimately, for Skeedeen I decided to build a frame from two layers of laminated plywood, which I hoped would help avoid the moisture and warping problems associated with the framing lumber. This method would also allow simple, flush joints between lengths of the ridgepole. To help deal with the wood swelling around the fasteners, which always made removal (in particular) and installation more difficult than it should be, I found some LDPE spacers (3/4″ diameter and 1-1/2″ long with a 3/8″ hole) that I hoped would work.

I chose 3/4″ pressure-treated plywood for the job, less because I thought the treatment was required and more because I felt the glue would hold up better over time. (I had a sheet of this flat on the ground and half buried outside my shop for 15 years, and when I removed it to throw away this past summer it was completely sound, if waterlogged: I could have still used it if I’d wanted.) So, armed with a supply of plywood for the job, I began by milling the sheet into 3″ wide strips, from which I’d build all the frame pieces.

With some general measurements for the length of the main part of the ridgepole, I assembled three lengths of my raw material–two layers of the plywood glued and screwed together. At the butt joints, I staggered the ends to create a removable, flush joint that I could bolt together. With the first three sections secured together on the bench, I rounded over the top edges with a router and 1/2″ bit to ease the corners for the cover. At each of the two butt joints, I secured the ridge with three bolts, using the plastic spacers through the wood.

Even though the bimini frame would be lowered for the cover, to ensure ample angle and snow-shedding capability, for now I left it in place so I could use it to help get the framing set up, and also to establish the height of the ridge. I used this measurement to build three vertical supports in the cockpit, and a shorter one forward of the windshield to support the ridge. I secured the verticals with ratchet straps and line as needed to stabilize the whole frame. At the top of each vertical, I created a simple pocked with a pair of plywood pieces, which cradled the ridgepole within and accepted a single bolt to secure things there.

To finish off the forward end of the frame, I ran a final piece of ridge to the top of the pulpit, where I notched the frame accordingly, and built two angled braces to support the joint where the downward-angled piece met the horizontal ridge aft.

With the design of the vertical supports essentially self-supporting, I hoped that future installations and removals would be straightforward enough, whether the ridge was installed piecemeal or in one pre-assembled section (as I did). The initial construction, including sourcing the materials, took the whole day, but I thought that annual installation of the frame should only take about an hour thanks to its simple design.

Next: The cover.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 40°, partly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Sun and clouds, 50°

Arietta 3

Arietta 2

Arietta 1

Skeedeen Phase 6-38

Lively Heels Phase 3-4

Lively Heels Phase 3-3

Lively Heels Phase 3-2

Lively Heels Phase 3-1

Skeedeen Phase 6-37

Skeedeen Phase 6-36

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