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°

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°

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°