More odds and ends

Some more pics of odds and ends. I usually don't make it into any of these blog pictures because I am the one taking the shots, but I did manage to sneak my foot into the picture from the wheelhouse roof looking down. Finished a few more details Friday... Installed some 1.5" stainless goosenecks in the wheelhouse overhead to pass our wiring through from the helm to the top of the wheelhouse. This is a quick and easy way to run all of our connections (antenna, radar, nav lights, air horn, gps, etc.) through to the outside while keeping the water out. Also makes it very easy to add or subtract wiring in the future. We put one in each corner up fwd and one on either side of the mast at the back of the wheelhouse. The pre-drilled flatbar that you see welded up next to the fwd wiring goosenecks will be used to attach the port and stbd running lights. We welded in a few more couplings. The two at the back of the wheelhouse are for fresh water inlet and outlet. Also put in another raw (salt) water outlet (under the starboard side deck step, next to the black and grey water pump-out). This one will be fed from either the electric wash-down pump or the engine driven bilge/fire pump, depending on how you set the valves in the engine room. The overall plan is to have raw water wash-down/fire pump outlets at the bow in the anchor well, mid-ships at the side deck, and at the stern on the transom. Fresh water will be available on deck at the back of the wheelhouse, and the stern (with a hot/cold shower at on the swim step). We came to the conclusion a while back that we didn't have the bucks to put up the sail rig with the initial fit-out. In order to have a place to mount radars, antennas, nav lights, and such, we are going to put up a temporary mast made from 3.5" aluminum pipe at the back of the wheelhouse. We welded a couple of pre-drilled Stainless flat-bars to the deck, and I knocked together a simple mast step out of some spare UHMW plastic and aluminum angle that bolts up to the flat-bars. The temporary mast is also bolted to the roof of the wheelhouse and will be supported higher up by a pair of pipes running down to padeyes which are located forward on the wheelhouse roof. Kind of a home-brew fishing boat style a-frame arrangement. The last two items on my plate right now are to design and build a "utility box" for the transom that will hold the swim platform shower and salt water wash-down outlet (maybe with a hinged cover), and design some kind of downspouts at the aft corners of the wheelhouse for the roof drains. For the downspouts, I am thinking of using some stainless pipe that would be welded to the wheelhouse and be stout enough to serve as handholds. The connection from the roof to the downspouts will be via a short section of hose so that the runoff can be connected to a filter and diverted to our water tank fills on deck. Both of these projects will require some rummaging through the scrap pile to see what we have laying around that looks right. These kind of little design/build projects are taking up a ridiculous amount of my time lately, but are best sorted out now before we paint. So, if all goes well we will be on track this coming week to install the rest of the new boat stands, cut off the welded hull supports, and start prepping and painting.