House Batteries

Back to electrical... House batteries are now installed and wired together to form one big house bank. The cable that connects the batteries is 4/0 which is about the size of a garden hose. Fortunately I had the use of a huge ratcheting crimper for installing the lugs on the cable which made the job relatively painless. The left part of the cabinet will hold all the inverter, charger, wiring, and electrical distribution stuff. These are gel cells and should not gas off during normal conditions but I am incorporating good ventilation just in case. I also designed it so that the batteries are easy to access for maintenance or removal. Our boat is DC/Inverter based which requires a lot of juice... we'll have about 1250 AH (amp hours) at 12 volts. We'll only use about half those AHs before recharging in order to limit the wear and tear on the batteries from deep discharge cycles. With our modest power requirements, this should give us many days of clean quiet power when anchored in some beautiful remote spot. Next up is hooking up the AC from the shore power inlet so we can install the inverter/charger and get the batteries topped off.

Fuel transfer system and plumbing

These pictures show the completed fuel transfer system. At first glance it looks quite complicated but that is mostly due to the fact that, in order to keep all our tankage below decks (lots more interior room that way) we ended up with six storage tanks and one day tank on the aft bulkhead of the engine room. This makes for a lot of plumbing. Once everything is labeled it should be fairly easy to follow. The six main tanks hold about 1600 gallons of fuel and the day tank holds 50. I won't bore you with all the details of how everything is plumbed, but it gives you the ability to pump from any tank to any other tank (via a big Racor filter) and also fill the day tank from any tank. This can all be done with an electric transfer pump or a hand crank pump (manual backup is a good thing). Included is also a distribution manifold that will fill any tank from the single fuel fill aft of the wheelhouse.

Fwd cabin nailers

Sue and I finished up the overhead nailers in the forward part of the boat. Pretty much the same deal as the aft cabin, the fwd ceiling nailers are made up of two stripes of 3/4 ply and are formed to the curve of the overhead. Should look very nice when we get the tongue and groove planking in. Before we lay up the final ceiling, I have to figure out what type of light fixtures we are going to use and where they are going so I can run the wire. I'm definitely going with LED for the lighting to save energy, but need to find some nice economical recessed ceiling fixtures...

Bed and more exhaust work

Another diversion from mechanical systems work... We decided that we needed a comfortable place to sleep overnight when working on the boat so I built the bed frame and installed the mattress in the aft cabin. When it comes to boat interiors, every inch becomes critical and this was no exception. We wanted the width of a queen bed but the length would have made for a tight squeeze between the foot of the bed and the bathroom bulkhead. (I'll let Sue tell the story...) OK, this is Sue...I really wanted a Queen size mattress after speaking to a neighbor who cruised around the world. She said especially in the tropics & as you get older, that extra 6 inches of width will mean a lot to you. I told Peter one night & he said we just couldn't make it work. He tried every which way to make the queen size work into our layout but we just didn't have the room. I was crushed (on the inside) but tried to put on a brave face (on the outside). One night, when we had to make a final decision, I said what about customizing. Pete looked around on the internet and found there is indeed a size called a short queen which is the width of a queen but the length of a full. Jackpot! (Back to Pete...) We ordered from a company called Rocky Mountain Mattress and two weeks later a rather small cardboard box arrived at the shop. I was a little concerned until I opened it and discovered that it had been thoroughly vacuum packed for shipping and was squished down to about half of its normal size. Once I cut into the bag, it "inflated" fully in about 30 seconds and was just as advertised. Its a combination of urethane and latex foam. Very comfortable and supposedly hypoallergenic and mold/mildew resistant. With a nice place to sleep, it was back to work on the exhaust system. We also cleaned up a bit and rearranged for our next project up forward, which will be installation of all the wood nailers for the forward cabin interior. PS - Sue again..the bed is awesome!!

Wheelhouse

Back to the wheelhouse... we completed the first section of the passageway overhead, which is also the foundation for the settee in the wheelhouse. Since we have a 90 degree winding stairway from the wheelhouse to the lower decks, we thought it would be handy to have a soft patch (remove-able section of flooring) that would allow us to easily transfer large objects down below. I ended up making a 26"x48" hinged section that lifts up to provide access to the passageway below. With this done, I was able to move on to the console, and bolting up all the basic structure for the helm. After a lot of experimentation, I settled on what I think is the best spot for the wheel and engine controls. With those installed, it is definitely starting to look like a proper wheelhouse.

Exhaust system work

We are trying to stick to projects that will make the boat operational for our launch which will hopefully happen sometime this year. So in that spirit, I have been working on the exhaust system. By coincidence, we are working on installing a new exhaust silencer on one of our ferries at Baylink. This is for one of the 3000 HP main engines so the scale is a "little" bigger than our boat. Back on our little project, I removed the top of the exhaust stack and fabricated the stubs that will connect via flanges to the rest of the onboard dry exhaust piping. The big pipe is for the main engine and the smaller pipes are for the future addition of a DC genset and a diesel furnace for heating. within the stack, each pipe will be bolted to a section of flexible pipe (called a bellows or wrinkle belly). These are accesible through the stack vents and will help to absorb any vibration, as well as expansion and contraction in the rest of the hard piping. Where the stubs come out of the top of the stack we will be adding some clamp on extensions in polished stainless to carry the exhaust up a little higher above the deck. In the pictures of the finished exhaust cap being painted, you can see the large silencer (that I salvaged from a ferry re-power) with a fresh coat of high temp paint. Still have some fabrication to do on the rest of the system in the exhaust trunk and engine room. More to come...