Some help from our friends...

Our good friend and neighbor Dave was kind enough to spend his weekend helping us with some more carpentry. Dave's specialty is plumbing, but he has a good handle on all the trades. Having some outside help was a rare treat as we have been doing almost the entire fit-out by ourselves to date. Dave is looking at starting his own boat building project this year (composite construction catamaran) and a weekend on our project hasn't scared him off... he is very skilled and efficient and it was a pleasure having his help.

We knocked out the side-shell planking in the galley area and the guest cabin forward. Closing up the guest cabin area required the installation of some plumbing for the fill and vent for one of our water tanks. This gave us a chance to dig into our big box of pex tubing and fittings that had been sitting in storage for the last year. The first line we ran was one inch pex for the water tank #1 fill. Pex is great stuff but definitely a challenge to work with in this (larger, more rigid) size. Other than the water fills, the rest of the pex plumbing on the boat will be 3/4 and 1/2". After starting our plumbing wrestling with the 1", those smaller sizes should be a piece of cake. We have two more sections of side-shell planking, then we'll be switching gears and starting on the plumbing for the potable water, raw water anchor wash-down, black and gray water (toilets and drains), and hydronic heater plumbing. Started the install of the engine room located pumps, filters and manifolds in preparation for the plumbing work coming up... I think we'll be playing with this part of the project for at least a couple of weeks. What are you up to next week Dave?

Finishing stairs and dinette platform

Another good weekend. Beautiful weather in Vallejo... hatches open, sun shining in, and finishing more of the carpentry rough-in. Finished the stairs, which was made a little more tricky because the last step had to be built to be removable (to access emergency batteries if they ever need replacement) but strong enough to feel solid underfoot. Also finished the dinette bulkheads fore and aft, and the platform that the benches and table will be built on. Underneath will be storage, and one of the cabin heaters from the hydronic furnace for the galley/dinette zone of the heating system. We also spent one morning of hard labor removing hundreds of pounds of scrap wood and cutoffs from previous projects. The front of the boat had become a repository for all kinds of junk and building material cast offs. As our rough-in on the interior carpentry is extending towards the bow and stern sections of the boat, this stuff had to go. I think one more trip with the forklift and we will be cleared out enough to get the fwd cabin, bath, and forepeak storage compartment roughed in. The boat is feeling lighter already. I added a video here that goes with the anchor gear from a couple of weeks ago. This is loading the chain on the winch drum for the first time using the engine driven hydraulic pump. We were running the winch at dead slow to ensure that the chain loaded up correctly... the winch runs a lot faster than this when needed. Next few weeks are looking like more carpentry, with a few little electrical side projects. Then we tackle the plumbing install.