Time Flies...

Just realized that I haven't posted anything in over a month. Time flies when you're busy I guess.
I've been completing a few little loose ends before delving into the aft mast project. More on that in the next post.

The final install of our forepeak and aft cabin bilge level sensors and bilge pump/switch assemblies went pretty well. It was a bit more complicated than the other bilge spaces due to the restricted space and interferences in these areas. Especially vexing was the aft cabin bilge where the access was restricted by the shaft tube, plumbing, and the black-water tank. I ended up installing just the bilge level alarm sensor at the forward (low point) of the bilge, with the pump/switch located a little further aft. This means that the electric bilge pump will probably leave 5-10 gallons of water in the bottom of the bilge. I will be plumbing in pick-ups in each void at some point for the future engine driven bilge pump. The suction for this system will go to the bottom of each bilge so that could take care of any left over water here if necessary. I also had to do some surgery on the cabinet above the aft cabin bilge to install an access hatch in the bottom shelf. This makes for much easier direct access to the aft void versus unscrewing and moving the entire cabinet.

In the engine room, I relocated the gear oil pressure gauge so it is now next to the other engine room gauges instead of it's prior location mounted on the gear. This makes it readable at a glance through the engine room hatch port. I also tee'd off and ran hose up to the wheelhouse to hook up to the mechanical gauge in the dash cluster. This gives two easy ways to watch the gear oil pressure, which is a critical indicator of proper gearbox operation.

While the pathway from the engine room to the wheelhouse was open, I routed the manual activation cable for the engine room fire suppression and hooked up the auto shut-down for the main engine. As it is arranged now, there is an auto discharge that will blow the fire system in the event of high temperature rise in the engine room. You can now also manually discharge the system from the wheelhouse. Either one of these operations will automatically shut down the main engine. This keeps the engine from sucking up all the fire suppression compound. There is a manual bypass switch in the wheelhouse that will allow you to restart the engine after the fire system has discharged. I will probably wire in the diesel furnace into one of the remaining shut off relays in the fire system so the furnace will shut down along with engine in the event that the fire system is activated.