Building Koloa

Wheelhouse overhead bead-board and lighting

2012-02-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Back to carpentry for a bit. We are getting close to finalizing the design and layout of the wheelhouse helm. I wanted to get the ceiling done before any of the helm stuff gets built and installed since the ceiling work makes such a mess. Another bonus with getting the overhead installed is that it includes permanent lighting so it will be easier to work up there in the evenings. Pretty much the same drill as the lower deck overheads: armacell glued to the steel, nailers installed, wires run, mineral wool panels cut to size and held in place with the finished tongue and groove bead-board. I drilled holes for the lighting fixtures as we went, then wired and installed the fixtures. This was a fun and relatively painless project with good reward at the end. The wheelhouse looks vastly improved and the lighting is great. I used the same close-out IMTRA and Cantalupi fixtures with Marine Beam 10 LED clusters. Having spent quite a few nights on the boat now, I am totally sold on these lights. They have good color temp, run very cool, and use a ridiculously small amount of energy. All the wheelhouse fixtures combined draw about 2 amps. The big unfinished plywood panel in the forward center of the overhead will be a mounting pad for all the overhead electronics like VHF radios, Radar, etc. I'm taking a pretty traditional approach to the layout. No wall of expensive flat screen monitors for this boat... primary view from the helm will be of the route ahead, with electronic displays on the periphery.

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Wiring and a few other projects

2012-01-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

A few recent projects... After successfully test running the engine (in jury rigged form), I set about to run all the wiring between the engine and the wheelhouse, including the control/gauge panel in the engine room. This was rather involved as it also meant hooking up all the final wiring for the alternator charging system and starter battery circuit. The way we are now configured, you can start, stop, and monitor all the engine functions from either the engine room or the wheelhouse. The engine driven battery charging system consists of a high output alternator controlled by an external regulator. The regulator can be programmed for a lot of fancy features but right now we just have it configured for gel cell battery charging, slow ramp up (to avoid hard load on the engine at start-up), battery temp sensing, and alternator temp sensing. All the charging current goes from the alternator directly into the big house battery bank which basically runs the boat. The engine starting battery is used only for cranking the engine, and gets its charge from the house bank via a Duo Charge (an automatic dc-dc charger that "spills over" current from the house battery bank to charge the starter battery when it senses that house battery charging is taking place). So far everything is working as advertised. The only glitch left is the tachometer which is not working despite many checks on the wiring and ensuring the right voltage in the right places from the magnetic inductive pick-up on the flywheel. Have to do some more research on that one... As soon as we decide on a wheelhouse instrument layout, I'll be building the main helm instrument console, and hooking up all the basic wheelhouse electronics. I finished making up some neat little fuel vents out of some bell reducers with stainless rings to hold the 30/30 mesh screens in place. These are now installed on the fuel vent lines and the tanks can breath easy. Also installed a plate type heat exchanger that will transfer heat between the engine cooling circuit and the diesel furnace heating circuit. This will allow the furnace to preheat the engine for easier starting when temps are low, and allow excess engine heat (when running) to feed the heater circuit so the diesel furnace burner doesn't have to cycle on as much when we are underway and need vessel heating or domestic hot water. I rebuilt another set of used Racor fuel filters that I got my hands on. One of these will feed clean fuel to the diesel furnace and the other will be for future additions (maybe a small engine powered DC generator for additional battery charging?). Engine room is really coming together and it feels like we are on the downhill side of the machinery installation...

Running the Engine

2011-12-30T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief video of our second test run of the engine. This is a low miles 1993 12 valve Cummins 5.9 engine that was rescued from a wrecked truck. We stripped it down, added a water-cooled turbo and exhaust manifold and gave all the externals a once over before putting it in the boat last year. The beauty of this particular model engine is that it is almost completely mechanical- it only requires 12 volts to the "fuel-on" solenoid to operate. No other electronics are required for it to run... about as simple as it gets which should translate to good reliability. The first test run was cut short by a missing oil plug in a sender port on the port side of the block. Whoops. In trying to see the glass as half full, lets just say that I gave the engine room bilge a nice thin coat of fresh rust preventative oil. Once that situation was dealt with, the engine fired right back up and runs like a champ. Good oil pressure (50psi cold oil, and 30psi hot oil, at idle), no smoke, and a nice tone from our oversized/overkill exhaust system. With the keel cooler operating as an air cooled radiator, I was able to run the engine for quite a while (fifteen or twenty minutes without reaching high operating temp). Definitely a great milestone... This weekend I'll be installing mechanical engine gauges for the engine room, and electronic ones for the wheelhouse, as well as replacing some of my jury rigged testing wires with a proper engine wiring harness. Santa was kind enough to supply us with a Hurricane hydronic diesel furnace that will supply cabin heat as well as domestic hot water for the boat. This is a really neat compact unit and fits nicely on a custom shelf that I built at the back of the engine room. The next few weeks will be spent hooking up plumbing, exhaust etc. for this unit. Sue did some insulation work in the wheelhouse which we will continue this weekend, with the goal of getting the overhead and lighting finished.

Fuel, Water, and Oil

2011-12-30T20:04:00.000-08:00

This has been a very busy month of work on the boat, though you wouldn't know it from my lack of blog postings. I'll do two to catch up... filled up the day tank with enough diesel to test the plumbing in preparation to run the engine. This resulted in a few nuisance leaks which I had to chase down. I designed the day tank size so that 1" = 1 gallon. As I filled the tank, this calibration seemed to hold true. With some fuel in the pipes, I was able to test the manifolds/fuel transfer system. All worked as planned and I was able to use the manual hand pump to run eight gallons (as measured by our fuel meter) from the day tank, through the polishing filter, and back to the day tank. I'll try the electric transfer pump once we get a little further along with the electrical in the engine room. I'll have to make some ID plates for all our valves and manifolds so (hopefully) someone other than me will be able to use the fuel distribution system... Had similar minor leaks with the steering hydraulics. The steering system leak was a little more involved as it was leaking at the cylinder end caps. Not much more than a drop an hour, but any leak at this stage in unacceptable for all this new plumbing. The cylinder was a used unit that I sourced (along with the rest of the steering hydraulics) a couple of years ago from a dealer /trader in South Carolina. The cause of the leak was a ten cent o-ring, but it did require draining the oil and taking the cylinder apart. Fortunately the helm pump in the wheelhouse had no problem with the seals. In retrospect I should have probably redone the seals on both units since they had been sitting on the shelf here for a while. I also fixed one other minor leak at the bypass valve and now all is dry and tight, and the steering works as it should. Once these kind of hydraulic systems are dialed in, they are very reliable. We filled the cooling circuit for the engine too, and again had a couple of leaks to take care of... the main one was a bad solder joint at the keel cooler crossover pipe (we are using two small coolers run in series). I fabricated the original piece from copper pipe a while back but was never really happy with the design. I was concerned about the location of the vent and whether it would allow me to bleed all the air out of this high spot in the system. The leak was a good excuse to tear apart the old piece and build a new one to a better design standard. Sometimes it takes a couple of times to get it right...

Hydraulics

2011-12-05T20:14:00.001-08:00

First off is a cool picture that I took from the top of a shipping container next to the boat. I spend so much time looking up at the hull, I wanted to get an idea of what she looked like if you were standing on a floating dock next to the boat. Not too shabby... Spent a busy holiday weekend (and some long evenings last week) installing all of our hydraulic plumbing. There are two systems on our boat, one for steering and one for the engine driven hydraulic pump which we are using to power our anchor winch. We may use our engine driven pump to power some other stuff in the future so I left room in that circuit for add-ons down the line. We went with all hose (instead of tube or pipe) for both systems as it made sense for this boat and gave a lot of flexibility (literally) for the install. Also less fittings this way so less potential leaks. It's all 3000psi rated Gates hose and I think that with proper support and chafe protection, it will last as long as we are around to care. I used a Gates hydraulic hose crimping tool to make up the hose ends and found it very easy to do. Thanks to Chad for setting me up with the machine and showing me how to use it. The hardest part was measuring the hose. The only real foolproof way to do this was to route the hose in the boat in its final position, mark it, take it out and down to the shop, crimp the ends on, back to the boat, and re-install. This was a lot of extra (aggravating) work, especially when wrestling with the longer sections, but you only get one chance with the crimper and the hose ends aren't cheap. The ball valve behind the steering cylinder in the picture of the rudder linkage is a bypass that can be opened to let the steering cylinder fluid free-flow when using an emergency tiller on the rudder post. Also on the list this last week was final assembly and hookup of the anchor winch. When I did the initial assembly after having it galvanized, I noticed that the drum had some end-play that I didn't like, but we were in a rush to get it put together as the crane we were borrowing to lift it onto the bow had to be returned. I figured that this should be fixed before I installed all the hydraulics and the chain drive. I ordered a pair of bronze thrust washers for the drive end, and these took up the slack nicely. After reassembly (for hopefully the last time) I mounted the spool valve, motor, and chain, then made up the last batch of hydraulic hoses to connect it all together. When I look at the prices for heavy duty, oil-bath, chain drive anchor winches these days, I feel better about the ridiculous amount of time that I have spent rebuilding, re-engineering and monkeying around with this thing. The plan is to have it operational when we are test running the engine in a week or two, so we can wind up our anchor chain on the drum and install the anchor (I don't like the idea of launching the boat without operational anchor gear). Our friend Karen came by over Thanksgiving weekend to help out, and play with the cat. This was the second weekend that we brought the cat up to stay on the boat with us and she seemed to remember it well from her first time onboard. She decided to to forgo the initial eight hours spent cowering under the floor, and pick up where she left off last time: lounging in the sun and exploring all the nooks and crannies of the boat. One other little project we completed was installing some temporary steps for the back door of the wheelhouse. This has been nice having an alternate straight path into the boat instead of just the side door that we have been using exclusively up to now.

Continuing with mechanical systems

2011-11-20T16:51:00.001-08:00

Another busy month... The first few pics are of one of the Baylink Ferries fresh out of the shipyard, and now at the fit-out dock at Whidbey Island in Washington state. One of my duties as Ops Manager for Baylink is to help oversee this 18 month refit project on two of our ferries from an operations standpoint. We are about half way there right now with one of our boats almost complete and the other just having entered the shipyard for the tear down. This is a major overhaul on both boats with all new engines, gears, waterjet control systems, interiors, nav electronics, plumbing, wiring, etc... My last two weeks were spent at Whidbey Island and were supposed to culminate in seatrials on the first boat last week. A number of technical glitches kept this from happening, and it now looks like the boat may be ready for trials next week. Service speed for this boat will be in the mid 30s, with a top speed around 40 knots (or about 46 mph). A far cry from the slow and steady little ship we are building. Anyway, on to boat building closer to home... I have continued to fit in a day here and there working on mechanical systems. The engine cooling circuit is completely plumbed now, and I have been working on a few other little engine related projects such as plumbing in an oil change system with a gear pump that will pump oil in or out of both the gearbox and main engine. This makes for quick and easy oil changes. I also plumbed in an oil level site glass and gauge for the main engine. This gives a quick visual read on the engine lube oil level even while the engine is running, and has adjustable high and low level alarm points that ring to a wheelhouse alarm (another nifty gadget from the commercial marine world). I am now putting my attention towards hydraulics. We have two hydraulic systems on board: an engine driven hydraulic pump for the anchor winch (along with whatever else we can come up with to power hydraulically) and a manual system for the steering. Both circuits are relatively simple, but have still required a lot of research and advice in order to specify the parts and do it right the first time around. Initially, I was going to use a spare cylindrical tank that I had lying around for the anchor winch hydraulic reservoir, but after messing around with it a bit I decided to buy a 6 gallon ready made tank that was already plumbed correctly for our needs. It was just the right shape and size and fits in the engine room above the engine driven pump very nicely. If I can get all the adaptors and fittings together this week, we'll spend the Thanksgiving holiday installing all the plumbing for both hydraulic systems (with some time out for dinner with friends on Thursday). Last weekends project was insulating and finishing out the space under the console in the wheelhouse. This area will be home to lots of critical electronics and navigational systems as well as the electrical distribution for the wheelhouse so I finished it out in a way that would make it clean and easy to install and maintain equipment in. As you can see from the pictures, this job definitely falls under the category of "things that I should have done when I had easier access".

Exhaust and Engine Cooling

2011-10-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Lots of engine room work has been completed over the last few weeks. We fabricated a nice little header tank for the coolant that includes a level gauge/alarm that will ring to the wheelhouse if coolant is low. Most of the cooling system plumbing is completed and, with the exception of a few last bits and pieces, we are almost ready to fill the system with water for the upcoming engine run. We also completed the exhaust system including some very nice exhaust blankets that our friend Forest made for us. These will reduce the heat coming off of our dry stack exhaust system significantly and should also help quiet things down when we are running. If you are looking for exhaust lagging or blanket work, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with Forest. As you can see, he does nice work.

Since our little Cummins engine came out of a truck, there has been a lot of design and fabrication necessary to adapt it for our use on the boat. In the long run if you count all my time I have into it, it might well be cheaper to just buy a marinized plug and play version this engine but, having more time than money and enjoying the challenge, this process has worked for me. I also like some of the design features and solutions that we have been able to build into the install vs. what you get from the factory. Control cables for shifting and throttle are now hooked up using some custom brackets that Sam and I made last weekend. Now we just need to do a little oil pan plumbing (for a level gauge w/ hi-low level alarm), some minor electrical (no electronic controls on these old 12 valve 6bts), hook up fuel lines to the filter, fill up on fluids, put some diesel in the day tank... and we'll be ready for a test run.

Engine Plumbing, Etc.

2011-10-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Just realized that I haven't posted in almost three weeks. Been very busy with work. A trip to Seattle to visit one of the Baylink Ferries in the shipyard, a big dredging project at our main ferry terminal, and lots of other work related type stuff has kept me very busy lately and the month has just flown by... Most of my efforts with our new boat lately have been focused on projects to get the engine/propulsion ready to run. Unfortunately a lot of this involves design, fabrication, and installation that is very time consuming and not particularly interesting to photograph or talk about. This kind of stuff really is the heart of the boat though, and will be key to the reliability and safety of the boat down the line. So, heres some pics of some projects I've been wrestling with (literally in some cases): finishing the main fuel fill and vent plumbing, designing our keel cooling circuit and fabricating the plumbing for that, and final mounting for isolation transformer for shore power. Next week, we plan on removing the exhaust system (currently tacked and hung in place temporarily) and completing the final welding and hanger installation on the pipe work and silencer. A lot of work goes into the drystack exhaust design and installation up front, but this should pay off in low maintenance (compared to wet exhaust) in the future.

Aft Rub-rail

2011-09-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Rubber rub-rail is now installed around the swimstep. This willprovide some protection for the aft corners of the hull, and also make for nicefendering when we have a skiff tied off on the stern. We had welded 1/2" Stainless studs around the stern way back when we built the hull, and fortunately the rub-rail fit up pretty well. I'll probably go back and fill some of the gaps at the corners some black 5200 sealant before I call it done.

Forward Cabin Ceilings

2011-09-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Most of the past couple of weeks have been spent installingthe mid and forward cabin overhead planking, electrical and lighting. We're using the same beadboard that we used in the aft cabin. Prettystraightforward, but a lot of square footage and a lot of lights to install.Like the aft cabin, we are using LED lighting and some nice fixtures that wegot on closeout special from IMTRA. Galley/dinette and sitting area are ondimmers which work very well. The dimmers, along with most of our otherlighting stuff, is from Jeff at MarineBeam. He’s been very helpful and I definitelyrecommend them. Last weekend we brought our cat up for a visit. It took hereabout 10 minutes to find a way to crawl under the floor into the bilges andthat where she stayed for the first 6 hours or so. Eventually she came out andonce she got used to the sounds and smells of the new boat she settled rightin.

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Fwd cabin bulkheads

2011-08-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

Got side tracked this month getting our current boat cleaned up and ready to sell. Lots of time spent cleaning and moving stuff off the boat as well as ensuring all the equipment and machinery is running well. I can now say that the Seabird is in great shape and could head offshore tomorrow... We had a potential sale last week that unfortunately fell through, so we are still looking for a buyer. If you know anyone looking for an affordable, safe, ocean capable trawler, please let us know. Pictures can be viewed at: www.flickr.com/photos/pbelden

Back to the new boat... we have now installed most of the fwd bulkheads in preparation for doing the overhead wiring, panelling, and lighting. This will be done in the same way as the aft cabin. These bulkheads form the fwd day head to port, and the guest cabin to stbd. So far the layout we came up with is looking like it will work well and the dimensions seem usable. Also finished up some railings around the engine. These provide nice handholds in the engine room and will also support the header tank for the main engine keel cooler circuit. I fabricated the header tank from a piece of 4 by 7 steel box tube that I found. I'll weld this up when we do the final welding on the exhaust system.

Aft Cabin Ceiling

2011-07-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

Put up most of the aft cabin ceiling with wiring and overhead lights. Lighting is LED in recessed fixtures and controlled by a master dimmer/switch. When on full brightness, all the overheads are drawing a total of about 1.2 amps at 12 volts... very low draw for lighting. We're pleased with the look of the beadboard and the install was pretty straightforward. I decided to stuff the airspace between the Armacell foam and the panelling with mineral wool. This will add further sound and thermal insulation as well as help hold the Armacell in place in case the glue ever decides to let go. The exposed frames will be covered by mahogany trim so the look will be similar to a traditional wooden boat interior. Also threw in a couple of exterior pictures. Not much changed except that we are starting to clear away all the stuff from around the boat in preparation for a crane lift into the water sometime in the near future.

Painting and Other Stuff...

2011-07-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

Most our work on the boat the last few days centered on painting the beadboard planking that will be the overhead finish throughout the boat. Seemed pretty simple in theory... about a hundred and forty 12 foot boards to be primed and finished then cut to length and installed on the ceiling nailers that we finished a couple of months ago. As we began to paint, it quickly became apparent that I had vastly underestimated the amount of time that this was going to take to do this job. The rollers that we were using did not push the primer into the bead pattern very well so each board had to be hand brushed in the grooves, then rolled and tipped. Very time consuming. By mid afternoon we hadn't even made a dent in the pile of lumber in front of us. We decided to cut our losses and get a sprayer for the job. A quick trip to Home Depot yielded a little electric spray rig that, while not up to finish work standards, was sufficient for getting all the boards primed in a hurry. By the end of the day, my old painting shoes had a fresh coat of white primer and all the boards were done. The finish paint (one part polyurethane) rolled on much nicer and once we got a routine of rolling and tipping with a brush going, it wasn't too bad... still took us 10 hours of assembly line work to get one coat on the whole batch. One more coat to go... On the positive side, they look great and will add a really classic look to the interior. Staying with the overhead theme... when the painting just got to be too much, I spent some time finishing the overhead in the engine room. I've been meaning to get to this for a while and with the DC distribution panel in place, seemed like a good time to get it done. This job entailed wiring for all the overhead engine room lighting, cutting and installing pieces of aluminum perforated panels to cover up the overhead surfaces, then installing the lighting. Very pleased with the results and its nice to have all the mineral wool insulation finally covered up. Before closing up the overhead, I added two brackets that we will be using for hanging the exhaust system. The lights we used in the engine room are really cool... made by Aqua Signal, they are all LED, use a very small fraction of the energy that standard lighting does, and should (if they perform as advertised) last many tens of thousands of hours with no bulbs to change. They also can be switched to red which (besides preserving your night vision during night time engine room checks) gives the proper "battle stations" look to the engine room. With all the lights on and the engine room lit up like an operating room, we are just drawing about 2.5 amps at 12 volts... amazing. I plan on using LED lighting throughout the boat to keep our energy demands low. In fact, I just found a smoking deal on some very nice high end LED recessed fixtures that were on closeout. We have just begun some boat trials to find the right LED bulbs to go with them. The color temperature, beam width, and output of the bulbs are critical when it comes to LEDs and it all becomes subjective pretty quickly. The only way to really evaluate them is to get a bunch of samples and try them on the boat to see what looks right. More on lighting to come...

More Electrical

2011-07-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

Shore power is now operational so I was able to make the final hookups for the inverter and power everything up. Happy to say that everything is working as it should. Shore power is run through an isolation transformer which was pretty simple to set up and can be configured for european voltage if we ever find ourselves on that side of the globe. The Gel Cells have been sitting around since late winter with no charging and they do indeed have a very slow discharge rate as they were still reading almost 13 volts before powering up the battery charger. Our system is configured around a Victron Inverter Charger which will supply up to 3000 watts of clean AC power from the batteries when disconnected from shore power. When the boat is plugged in at the dock, the Victron shuts off the inverter function, passes the AC shore power through to our electrical distribution onboard, and operates as a 120 amp battery charger for the house battery bank. The white unit to the right of the Victron is a back up 25 amp battery charger. The front of the electrical cabinet houses a lower panel with main disconnects and breakers for all of our panel feeds and inverter. Above that will be the AC and DC panels for the main living spaces below decks. Need to build a hinged frame for that... Next up is running the panel feeds for the engine room and wheelhouse. Also did some more exhaust fabrication work and found time for some fishing. The Sturgeon seem to have eluded us this year...

House Batteries

2011-06-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-17T20:45:00.001-07:00

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

2011-06-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

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...

Engine room workbench, aft cabin ceiling nailers, and some other stuff...

2011-04-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

Had a productive week on the boat... Lots of pictures so I'll keep the text short. started on partitions and house battery foundations in the passageway. Put up the curved nailers for the overhead in the aft cabin. I'm trying to get the aft cabin rough carpentry completed so we can build the bed platform and install the mattress. It'll be much easier to install the mattress now before we start closing up the passageway ceiling. Also built and installed the engine room workbench. Came out pretty nice I think. Now I can start installing the water heater, pumps, electrical, etc. in the engine room as much of this equipment is mounted under or attached to the workbench framing. All the aluminum angles and hardware for the workbench framework came from the Coast Guard navigation light platforms that I salvaged for our engine room diamond plate decking. Definitely a good score there...

Engine room insulation finished

2011-04-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Engine room is basically finished as far as insulation and covering. We have 1/2" Armaflex sheet covered with 2" rigid mineral wool board and faced with aluminum jacket material. Came out pretty nice looking and should be bright and easy to clean. Now we can finally start installing all the toys in the engine room with the goal of getting the engine running in the next month or two.

Stairs

2011-03-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

Engine room insulation and finish covering continues, but we had to take a brief detour to address the issue of the stairs from the wheelhouse to the below decks area. Just before we painted the boat last summer, I realized that unless we wanted more of a ships ladder leading to the lower deck, we would need to do some cheating to make real stairs work here… I would have to cut the stairs into the forward engine room bulkhead in order to achieve a usable stairway that wasn’t too steep and wouldn’t require ducking when going up or down. So, out came the cutting torch and we lopped off a notch out of this bulkhead directly under where the steps would go. At the time, like so many of our other early decisions, the dimensions for this cut was kind of an educated guess based on some ballpark stair geometry plus a little extra just in case. Initially we had planned on a straight set of steps, but a few months ago, we changed the layout below to put the dinette on the stbd side, opposite the galley… much better use of space. This caused us to rethink the stairs and we found that the only solution would be a 90 degree stairway. I have never designed anything like that before, so last weekend, I had a big cup of coffee to get my brain working and set about to construct a mock-up so we could try it out. As it turns out, the results were better than expected. I used three 30 degree steps to make the turn and the ergonomics are very good. By narrowing up the stairwell to 26”, it feels quite secure going up and down. The half wall at the base of the stairwell below will form the back of the forward facing dinette bench. This allows plenty of light from above, and makes it relatively easy to carry big awkward things from the wheelhouse to the lower deck. In the wheelhouse we cut and layed out some of the bigger pieces of the console. There is a little side extension to the right of the helm seat that will serve as an easy to reach mounting spot for the engine controls and steering jog lever. I will probably mount a breaker panel for wheelhouse electronics here as well. After actually playing around with the helm seat that we are going to use, we decided that there really isn’t room for two helm seats and the day berth/setee that we want up there… Just too crowded. So, looks like it’ll be just one center helm chair and a nice long L-shaped setee to stretch out on.

Engine room and exhaust trunk insulation

2011-03-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Finished a few little leftover insulation panels in the fwd main cabin. Now we have moved on to the exhaust trunk and engine room. I have been accumulating quite a big pile of equipment for the engine room and, since access will be more difficult once all this stuff is installed, I really need to concentrate my efforts on getting the engine room bulkheads insulated and covered first. I also have the exhaust system to fabricate and install and therefore need to have the exhaust trunk insulated for sound and heat from the stacks. I managed to knock out the exhaust trunk job in one day without too much grief, although it was a tight squeeze getting up inside to install the insulation. I went with one inch of Roxul rigid mineral wool panels (good thermal and sound insulation... fire proof too). I covered it with aluminum sheets and held the whole thing together with misc aluminum angles and flatbars. The 3/8" studs that I used to fasten everything down are welded to the exhaust trunk and will also be used to hang the exhaust piping. In the wheelhouse, the outside of the exhaust trunk will get covered with 3/4" Armaflex to further reduce the engine noise in the cabin. In the engine room, I have most of the necessary framing in place now. This will not only support the insulation and finished surface, it will also serve as mounting points for much of the bulkhead mounted equipment to be installed later. Most of the bulkheads will get 1/4" or 1/2" Armaflex, then 2-2.5" of Roxul mineral wool panels, then an aluminum facing to hold it all together. Then comes the fun part (for me anyway) of installing all the toys and related systems in the engine room.

Fwd Insulation

2011-03-02T16:14:00.001-08:00

The past couple of weeks have been mostly occupied with trying to finish out the fwd cabin insulation install. Sue and I have made pretty good progress and we are probably one more day of "cut and glue" away from being complete on insulation below decks (except for engine room- more on that later). Our friend Anne and her kids stopped by for a visit last week and, like all good backyard builders, we put them to work... in this case, helping us load all of our house and starting batteries (1400 lbs worth!) into the boat. Should be starting on the exhaust system in the next week or two, and bolting up all the nailers for the interior. Then it's on to the fun stuff... of course it's all "fun", right?

A Few New Projects

2011-02-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

We finished most of the insulation in the aft cabin a few weeks ago. I had to take a little time off from insulation work to preserve my sanity. This is one of those jobs that makes our boat seem very big. For a change of pace, we have been working on a few other projects. I installed the nailers on one side of the aft cabin so we could do a test fit of the tongue and groove panelling that we are going to use. I am very happy with the results. We'll probably give it a light oil finish and top it with some satin varnish. The (faux) beams that we will use to trim the frames will likely be a darker wood like mahogany and the overhead panelling will be bead board planking, painted white. Should look pretty sharp. Another project that I finished up the fabrication for was the closures for the big dorade vents up forward. I won't bother to describe how they work other than that they are spring loaded in the open position and can be cranked down with a knob inside the cabin and made completely water tight. The pictures show it pretty well I think. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on some surplus commercial marine stuff recently for our project... first, a very heavy duty flanged exhaust silencer with SS flex couplings and some misc pipe and flanges. The spec happens to be just about right for our Cummins 6BT engine and it looks like with a little modification, we can make it work for our boat (despite the side inlet on the silencer). Second, was a batch of lightly to barely used Gel Cell batteries. We have eight 4D (180 AH each) and two 8D (225 AH each) to work with. I'm going to use the 4D batteries for the house bank. This battery bank will handle our 12 volt needs onboard, and also our AC power via an Inverter. We are currently saving up for a Victron Multi Plus inverter/charger to handle the house bank. One of the 8D batteries will be used as a starting battery for the main engine and the other 8D will be used for emergency back-up power for the wheelhouse electronics. I'll have more about the electrical plan for the boat in the coming months. So that all kept me busy for the last few weeks but now it's back to insulation... hope to get the forward cabin finished this weekend.

Update

2011-02-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

Been very busy with work lately. Among other things... the ferry service that I work for has started a 14 month re-fit project on two of the ferries at a shipyard in Washington, and we are also bidding on a service contract to continue being the operator of the commuter ferries that we run. Also a myriad of other smaller projects that seem to be taking up most of my free time lately. Anyway, we've been doing a few things on the boat... mostly procurement of parts and supplies and more design work on the interior and systems. Our good friend Karen helped us get started on the forward insulation and I installed the last of the tanks - two water tanks in the aft cabin, tucked up under the swim step. I found a great deal on some very nice clear douglas fir planking. It has a regular t&g pattern on one side and a nice bead board detail on the other. I'm going to use the t&g side for the cabin liner (along the inside of the hull plate) with an oil finish, and the bead board side for the overhead (painted white or off-white). It's a big pile of wood and the plan is to pre-paint/pre-stain everything in full lengths before we install it on the boat.

A little work, A little play

2011-01-15T17:43:00.000-08:00

Completely unrelated to boatbuilding... had a chance to take the family to see Joe Satriani at the Fox Theatre in Oakland the other night. Satriani is one of the best players around and its always a blast to see him do his thing. At the end of the show Sammy Hagar made a guest appearance for the encore. Great show. Back to boat stuff... spent a few "after work" hours starting to plumb the fuel system. The big manifold is the tank fill distribution, fed by a single deck fill behind the wheelhouse. The 1 1/2" hoses drop to the hard piping leading to the six fuel tanks. The smaller manifold below is the supply from the six tanks. Fuel transfer pumps (electric and manual back-up) will be mounted in between the two manifolds on the bulkhead. When its all hooked up, we'll be able to transfer from any tank to the day tank, or from tank to tank as needed for trim or fuel polishing. Thanks again to Chuck for all the aeroquip fittings and the lesson on making up the hoses.

Aft cabin insulation finished

2011-01-12T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well mostly... still a few little spots to finish. The difference is dramatic. We can heat the space nicely with a small electric heater and the resonance of the hull is significantly reduced so it is much quieter now. We now have the fwd part of the boat cleaned and prepped for the insulation install. Its over twice as big as the aft cabin, but now that we have developed a system for installing this stuff, it will hopefully go a little faster. Did a stove top flame test last week with a piece of scrap and this insulation is indeed self extinguishing. Nice to know.

Insulation

2011-01-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

Happy new year to all... 2011 finds us beginning the process of insulating our boat. In a steel boat, insulation serves three purposes: condensation control (especially important when cooking and heating the boat in colder climates), sound control (so it doesn't echo like a big oil drum inside), and keeping the interior temperature stable. After researching to death the choice of material and process to insulate our hull, we decided on Armaflex closed cell foam- 3/4" for the hull sides and overhead, 1/4" for the frames and longitudinals. This will give us an insulation "sandwich" of 3/4" Armaflex, 2" air gap, then 1/2" interior tongue and groove planking. There is no easy solution to insulating a metal hull but having spent a lot of time looking at all the alternatives, this solution made the most sense for us. Armaflex is similar in density to neoprene except it is completely closed cell and will not absorb water. It is also manufactured with microban which is supposed to control mold and mildew. It is really nice stuff to work with- no dust or particulates from it, and very clean. It also has no smell and is relatively fire resistant and self extinguishing. The down side is the cost (it will probably be about 50% more than a professional spray foam job) and the labor to cut and fit it into all the frame spaces. It also dulls our cutters very fast so we're going through a lot of blades. We opted for the plain Armaflex instead of the self adhesive type as it allows us to control the adhesive and it is also cheaper by a factor of three over the peel and stick variety. stock sheet size is 3' x 4' which works out nicely with our 36" frame spacing. After a few days of cutting and gluing and fine tuning our installation techniques, we are starting to make some good progress although it can be very tedious cutting and fitting the foam. The best part is that once I get done cutting and installing all the bits and pieces to fit all the hundreds of odd shapes that make up the inside of our boat, I'll likely be ready to spend some time in a rubber room... which is just what we'll have at the end of this process.

Anchor Winch

2010-12-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last week of assembling and installing our anchor winch. We had plans to stage a crane on-site for one day to do a job on one of the Baylink ferries. I put our anchor winch project on the front burner so we could get it assembled in time to use this crane for our installation while it was here. I had completely disassembled and cleaned all the parts last winter and so they were ready for the galvanizer. Here they were dipped in a nice bath of molten zinc which should protect all the parts from corrosion for many years to come. Since it had been a year since I took the thing apart, it took a little head scratching to figure out how all the bits and pieces went back together - next time I need to take more pictures. The winch body and drum are very heavily built from 5/16" steel. The main shaft is 1.5" stainless steel riding in bronze bearings with grease fittings. It is powered by a hydraulic motor that turns a chain drive running in an oil bath. There is a clutch type assembly with a large clutch pad on either side of the drum. This allows you to engage/disengage the drum from the shaft by turning the large hand wheel on the port side of the winch. A nice robust design that shouldn't give us any problems, and will be easy to fix if it does...

Dorade vents

2010-12-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

Painted and installed dorade vents on the bow deck. These are a traditional style nautical vent that includes a water trap in the base so they can still allow dry fresh air into the boat when it tis wet on deck. Especially nice in the tropics. Went with traditional paint scheme on these and I think it turned out very "shippy" looking. As with most things on this boat, I put a lot more time into designing and building these than I planned... but I think the results are good and they add a lot of ventilation capability below decks.

Making crooked boxes

2010-12-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

These are the boxes that form the frames around the port lights. As the title implies they are not really square, but more of a parallelogram in shape. Each set of port frames has a slightly different angle that was determined by following the line of the shear rail. We also tried to line up the top and bottom of the boxes so that when we install the interior tongue and groove planking between the frames, all the lines should flow nicely fore and aft. In the last couple of shots you can see the nailers installed that will support the interior planking. Next big project is insulation...

Some engine room work

2010-11-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

Felt like a break from working with wood for a while so I did a little work in the engine room. I cut some lift-out panels in the deck plates so that we can access the keel cooler and other plumbing without pulling up the whole panel. I finished installing the overboard valves in the engine room and as soon as we get some warmer dryer weather (for the sealant to set up properly) we'll be installing the keel-cooler and depth transducers. That will pretty much seal up the boat below the waterline. Also did some engine work... installed the turbo and a few other accessories including the engine driven hydraulic pump that will drive the anchor winch and a few other things on deck. The hydraulic pump has an electro-magnetic clutch so you can engage and disengage it from the wheelhouse with the flip of a switch.

Forward floors and hatches finished

2010-11-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

Forward sub-floor fit up

2010-11-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, Sam and I spent some time on the boat installing the tank hold downs. Then on Sunday,Sue and I fit up the plywood sub floor in the forward part of the main cabin. As in the rest of the boat, the framing under the floor forms the supports for all the various access hatches.

Forward tanks and sub-floor framing

2010-11-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Installed the forward tanks (1 grey water, and 2 fresh water) and began work on the forward floor framing. As in the aft cabin, the tanks are 3/8' wall, roto-molded polyethylene from Plastic-Mart in Southern California. They sit in a "tray" built up out of 3/4" ply with a 2x3 frame that will lock the tank in place. The SS threaded rod at each corner of the frame is for hold downs.

More main cabin floors

2010-10-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

More work on the main cabin floors this weekend. This is where the galley, sitting room, Sams cabin, forward head, etc will be located. Its a pretty big area and there are some floor elevation changes due to the tankage and the way the boat sweeps up to the bow. The first three frames forward of the engine room will be the galley and dinette. We were originally going to have the dinette forward of the galley on the same side, but after playing around with a measuring tape we decided that it would be too tight for a four person dinette ahead of the galley. So the plan is now to use a 90 degree stairway from the wheelhouse instead of a straight ladder. This will allow us to put the dinette at the same level as the galley, directly opposite, on the starboard side. It is a compromise on the larger straight stairs we originally had in mind, but a big improvement on our layout down below. I've done a lot of drawing and doodling for this project but there's still no substitute for mocking things up life size in the actual space. Ahead of the galley area, there is a step up in elevation that will access the sitting room which will be about 6 by 12 feet. Forward of this will be Sam's cabin to starboard and a small day head to port. The galley area sub-floor is done and I've started to frame out the sitting room floor. Also have to build foundation for the forward tanks and get them installed before I deck over this area.

Starting Main Cabin Floors

2010-10-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

With the aft cabin floor finished, we are moving on to the main cabin. Began some basic framing and lay out work this week. Our friend, John Simpkins came down from Seattle for a visit so we put him to work. He brought some damp northwest weather with him, but still managed to rough polish most of the bitts on deck, and and helped with some interior stuff too. Looks like more rain this weekend so I installed the last opening port which goes in the scuttle at the aft wheelhouse door.

Finishing aft cabin sub-floor

2010-10-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

Finished the aft cabin sub-floor with all access hatches cut and framed out. With everything "glued and screwed", the floor in the aft cabin has really stiffened up and feels very solid to walk on. This area was a challenge because there wasn't much room above the integral fuel tanks for framing and we had to watch the height of the floor structure or we would lose too much headroom. The system that we came up with worked well with just enough support and not too much structure underneath to get in the way of the tanks. We also installed the Black Water tank which fit up well. I'm getting the hang of laying out and installing access hatches for below deck areas that we need to get to for inspections and systems installation. Sue has been doing some prep and painting on the hatches and watertight doors. Next we'll be moving on to the forward cabin sub-floor. Nice to get some "walking around room".

Aft cabin sub-floor

2010-10-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

Moving on to the aft cabin floor now... same drill as the passageway floor but a little more complicated with more hatches and a black-water tank below deck. installed the tank and began framing up for the hatch coamings. Need to decide exactly where all the bulkheads and built in cabinetry is going in the aft cabin in order to finalize the hatch layout but I have a pretty good start... Also did a little work in the engine room on valves and manifolds.

Engine room/passageway bulkhead and subfloor

2010-09-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've been working on finishing the engine room/passageway bulkhead and passageway subfloor for the past week or so. This is a key part of roughing out the interior as the passageway floor supports and the are anchored to this bulkhead. The top of this bulkhead forms a platform in the wheelhouse that will be the base for an L-shaped settee/dayberth. I made the bulkhead between the engine room and the passageway to the aft cabin by laminating two layers of 3/4" ply together and bolting them to steel angles that were welded to the wheelhouse floor framing at the top, and the 24" high longitudinal engine room bulkhead at the bottom. The pictures probably show it better than I can explain it... This plywood bulkhead will get fire resistant paint and insulation on the engine room side, and is sealed up watertight all the up way to the wheelhouse floor. Once the bulkhead was done, I moved on to the passageway subfloor. The floors are a tricky part of the design as they must have hatches incorporated to access all parts of the bilge. I think that in doing this first section of subfloor, I came up with a good system that goes together pretty quickly and I plan on using this type of construction for the subfloors throughout the boat. It starts with 2x3 wood nailers which are attached to the steel framing using the studs we welded on previously. On top of this, I use strips of 3/4 ply to frame out where we want hatches and provide support for the top layer of 3/4 ply. the plywood strips around the hatch openings also form the shoulder that the hatch rests on. When its all glued up and put together, it makes for a very solid floor. Next, I'll be installing some of the below deck tanks and continuing the subfloor into the aft cabin.

Visit from Rick

2010-09-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Had a nice visit with my step dad Rick. He's from Florida but was in town for a few days to play at the Norton Buffalo Harmonica Festival in Sonoma and a few other select gigs. Last time Rick was on the boat, we were just framed up in bare steel... lots of changes since then.

Not Quite Ready to Launch Party

2010-09-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

Some pics from a BBQ at the build site last weekend...

Engine room deckplates

2010-09-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'd been keeping an eye out for some aluminum diamond plate material to make deck plates for the engine room for a while. Most of what I had found was either very expensive, or too lightweight to use for decking without some major re-enforcement. I mentioned this to Casey at CS Marine, and he came through for us again. CS Marine had recently been working on a contract to replace a bunch of Coast Guard channel markers and he had a pile of the old ones at his yard on Mare Island. They consist of a heavy 3/8" aluminum diamond plate platform, about 5 foot square that is bolted to a heavy ring that sits on a piling. The platform also has railings and misc hardware associated with the navigation light installation bolted to it. All I had to do was show up at his yard with some tools and a truck and take them apart to get at the aluminum decking. A few hours of disassembly and clean-up with a wire wheel and we had a nice supply of excellent heavy duty marine grade aluminum diamond plate decking for the engine room. Spent most of the day Saturday cutting, grinding, and fitting all the pieces in. Hard work, but worth the effort... now I can enjoy the benefits of the "full headroom - walk around" engine room that we designed for this boat. Thanks again Casey.

Finishing the engine install

2010-09-10T17:30:00.000-07:00

As soon as the engine was on the rails, I got right to work drilling and bolting down the engine mounts. Even though we are "on the hard" and unlikely to move (unless there's an earthquake), I still don't like the idea of 1200 pounds of steel and iron just sitting down there without anything securing it to the boat. I marked all the bolt locations, re-hoisted the engine and gearbox a couple of feet, drilled for all the engine mounts, used a little epoxy paint to touch up where I had drilled, and set the engine back down again. Drilling the rails went smoothly and everything lined up just fine with the bolt holes. I did a ballpark positioning of the engine on the rails (each of the four mounts is adjustable up and down and side to side) and cranked everything up tight. Next was the shaft seal and flange installation. The shaft seal keeps the ocean out of the engine room, and the flange connects the prop shaft to the output flange of the gearbox... both are critical. The shaft seal is a lip seal type made by Tides Marine. We've used this type for many years on our current boat with no problems and I think the quality of the design and materials is worth the little extra $$ that it costs compared to others. The seal is held in a carrier that is banded to the stern tube with a flexible bellows. One nice thing about the design is that you can change the seal in the water without too much drama. I put two spare seals on the shaft before the flange went on. These seals generally last for many years so we should be good for a while without any major disassembly of the flange and seal carrier. Once the shaft seal and spares were installed, the shaft flange went on. When we had the shaft at the machine shop, we had them do a matching taper and keyway on the flange and shaft. This is similar to the way the prop mounting works, and gives us a reasonable chance of removing the flange in the future without too much trouble (other flange to shaft mounting designs can be very hard to disassemble after a few years in service). The flange is held onto the taper with a keeper plate and three bolts. Once this was all tightened up, we slid the shaft forward and were pleasantly surprised to find that the shaft flange and the gearbox output flange clicked right together in a perfect "ballpark" alignment. I'll be doing a final engine to shaft alignment with a feeler gauge to get everything spot on, and then we'll check it again once we are in the water and everything has had a chance to settle.

Engine install

2010-09-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Installed the engine last Friday...

Engine prep and port side ports

2010-08-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Finished prepping the engine for install. Engine mounting brackets are finished, painted , and installed. I built a lifting rig for the engine/gearbox combo that should give us plenty of maneuverability when we go to swing the engine into place We need to pick it over the aft deck, through the aft wheelhouse door, over to the the center line, and down through the wheelhouse floor into the engine room. I did a dry run with the forklift and lifting boom and it looks like all should go as planned for the install. Sue and I installed the port side port lights on Sunday. After doing the stbd side ports, the week before, we assumed that the port side would go easier... not exactly the case with this job. Don't know if the fit up wasn't as good or what, but it took quite a few more choice expletives to get the port side installed. definitely looks sharp though...

Engine mounts

2010-08-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Just a few shots of the fabrication that I'm doing on the engine mounting brackets. Hope we get these right the first time...

Ports

2010-08-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Sue and I installed all the ports on the stbd side last Sunday. They are completely bedded in the same butyl rubber caulking tape that we used for the windows and doors. These ports are made by New Found Metals and are a great value and seem to be of very good quality. The outer trim ring is threaded for the bolts that thread in from the inside so there are no visible bolts on the outside of the port. This a nice feature aesthetically and also eliminates the potential of leaks around the bolts. The boat is really starting to look "finished" from the outside. Wish I could say the same about the inside, but we are making good progress there as well. We plan on doing the ports on the other side this weekend, then I'll be concentrating on getting the engine installed.

Wheelhouse floor

2010-08-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

With the windows and doors installed, the first thing that I wanted to get done inside the boat was the installation of the wheelhouse sub-floor so that we wouldn't be climbing around on beams when we entered the boat through the wheelhouse door. First I installed the 2 by 3 nailers using the studs that we had welded to the sides of the steel floor supports. This is the same technique that we will use to install all of the wood nailers throughout the boat and after a little bit of a learning curve, I settled on a system for installing them that is fairly quick and easy. I also set up a drill press and a chop saw inside the boat which speeds up construction quite a bit. Once the nailers were up, we fitted up 2 layers of 3/4" plywood and fitted a soft-patch (section of deck that can be removed) for the installation of the engine into the engine room below.

Wheelhouse Windows and Doors

2010-08-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

Lots going on this week... we've been installing windows and doors in the wheelhouse (the forklift made for a great elevator for getting everything delivered up to the deck). Currently they are all in, though some are only being held in by a dozen or so bolts until I can get around to installing the rest of the fasteners. Everything is bedded with a butyl rubber tape that comes in a roll with a paper backing. This stuff is great. It stays pliable, adheres well to everything (but not your hands), and stays soft indefinitely. Much cleaner and easier to work with than liquid caulking compounds. You can see some of the squeeze out in some of the pictures. This trims off easily with a putty knife. Our goal is to get the boat secure and weather-tight before we install the engine. I've also begun framing in the wood nailers for the wheelhouse floor. This is what all those welded on studs are for and the system seems to work pretty well. I'm using 2 by 3 lumber for the framing/nailers and two layers of 5/8" ply for the floor. There will be a large soft-patch (a "semi-permanently secured" hatch opening) in the wheelhouse floor for lowering the engine into place. I also have begun to set up a little workshop up forward for doing our interior framing. Once we had all the doors and windows in place it became apparent rather quickly that we need a latch to keep the side door from banging around in the ever present summer-time wind up here. I found this nifty little latch at Newfound Metals (the same folks that supplied our soon to be installed stainless opening ports. It has a spring loaded rubber bumper and a nice heavy catch with a big release paddle on top. Very nicely designed and highly recommended. -PB

Bilge Paint and Bearings

2010-08-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

Spent a day doing our last big painting chore: painting all bilges up to the waterline with Amerlock epoxy. This is a tough, gloss finish epoxy that should hold up well in the bilges. We also used this paint in the engine room but because of all the piping and framing in there, we had to roll and brush that area. For the rest of the bilges, we set up the airless spray rig. The set up and prep took most of the day but once we got the sprayer dialed in it went very fast. We did the whole boat (5 gallons) in about an hour. There is still some detail painting to do, but the big jobs are done now. Next on the list was installing all the bearings (shaft and rudder upper and lower). The ID (inside diameter) of the schedule 120 pipe that we used for the shaft and rudder tube was pretty close to what we needed, but we had to do some "fine tuning" with a honing rig to get the pipe trued up to the exact dimension for the bearings. This is the same tool that is used for honing engine cylinders and it worked very well for this application too. I had previously drilled and tapped for set screws and all the bearings installed very nicely with a little smear of red hand epoxy to insure that they were bedded properly. With the help of a few engineers, the shaft slid into place as planned. In the engine room, I am using a dripless seal system made by Tides Marine. This is a lip seal type and has worked flawlessly for many years on our current boat. I'll install a couple of spare seals on the shaft before the flange goes on so that we can change out the seal in the water if necessary in the future.

Prop and rudder Install

2010-08-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

We installed the prop and rudder last Sunday. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pictures of the rudder going back in, but it was the same routine as last time... using chain hoists on the lifting eyes that are welded to the hull fore and aft of the rudder shaft. Once the rudder was bolted up to the flange on the rudder shaft, and the tiller arm and pintle bearing installed, I couldn't resist putting the prop on. Now it looks like she could go somewhere... We'll tighten up and secure the prop nuts once the engine is installed and everything is aligned.

Final painting

2010-07-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

Been doing a lot of painting over the last couple of weeks. Still have a few details to attend to but the exterior is mostly done. I'll be painting bilges this week and also some Mascoat insulating paint around the interior of the porthole and hatch openings. Once thats done, we will be moving on to installing the main engine and then door, windows, ports, and hatches to get the boat weather tight.

Finish Paint...

2010-07-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

Started on finish paint today. We are using a 2 part polyurethane called Amershield. Very nice gloss and its supposed to be very durable and abrasion-resistant... a good thing for hull and topsides. This is the final grey that we chose for the hull. Will do one more coat on the hull tomorrow with a hotter thinner added to accelerate the dry time (less of a chance for flying bugs to find their way into our fresh paint). The wheelhouse, hand-rails, and hatch coamings will be gloss white. The decks will be nonskid with a buff/ivory colored topcoat. The big rubrail, smaller caprail, and edge around the wheelhouse roof will be gloss black. We also have a nice bright signal red for the boot-stripe (between the hull and bottom paint) and the top of the stack.

More painting...

2010-07-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

Did a little fairing on the hull to smooth out some grinder marks. Painted the final coat of bottom primer followed by bottom paint. Once the epoxy fairing compound was sanded smooth, we did the final coat of exterior primer in white. Sue and I spent a very messy day in the engine room painting the bilge in gloss white epoxy. It doesn't look like that big of a job, but all the pipe work took a long time to brush and roll out by hand. We should be able to spray the rest of the bilges as they don't have so many details to cover.

First full exterior primer coat

2010-07-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Some pics of first primer coat. The transformation has begun...

Interior Primer

2010-07-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

Interior primer is done. I got an old but well designed airless spray rig from one of our Baylink engineers (thanks Chuck) and after some new seals and a little tweaking we have gotten it dialed in pretty well. It covers very well and has no problem pushing our heavy epoxy primer through the gun. Bilges and engine room will be top-coated with a 2 part marine polyurethane finish in white. Might get to that this weekend. Interior side shell plating and overheads will be insulated. work continues on final exterior prep.

More stripe coats and some final primer

2010-06-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

We have the engine room and aft cabin completely stripe coated with epoxy and we'll be spraying those areas this week. Everything below deck, forward of the engine room is now sprayed with final coat of 235 epoxy primer. The transformation inside is amazing - it's finally starting to look like a new boat. Once the interior is all primed, I'll be spraying Mascoat (an insulating paint that helps prevent condensation on steel surfaces) around all the hatches, portholes, and anywhere else that we will have exposed steel. I will also be spraying a white epoxy finish coat from the waterline down to the bilges, including the tank-tops. Above the waterline, the side-shell plating and overheads will get insulation. Exterior paint prep work will start soon.

Stern Davit

2010-06-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

When we are offshore, our skiff/dinghy will be carried securely lashed down on the aft deck. We made the aft section of rail removable so it can hang over the swim step a bit if necessary. The boat would be launched and recovered from the deck using a boom lift off the aft mast. In protected waters or calm seas we wanted a safe way to easily pluck the skiff out of the water without a lot of hassle. When we cruised up through British Columbia a couple of years ago, we found that we would have to launch and recover our skiff at least once a day for fishing, going ashore, etc. With a crane or boom lift this becomes kind of a hassle. So for this new boat I designed a stern davit that pivots off the transom and (if all goes as planned) will have the geometry to allow us to put the dinghy in the water right aft of the swim step with one 90 degree drop of the davit. It will be operated off the vessels hydraulic system (using hydraulic cylinders or a simple hydraulic winch) with some type of manual back-up. In the up position it will hold the skiff close in above the swim step where it can be well secured, but with enough headroom to not be in the way or block the aft steps. In the down position, it will put the skiff in the water right aft of the stern and allow easy access in and out of the skiff from the swim step. I'm still working out the design of the davit frame- what you see in the pictures is a mock-up (without the davit arms) that we used as a jig to weld on the lower stainless hinge points. We'll have to wait until we get our skiff/dinghy to finalize the rest of the design.

Painting Pics

2010-06-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

More painting pics. Prep is all done in the forward half of the boat. Pictures show spot coating with zinc primer, then stripe coat (to get paint into all the hard to reach places) with 235 epoxy primer. Will be doing final full coats of primer next week in this area. Started prepping the aft cabin for paint last Friday. Also a couple of pics fitting up the small Bomar hatch at the transom. This will house a hot/cold freshwater shower hookup (for rinsing off after swimming or diving), and a salt water wash-down (for cleaning fish). A few more odds and ends to weld on the exterior and more painting next week. -PB

Painting

2010-06-15T20:25:00.001-07:00

Painting has finally begun. We are using some pretty toxic epoxies and thinners so we have added a lot of forced ventilation into the hull. Due to the low flash-point (the point at which the fumes will ignite) of the solvents, all the blowers are set up to blow fresh air into the hull rather than suck out fumes which could be ignited by sparks from the blower motors. The blowers, combined with the use of good respirators, seems to be keeping things safe inside even with the warm weather we've been having lately. In the past couple of days, we have prepped the interior from the bow back to the forward engine room bulkhead (this is roughly half the boat) and applied a zinc epoxy primer to all the bare metal spots and welds. This, combined with the zinc primer coat that the steel originally came with from our steel supplier, gives us a very good undercoat for the 235 marine epoxy primer that we'll start with tomorrow. Once the front half of the boat is completely primed, we'll seal it off with plastic (to keep out dust and grit) and start prepping the aft half (engine room, wheelhouse, and aft cabin). -PB

Weekend Visit

2010-06-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Just some pictures from one of our family days at the boat last weekend... This time around we made sure all the welded studs were straight, cut and installed little short pieces of 3/8" hose on the ends of each stud to protect the threads from paint (yes, it was as tedious as it sounds), and fabricated some pad-eyes and brackets to attach a storage locker to the deck in front of the wheelhouse. We also had our usual afternoon snack (it was about 85 degrees out- good chocolate Frosty weather), tried to make sure we weren't forgetting anything that we had to get done before paint, and generally goofed around.

Boat Stands

2010-06-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

This week we got the boat sitting on proper boatyard stands and cut off all the welded supporting framework. The stands are very heavy and should do the job. when the time comes to paint the bottom we will shift the stands (in pairs) so that we can paint under their present location. We had to modify some of them to fit under the hull, but for the most part everything went very smoothly. The final step in the process involved making sure all the stands were tight, then cutting the final supports from the hull with a torch and knocking them free with a sledge hammer. We also chained the stands together under the keel so that they can't slide out or shift position. It was a typically windy summer day at Mare Island and we kept a very close watch on things through the process of transferring the weight to the stands. Actually the keel blocks carry almost all the weight. The stands are just there to keep us upright, but a failure of this arrangement would be very very bad. We still check everything regularly to make sure nothing's shifting around. Once we were up on the stands, I removed the rudder and rudder shaft for (hopefully) the last time so we can paint and install the bearings. Again the lifting points we installed on the hull came in extremely handy for this job - definitely a worthwhile addition to any boat like this. Anyway, we are still standing and, apart from a nasty blood blister from pinching my finger on one of the stands, all went well. -PB

More odds and ends

2010-06-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Odds and Ends

2010-05-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of a few odds and ends we've been working on while we wait to start the paint prep. Looks like next week sometime for that. We will be painting the interior first but before that job, we have to get all the framing that is welded to the hull cut free. I found a pretty good deal on ten very heavy used boatyard stands. A few will need to be cut down to fit under the chine midships, but they should support the hull quite well while we paint (and allow me to sleep at night when the wind is blowing). We should have enough support so that we can move the stands in pairs as we paint the hull to get everything coated. Since we will not be putting up the sail rig right away, I am fabricating a temporary mast at the back of the wheelhouse to hold our antennas, radar, etc. Should have that done this week. Also on the list is fabricating some kind of deck shower (hot and cold freshwater) and a salt water wash-down mount on the transom for use on the swim step. A stainless hose bib will be fine for the wash-down, but the shower arrangement will require a bit of engineering. There are some commercial transom shower set-ups made out of plastic but, like most ready made stuff out there, they just don't seem that durable. I will probably end up building some kind of utility box with a cover built into the transom to house this stuff. Also had a visit from our friends and neighbors at Galilee Harbor. Always nice to get some encouragement to keep forging ahead...

Final Tank Testing

2010-05-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

If you haven't visited in a while, you may want to go back a few posts... I've added some new ones in the past couple of days. With our new studs in place we were able to install all (fourteen) fuel tank inspection hatches with gaskets, cap off all the fuel plumbing vents, fills, etc. and put some pressure in the tanks to make a final check for leaks. Before bolting down the covers, we thoroughly vacuumed and wiped clean every inch of the tank interiors. I've heard of hardware, wrenches, welding rods, and worse being left in tanks when they are sealed up after construction so we made sure there was nothing in our tanks but air. Then we prepped and painted the seating surfaces of the hatch and tank top with 235 marine epoxy and cleaned and treated all the threads with never-seize, on the off chance that we ever have to deal with opening the tanks up again. The covers were bolted down with 1/4" nitrile (fuel-proof) gaskets. Whoever invented the impact ratchet gun deserves a round of applause... with this we were able to torque all 500 hatch bolts in less than hour. With 2-2.5 PSI in the tanks, we sprayed every weld on the tanks and all the welded fuel plumbing with soapy water and looked carefully for any bubbles that would indicate a pinhole or weld defect. We found a few spots which will need to be fixed, but they are all easily accessible, and we'll be getting to those this week and then re-testing. After that it will be on to paint prep...

Stud Gun

2010-05-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Definitely one of the cooler toys we've used to build this boat... it consists of a huge 600 pound battery pack with ac charger that allows you to deliver extremely high amperage for a very short duration, a timer box, and a gun that position and "fires" the threaded stud into the surface that you are working on. With the battery pack, we can reload and shoot a stud about every 45 seconds so there is a huge time savings over hand welding the studs or drilling and using bolts. The result is a very strong, permanent attachment point for anything that you need bolted down. When we folded over our test studs with a 10 pound sledge, the stud broke but the weld stayed intact, so no worries about strength. We are using this machine to install studs for all the fuel tank inspection hatches and zinc anode attachment on the bottom of the boat. We are also shooting studs for the floor supports, interior framing, and ceiling nailers for attaching our wood interior. With this machine, we have been able to shoot studs at the rate of about 100 per hour... which is good since we will end up with well over a thousand threaded studs throughout the boat.

Also got all our zincs together and drilled. The zincs serve as sacrificial anodes to protect the hull and fittings below the waterline from galvanic corrosion, which can erode metal at an alarming rate if you are not properly protected. This is especially of concern in harbors and marinas where there is often quite a bit of stray current from other boats and electrical hookups. The idea is that the zinc is more reactive than the other materials that the boat is built from, and will sacrifice themselves before your underwater metals are affected. Since much of the bottom and keel of the boat is fuel tankage, weld-on zinc anodes are not really an option. So all our zincs will be bolt on with 1/2" studs welded to the hull. This also makes it easy to change the zincs out in the water if needed. Our planned anode arrangement will give us about 200 lbs of zinc below the waterline which should keep us well protected for 2+ years even in relatively "hot" harbors.

Tanks

2010-05-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

We received the tanks last week from plastic-mart (http://www.plastic-mart.com). Great prices and service. While our fuel tanks are integral steel tanks built into the hull and keel, all the rest of our tankage (black water, grey water, and potable water) is heavy duty 3/8"seamless polyethelyne. We used off the shelf rectangular tanks but since they come as blanks, you can specify the location, size, and number of fittings. This required us to map out most of the plumbing on the boat so that we could determine what fittings we needed and where. The steel foundations for these tanks are now installed and it looks like everything will fit up as planned.

Anchor Roller

2010-05-09T20:17:00.001-07:00

Finished fabricating and installing the anchor roller... It took a little trial and error to get the geometry right. We made a mock-up of the roller frame and the anchor out of plywood and used this to try different angles and roller locations. Had to make sure that the anchor launched ok, cleared the stem and the bow of the boat, and locked into the roller assembly without any free-play when it was pulled all the way in. Once we had the geometry figured out, we made the real thing out of 3/4" 316 Stainless side-plates, with a 1/2" x 4" Stainless flatbar center piece. This forms an I- beam and is very strong. The whole assembly was welded to the foredeck and bow plating. The bail (the part that keeps the chain from jumping out of the roller and side-plates) is bent from a 3/8 x 3" Stainless flatbar. Finally, we used some 3/4" Stainless round-bar to trim the opening in the bow. I don't have the patience or the inclination to polish any of the stainless on the boat to mirror finish, so I went with a bead-blast, brushed finish- similar to the bitts and fair-leads. Finished by hauling the real anchor (Rocna 55, 120lbs) up from the ground to the stowed position in the roller and all seemed to work fine. Next project...

Dorades and Bulkhead Penetrations

2010-05-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

Finished the Dorade boxes for the forward deck. These are basically water traps that allow you to keep ventilation open in all but the most extreme conditions. I made ours out of 3/16" welded steel plate with a 1/4" bolt on cover. They are welded inside and out to the deck and the deck penetration is a 6" steel pipe. They are probably ridiculously overbuilt but we certainly don't have to worry about them being blown off the deck by a wall of green water. I also came up with a pretty cool mechanism for closing them off completely from inside the boat. I'll include some pics of that once I get it put together. Also completed all the bulkhead penetrations for wiring, plumbing and such. Once all the wiring and plumbing is run through these, they will be filled with a fire-stopping watertight sealant that will maintain the integrity of our watertight bulkheads.

Names and Paint?

2010-04-12T19:41:00.001-07:00

So, we'd like to get some input on a couple of names for the boat. We'll be documenting the vessel with the US Coast Guard and need to make a decision soon... the obvious one is "Koloa", which is the name we were thinking of when we started this blog. Its the name of a native Hawaiian duck. Since our boat design is based on the Diesel Duck line of Troller Yachts designed by George Buehler, it seems to fit. The other one we have been thinking of is "Kama Hele", which means traveller in Hawaiian. It has a nice ring and we like the translation.

Here are some pictures of some different paint ideas we've been playing with. Let us know what you think... The last one is compliments of Sam. If you have any input on names or paint schemes, send them to Sue at: floatingsue@gmail.com