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Toilet Installed

Posted on Wed 10 December 2008 in Interior

Here's the new composting toilet bolted down to the new tile floor. Looking very spiffy !!

DSC_2235


Boat Math

Posted on Tue 21 October 2008 in Classes and Workshops

NOTE: I have updated this entry with accurate chainplate beam measurements.

Here’s some hardcore math as an outcome of my time at the Brion Toss Rigging workshop this past weekend. The point of this exercise is to be able to determine the loads and thus the wire sizes needed for the standing portion of the rigging on my Pearson 424.

Feel free to leave a comment if I messed anything up. I’m sure I did, see the footnotes for caveats and sources.

My Formulas

  • Main Shroud Load = (RM30 * 1.5) / .5 (Beam at the Main Chainplates)
  • Single Spreader Double Lower Main Shrouds
    • Upper Shroud Load – 45% Main Shroud Load
    • Lower Shroud Load – 32.5% Main Shroud Load
  • Mizzen Shroud Load = (RM30 * 0.5) / .5 (Beam at the Mizzen Chainplates)[1]
  • Single Spreader Single Lower Mizzen Shrouds[2]
    • Upper Shroud Load – 45% Main Shroud Load
    • Lower Shroud Load – 50% Main Shroud Load
  • Wire Rating Requirements = The Specific Shroud Load * SafetyFactor

My Inputs

  • DWL = 33’ 8”
  • RM30 = 47000 lbs[3]
  • Beam at the Main Chainplate = 9.54'
  • Beam at the Mizzen Chainplate = 10.83'
  • Safety Factor 2.75[5]

My Findings

  • Main Shroud Load = 14,465 Lbs
  • Upper Main Shroud Load = 17,900 Lbs
  • Lower Main Shrouds Load = 12,928 Lbs
  • Mizzen Shroud Load = 4,246 Lbs
  • Upper Mizzen Shroud Load = 5,254 Lbs
  • Lower Mizzen Shroud Load = 6,423 Lbs

[1] This formula is not in the Rigger’s Apprentice. Brion Toss provided at his workshop 18 October 2008

[2] I have assumed that the load per wire ratios for mizzen mast shrouds are the same as those for main mast shrouds with the same numbers of shrouds and spreaders as in figure 5-25 pg. 138 in the Rigger’s Apprentice.

[3] I derived this number from the RM30 table Figure 5-24 pg. 136 in the Rigger’s Apprentice.

[5] Brion supplied this as a fairly standard constant used in rigging at his workshop 18 October 2008


Mild Excitement tonight

Posted on Fri 26 September 2008 in Systems - Composting Toilet

You may recall that I've ben removing all the old plumbing for the head and holding tank. Today I decided I'll pull that last 4' of hose off of the thru-hull wich part of the system that would pump the holding tank over board when at sea. Well it turned out that seacock no longer closed all the way and we had a bit of water coming into the boat. Not that much and not that quickly. I had my wood plugs handy for just such and emergency and pounded one into the 90 degree bend coming off of the seacock. It was dripping a little bit but everything was under control.

I called and they had space in their schedule for me to do a haul-out so I could see if I could pull that 90 degree bend off an put on a proper threaded cap to close the whole thing off permanently. Ideally I would have ben hauled-out fixed it and they could put me back in the water all in under an hour. Well getting that 20 year old fitting of needed a big-ass pipe wrench which I didn't have so we're hanging in the slings tonight in the boat yard. Dawn and I were able to go to Home Depot get the tool we needed and the whole thing took about 20 minutes to fix. Since we were hauled-out we also had the prop zincs replaced (what is electrolyis link for Matty) and we scraped the shaft and prop clean and painted it with a zinc absed ant-fouling paint which reccomended since we had a bit of barnacle build up. The zincs were pretty gone so this was actually a good time to do this. We will be on a 6 month schedule from now on and i'm going to add a fish to our dock side routine as well.

Anyway, a lot of running around a late night doing some unscheduled but needed maintenance. Sometime around 6 months when its time to haul for the next set of zincs well probably go into the yard to work on the rigging and bottom paint.

The good news is everything is for the renaming ceremony tomorrow!


Renaming Ceremony - Do Over

Posted on Mon 15 September 2008 in sv Deep Playa

We cancelled last weekends event due to rain so we're going to give a shot this wekeend.

We're having our renaming ceremony this Saturday evening, if your friends or neighbors your welcome to come by. Pics will be coming shortly thereafter.


Deep Playa Twitters

Posted on Tue 26 August 2008 in Site Changes

If you'd like to follow along on Twitter, you can check us out here: @DeepPlaya.

Update 2022: We no longer Twitter


Deep Playa Logo

Posted on Tue 29 July 2008 in sv Deep Playa

This the mock-up from the artist (same company who did my PeaBoy work) of the final design Dawn and I chose for Deep Playa. Final rev, web site update, re-naming ceremony, T-shirts, hats, etc. all to come in the near or distant future.

Hetfield'sLOHO01


Head and Holding Bag Removed

Posted on Sun 13 July 2008 in sv Deep Playa

This weekend Dawn and I proved Deep Playa still goes by driving her over to the pump out to empty the holding bag and rinse out the whole toilet system so we could remove it completely as part of installing our Nature's Head composting toilet. Our neighbor Dan was heckling us as we drove out of the causeway since he's never seen us take the boat out. We need to replace the jib halyard before we can really sail her again, but was good to motor her around the marina. We got a little docking practice in as well proving to ourselves that we need a lot more practice. :-

Toilet

The goal for this weekend was to remove the toilet, the holding bag and as much of the plumbing as we could without covering ourselves and the bilge in poop! As I said we first went over to the pump out and emptied the holding bag. We ran about 20 gallons of fresh water though the system and pumped that out. We also used the bilge pump-out and were able to get the water in the sewer down to less than inch. We'll need to get down there and really clean it good in the next few months.

So after our docking adventures pulled back into our own slip and got to work ripping things apart. My strategy was to pull close to through hulls, pull the toilet and then start removing the bag and hosing in sections. The toilet was head down on a small wood base which was on the larger platform. Disconnecting the toilet from the hoses wasn't too hard but I had to cut the waste pipe with a hack saw. After that the whole thing lifted right out.

Next, I disconnected the hoses to the holding bag. Some of these hoses had plugs handy and some I closed off with plastic bag duct taped in place around the opening. With that done the empty holding bag was removed.

Finally we removed as much of the hoses as we could leaving only those which were directly connected to the through hulls. While the through hulls are closed I'm not sure of the best way to cap the ends. I have a guy coming out to do some fiberglass work and he'll cap those through hulls and remove the remaining hoses.

Toilet Platform Removed

With all the "messy stuff" removed I attacked the 2" high platform the toilet sat on. The wood underneath this was wet and I'm not sure if its rotted. It seems pretty solid but I'm not sure. I left the heated in the head and it dried out a lot in less than hour I hope it will dry out completely over night and the wood will prove to still be solid.

Bilge without Holding Bag

Here's a shot of the bilge area without the holding bag, that is  a LOT of storagesystem area we are regaining.

A great weekend of getting things done! This next week the fiberglass tabbing should be repaired and then we can start putting Deep Playa back together on the inside and start taking her out.


4th of July 2008 Work Party

Posted on Mon 07 July 2008 in Projects

View from aloft

Dawn and I worked on Deep Playa over the long weekend and as part of that I took my first trip up the mast as you can see from the mandatory masthead photo. Here's proof I went all the way up to the tippy top.

Last week a contractor was supposed to come out and do some fiberglass work. They got hung up on another boat and we need to reschedule. To prep for that we took a lot of stuff off the boat and that lead to a lot of running around to get stuff done since some of the things we needed were at home. Another thing which hinders our ability to get things done is the steep learning curve on materials, tools and just having supplies on hand. We really need to stock up on stainless steel screws, bolts, heat-shrink wiring connectors, etc. All kinds of stuff. In the past couple of weeks I have also bought a heat gun and a soldering iron. Both of which I think are going to be worth their weight in gold in the long run!

As part of our on going cleaning efforts we pulled all the cushions off and took them to D.A. Burns to be cleaned. We also started pulling down the last of the hull liner in the aft cabin. After that we'll use the heat gun to pull off all the glue. We tried a little test patch and it worked awesome the glue pulls right off pretty cleanly.

Here's a quick list of what's actually getting done!

  • Put a new bulb in the Stern light. I was looking into upgrading these to LED, but decided we'd keep them for motoring as-is and put a new LED tricoloranchor light combo on the masthead since the existing light isn't working. This will save us from dealing with a new light which won't have the same footprint as the existing lights, plus the bulb lights are fine when the engine is running.
  • The hatch to the propane tanks is now re-attached. The old latch was shot and the hinge screws were pulling out. This is something I'll probably end up doing again with long screwsbolts and washers but for now its working.
  • The old stereo only played Radio or CDs and the FM Antenna wasn't working. I put in a new stereo that includes Sirius Satellite, CD, iPOD Controller and an SD Card slot. Its still not playing the normal Radio or the HD Radio, I need to sort out the antenna issue there still. As part of this I'm doing all the wiring using a bus bar so we can add remove without having to cut into and shortening the wiring every time that happens.
  • Dawn measured the docking lines and looked into new fenders. The old fenders are marring the hull. She also measured the jib sheets and furling lines. As we were going up the mast we learned the wire jib halyard is frayed and needs to be replaced immediately. So I'm researching that as well.
  • Pulled the primary anchor rode to be re-galvanized or replaced. I'm not sure if we can re-galvanize what we have. I'm looking into that.

OK, that's a pretty long blog post so I'll call it good. The summary is projects continue some small one completing and as always more projects revealed. :-)


TT Deep Playa

Posted on Thu 19 June 2008 in Systems - Dinghy

image

We bought a used 2002 Aquapro Sportmaster 860 this week. The baby is almost new condition to my eye. The previous owner is a Boeing Engineer (maybe retired) who only used it one season then stored it in his garage. I know sounds like the classic auto salesman line; a little old lady used it once a week to get groceries but now she can no longer afford the gas.

We paid 1/2 what he paid in 2003 and about 1/3 the price they are going for new! Aquapro isn't my preferred brandmodel for taking to the S. Pacific, but for around Puget Sound this will be a great little dinghy. I bought a cover for it (see photo) and I'm looking for an outboard. If you have any recommendations on a <=8hp short shaft 4stroke outboard drop me a note

I'm going to be getting some Citra-Solve and taking a crack at removing the registration info from the dinghy since a) that registration isn't mine and b) tenders don't need to be registered. I'm still working it out with the state how to handle the registration though. I think I need to pay to have the title transferred and that's it, but we'll see.

The dinghy is more than just a way to get around when you're at anchor its your car when you're cruising, its your work platform when you need to do things on the boat at the water level (like remove the name form the stern) and its your fortress of solitude when you and your partner find the confines of the boat a little cramped. ;-) When we leave to go cruising we'll probably have a kayak and a dinghy or a RIB and a folding inflatable dinghy. We'll have to see how that pans out.


Poop!

Posted on Tue 17 June 2008 in Systems - Composting Toilet

When you're out of the US Coastal waters (as close as BC, Canada) is it legal to pump your marine toilet directly into the sea. There just aren't pumpouts available in every remote cranny of the earth like there are in Puget Sound. This is kind of like you wouldn't poop in your neighbors yard (unless they live in BC), but for extending backpacking trip its considered acceptable to use a cathole.

Our current toilet situation on Deep Playa is that we have a Wilcox Crittenden Imperial toilet and instead of a rigid fiberglass holding tank we have a 20 gallon bladder into which everything is pumped. We're also setup with a macerator (like a garbage disposal) that can be use to grind up everything when you're in an area where pumping directly overboard is acceptable. This also keeps fish from having to swim around with toilet paper stuck to their tail fin. Well, the toilet doesn't pump very well (I bent the handle this weekend), using bladders as holding tanks is kind of a nuisance (you have to lift them while you're pumping) and all of the plumbing needs to be replaces because it smells (this can happen as they age).

Instead of doing all that work we've decided to go with a MUCH simpler solution, the Nature's Head Composting Toilet. The basic system is that urine is captured is in a bottle and your poop is composted along with some peat moss or coconut husks to absorb water. The urine can be disposed of on-shore in the toilet and the compost can be deposited in any flower bed or bagged and placed in the regular trash. Before you get all gross, read this about compost. And then realize that the fact is on a boat (or in an RV, or camping) you become more intimately involved with your bodily functions, and this was the best option for us given our the attractive ness of eliminating 2 through-hulls and to be as good stewards as possible when we're traveling.

I'll have a bunch of photos and more discussion about this as we move forward with the rip and replace. Right now everything has been ordered and is on-hand ready to go, just need to pump out one last time and start removing the old system.