S/V Deep Playa - Pearson 424

When we bought our Pearson 424, we knew right off the bat we had to replace the portlights and the teak eyebrow trim along the outsides of the cabin top. The existing portlights were old and leaked causing the interior teak veneer to delaminate, no structural issues. The plastic windows were also hazed over and they just looked poor. At the 2009 Seattle Boat Show we made the first decision towards the beginning of this big project in that we purchased our new portholes from New Found Metals, located in Port Townsend, WA. Its always nice to be able to support local businesses.

The new portlights are either slightly larger (in case of the 5”x12”) or much larger than the existing portlights so there is some work to enlarge the holes once the existing portlights are removed. Doing all of this prep work is actually really easy using the templates provided by New Found Metals. You clamp the template in place, trace your lines and cut out the new hole. You also use the template to drill all the holes for thru bolting the portlight to the outer trim.

One time consuming piece is handling the bolts. You have to custom cut the bolts that attach the portlight to it’s outer trim. Every hull is a different thickness so they can’t really stock every possible length. I used my handy vise, cut them with the Fein Multimaster, cleaned them up with the dremel and a sanding wheel and then used two bolts to ensure the threads were clean. Here’s a video of that process.

As we’re replacing the portlights, we’re also putting up new wood along the interior teak along the insides of the cabin top. We will match the new headliner to this when we replace that as well. Painting it all white will brighten the boat considerably and visually make the cabin feel a bit taller. We’re using 1/4” plywood, primed on the finished side at the workshop prior to installation. We epoxy the new wood to over the top of the existing wood. That is a pretty involved process of making a paper template, cutting out the new pieces, dry fitting them (which involves a lot of tweaking) then making the cut outs for the portlights and then finally epoxying the new wood in place.

Here are a bunch of photos which roughly chronicle the process. Click thru for larger pics or to see more. They look awesome, the glass is so clean and clear I keep thinking they’re open!

I’ve been working on a document describing the refit we plan to do on Deep Playa. I thought it would be good to share it with all of you and see if anyone has feedback but also so others might benefit from seeing what I’m doing.

Here’s the first half of the document, still lots of specifics to figure out, but a good start.

Overview

This refit plan for Deep Playa includes replacing the standing rigging, re-bedding and improving the deck hardware, replacing and improving the running rigging, and new bottom paint and hull polishing.

This section will cover the highlights of the projects by area (Rig, Hull, etc) but the meat of the document with all the details will cover the projects in the phases they will be carried out.

This document will be reviewed with several yards and riggers for additional input and to help select who will do the work.

We like to do our own work where it makes sense (saves us money, teaches us key maintenance or survival skills) but there are times where specific expertise or time consuming work makes more sense to be done by a professional . To what degree we do things ourselves is to be determined.

Standing Rigging

The wire rope standing rigging appears to be original and it is overdue to be replaced. Replacing it involves dropping both masts, replacing all of the wire rope, inspecting an possibly replacing the chain plates, inspecting and possibly refinishing the spars, having new wire rope rigging made and then re-rigging the boat. At the same time any electrical, communications or running rigging projects that affect the standing rigging and the spars need to be done as well.

Planned Upgrades

· Adding a isolators to the main backstay for the SSB antenna

· Conduit for in-mast wiring

· Strong Track

· Running Rigging Related

o Route all halyards internally

§ Add Spinnaker and Mizzen staysail halyards

o Rope clutches for main, mizzen, jib spinnaker and mizzen staysail halyards

o Inspect sheaves and probably replace, internal routing probably changes them all together

· Spreader Boots

· Electronics & Communications

§ Main

· Masthead NMEA 2000 weather station

· Masthead VHF Antenna

· Masthead LED Anchor and Nav Lights

· Masthead Davis Windex

· Spreader LED lights

· Foredeck Light

· Hailer Mount

· Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails

o Spinnaker halyard

§ Mizzen

· Masthead NMEA 2000 GPS

· Masthead AIS (backup VHF) Antenna

· Spreader LED lights

· Foreword Light

· Self leveling Radar Mount

· Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails

o Mizzen staysail halyard

Open Issues

· Refinishing the spars – What’s the cost

· How many things that are bolted to the spars need replacing?

· Main and Mizzen reefing are a mess

· Rigger needs to be identified

· Rigging Inspection Needed

Running Rigging

All of the lines for the running rigging except for the Jib Halyard and the Mizzen Sheet are in a very sad state and need to be replaced. In addition to that there are several very flawed installations such as the main sheet winch and main traveler which are also functioning poorly. At this point based on pricing and helpfulness I am plan to use Garhauer almost exclusively.

Planned Upgrades

· Move main sheet winch inboard

· Replace main traveler

· Add rigid boom vang

· Increase main sheet purchase

Open Issues

· Can I get a bulk discount from Garhauer?

· Should we do this before we make decisions on our sail maker?

Deck Hardware

Beyond the rigging fittings which will be pulled and rebedded all other deck mounted hardware will be rebedded as part of this the lifelines will be moved to the toe rail as well.

Planned Upgrades

· New Garhauer toe rail mounts for life lines

· New lifelines and fittings

· Bow trim piece is broken and needs to be replaced

· Moving the windlass foreword and the hawse pipe out of the berth

· Add additional bow roller

Open Issues

· Will we use wire rope or line for the lifelines?

· Should we add any fittings for jack lines?

· Can we afford new stern pulpits placed on the toe rail? Would include:

o Bimini

o Solar Panel mounts

o Stern reel mount

· Close the Bow Tank Hole?

· Will a horizontal windlass be needed

· Can the existing windlass handle two anchors

· Will the toe rail track need to be shortened to accommodate the lifeline changes

Hull Work

The main two parts of this project are new bottom paint and polishing the gel coat. In addition to that we want to evaluate all the thru-hulls and see if any might be eliminated as well as make modifications to our ground tackle management.

Planned Upgrades

· Remove unused thru hulls

o Toilet overboard

o Toilet intake

· Stainless steel on the bow to protect hull from anchors

· Bow padeye for anchor snubber

· Rebed and inspect starboard hatch

· Combine knot meter and transducer

· Inspect cutlass bearing and plan to replace

· Upgrade transducer to one with temperature, maybe not a thru-hull; maybe add or instead use fish finder type.

Open Issues

· Do we “plug” or glass closed unused thru-hulls?

· Should we close off the galley sink intake?

· Is the crazing in the gel coat around the hull a problem or just an age issue? Will polishing clean it up? Should we even care?

· What Hull paint should we use? Need to look at the PS articles and compare NW to CA paint results

Headliner, Portholes and Hatches

Removing the headliner is a necessity to do all the other work; we plan to replace it at the same time as well. The damaged teak along the cabin top will be covered so it blends with the new white headliner as well to create a visual lift to the salon. The leaky and sealed closed portholes will also be replaced with the New Found Metals portholes we acquired this summer. The hatches are also questionable (the aluminum is brittle in places) and leaky they will be replaces as well while the headliner is out. In the final installation the teak colored strips holding up the headliner will be painted white to blend them with the headliner.

Planned Upgrades

· New Found Metals Portholes

· Replace hatches

· New headliner

· New cabin top wood (cover up teak)

Open Issues

· Brand of hatches TBD, New Found Metals is supposed to be making hatches this fall

· Headliner material is TBD, Originally wainscoting was the plan, are we really over that?

When we bought the boat it had a normal pumping toilet which went to a Y valve for pumping into a a smallish holding bag or through a macerator pump and out to sea. This was an OK setup for blue water sailing and Coastal Sailing in Canada where pump outs are few and far between and holding tanks are not required. We didn’t like this setup for our Puget Sound home waters nor did we like it for when we’re out cruising. Instead we’ve decided to go with a Nature’s Head Composting Toilet. I’ve blogged about that a few time before, but this post will describe the process from beginning to end.

Here is a side by comparison of the two seats to verify the height of the new toilet will be about the same as the old. Notice that the old toilet is sitting on a little platform. Also that the handle is bent (oops).

The first step was to rip out the old toilet, plumbing, holding bag, macerator pump, and close up the through hull. The raw water in came off the drain for the sink in the head so that was fine, but the macerator pump through hull was dedicated and we closed and put a cap on that through hull with only a minor scare as the through hull didn’t really close all the way anymore.

This picture is of the valve which allowed you to pump the holding bag out through the macerator pump. All of these hoses smelled horrible and would have needed to be completely replaced. These hoses are also in a hanging locker which today I’m happy to reports smells like a new house. ;-)

Next we ripped out the old toilet. In this pic you see we have removed the toilet and the little platform on which it sat. The floor here was damp, but not water logged. I ran a heater in here for a few days and it dried out nicely. You can see the plywood subflooring and the teak and holy sole here. We had to bring this all up to level so we put in a 1/2” sheet of plywood (it may have been 3/4” I forget) which was glued in place with Gorilla Glue and screwed down to the sub-flooring. This gave us a level, hmmm ok let’s call it a flatter surface to work with when we went to lay in our tile.

Dawn is the detailed oriented one in our house and but that I mean she does all the detailed design work and finish work when we work on projects together which is usually always. I also operate any heavy machine and anything that beeps when you back it. In this case Dawn came up with the pattern of the tile design, I laid it out and rough tiled it in. Dawn then came in and caulked it, did the final grouting and sealed it.

Next I had to cut the hole and install the vent hose for venting the composting chamber. This was a bit nerve wracking for me because cutting a hole in your boat sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me, but here we go.

This first shot is how I lined up the hole from inside the head. I had a pretty open area on deck, but the placement from below was more crucial because of the wiring that needs to snake around the vent. The vent is a standard Vetus 3” Mushroom vent. I used one of the finishing trims from the vent and some tape to line it all up. I then drilled a hole in the very center of where I wanted to cut the larger 3” hole. You can see how I lined it all up and the initial center-hole drilled through the cabin top. Notice that half the hole goes through the deck and half also has a some additional wood for holding up the headliner. We’ll need to have the whole are flush for mounting the vent.

  This is a shot from the top side where I have already started drilling through with the 3” hole saw bit. If you’re not familiar with these bits, they have a drill bit in the center and a circular ring of teeth to the size of the hole you want to cut.

This is the plug that was cut out when afterwards. Notice my balsa core is very clean and DRY. That’s a very good thing!

I also think it looks kind of cool and it showed me how my boat was put together.

I mentioned before that we’d need to have the are flush for mounting the vent, so I epoxied up some 1/4” plywood and here you can see that being held in with clamps while it dries. I was doing this in the winter so I put a plastic container over the outside and taped plastic down over that so no water would get on my epoxy work.

At the same time this was being attached, I also put epoxy along the inside edge of the hole I cut. This seals the balsa core from water getting into it.

Here’s a shot of the finished vent installation. Shiny. shiny.

The white trim piece you saw a few pics back slides into the hole from underneath and into the bottom of the mushroom vent. The mushroom vent sits flush on the deck. I put some 5200 along the bottom of it and set it into place. The both sides screw into the cabin top separately. There is no clamping load on the deck at this point.

Next I needed to run a wire to the bulkhead behind the toilet to power the computer fan that draws air through the composting chamber. I wired this into its own switch on my breaker panel and put in a two prong DC plug on the wall behind the toilet. I could have hard wired this, but I think the plug is a nice finishing touch and if I wanted I could use that plug for something else.

The first shot shows the wire behind the plug, its in a small locker and then the plug itself. I used Ancor marine grade tinned wire and a Sea-Dog polarized 12volt outlet (PN SDL 426142-1). It was important that the fan be wired correctly, because it wouldn’t just run the wrong direction it would burn out the fan. That’s why I went with the polarized plug.

The toilet mounts to the floor with two brackets and then screws into the brackets with handles so i can be removed for emptying. I through bolted the brackets all what through about 2” of sub-flooring with bit washers. That toilet isn’t going anywhere.

Here are two shots of the almost finished (left) and finished project (right) with the vent hose and new toilet paper holder which Dawn installed. I include both pics because I got the exposure off on the 2nd shot and the tile doesn’t look at nice.

The project was pretty easy even for a newbie like myself. We’ve been using it for several months and have emptied the compost chamber once. It smelled like dirt to me, a complete non-issue. Just like we intended. Having extra urine chambers is a definite must-have as when there are 4 people on board and you’re partying (like on the 4th of July) you’re going to emptying them frequently.

I have a lot more pictures related to this project on the Flickr tagged as Systems: Composting Toilet.

Here are our operating instructions:

1. Lift Seat
2. Sit Down (yes, even if you’re a guy and you’re just going pee)
3. If you just have to do number one, go for it. It’s ideal if you can keep your aim towards the front of bowl so most of your business goes into the urine container.
4. If you have to go #2, with your left hand flip the little lever which opens the trap door to the composting chamber. This is not a chamber into which you yourself would want to enter.
5. Poop ! The trap door seems to be lined up perfectly for me, but remember “In the hole is better than on the bowl!” © (tm)
6. Now your done your #1 and your #2
7. Wipe – fold the paper over and set it aside. You are going to throw it away in the trash, not in the bowl.
8. Put in one scoop of coir which is stored in the sliding cabinet.
9. Close the trap door
10. Squirt the bowl with the spray bottle just to wash down any urine in the bowl. 3 or 4 squirts is usually good.
11. Turn the crank on the bottom right side (as you face the toilet). Turn it gently 3 or 4 times. If you go crazy with your turns you flip stuff up against the bottom of the top half of the toilet and it makes a mess when I go to empty it.

Today I got most of the new sound insulation installed on the engine cover. The old soundproofing was flaking and falling off the boards to which it was attached. The new material is a vinyl foam insulation with a silver Mylar finish from Sound Tec NW. The material is about 2" inches thick with two layers of foam sandwiching a rubber sound and vibration barrier material that is 2 pounds per square foot.

Installation was pretty simple. I took the surround to the workshop (more on that later) and made cardboard templates of each side and the lid. Next I traced teh templates onto the material which I cut using a SHARP drywall razor blade held in my hand with a duct taped finger so I could push really hard. This was pretty easy but I have pretty resilient hands. I think someone else might want to find a better way to cut it. Anyway, for me not a problem. The reason the blade was not in a knife was I need to use the full 2” length of the blade.

Next I dry fit everything together in the shop made a few tweaks and then took it to the boat. Once on the boat again I dry fit everything to make sure it all fit. That out of the way I used spray adhesive putting two coats on the wood and the foam before mating the two together. You need to be really carefully when you do that because the glue is very sticky and separating the two would have been very hard if not impossible with out damaging the foam.

Once the glue setup, which was pretty much instantaneously, I took #9 2-1/2” screws and matching fender washers and attached the foam to the wood. Before placing the screws in the foam I drilled them into a candle to wax the screws. This was a tip from Dave the Sound Tec NW guy. This kept the screws from gripping the foam and tearing it. The screws and fender washers went in without a hitch and I put them in just enough to quilt the Mylar and not so much that I went through the boards.

As you can see from the picture above the material looks great and I can’t wait to fire up the engine. There’s one additional picture on Flickr as well where you can see the individual layers of material. You’ll notice in that picture that only 2 of the three sides are installed. That third side would be impinged upon by the hydraulic prop-brake on my engine (right where the dark spot is) so I either need to remove that brake (which I plan to do eventually) or I need to cut out a window in the insulation so the brake has the room it needs. I also need to finish off the edges with the matching 2” Mylar tape, but that it what we call “detail work” and Dawn is better at that than I am.

Dave from Sound Tec NW was very helpful and easy to work with, I would definitely recommend talking to him if you’re looking to do a similar project. I bought a full sheet of the material and the tape for just under $200.

This past weekend was a good one in terms of getting things. It started out with a personal economic stimulus package when we dropped some coin at Fisheries for supplies. Mostly I stocked up on spare filters, electrical wiring components and 100’ of wire I’ll use when I put in the new speakers that I bought elsewhere, more on that later, here’s what did go in this weekend.

LED Lighting

When we were cleaning the boat this summer we pulled out the reading lights in the salon. We didn’t like how they looked, some of them didn’t work and they were a bit rickety. At boat show this year we looked at all kinds of lights some with built in LEDs and other that could take an LED bulb. There weren’t as many choices as we though there were going to be, and in the end we ended up going with two lamps from ABI. One is a classic bulkhead bell type reading light and the other is similar but is mounted on a swivel, like a podium microphone.

For LED Bulbs, we chose Dr. LED bulbs for these new fixtures and LED replacement bulbs for all the existing reading lights as well. The Dr. LED bulbs put out a nice light and they aren’t nearly as hot as the old bulbs which were so hot you could burn yourself on the fixture when pointing the light. They’re a tad expensive (ok a lot expensive) but they also reduce the energy we use which means running the engine less!!

Sirius XM Radio Antenna

When I put the new stereo in this summer, we were using the little hockey puck style antenna which we ran through a hatch and let it sit free on the cabin top. The new antenna is a Shakespeare SRA40 which I have mounted temporarily on the dodger hand railing. Eventually I plan to relocate this, the C.A.R.D., and GPS antennas, which are mounted on the other side of the dodger, to the mizzen mast or a stern mounted antenna pole. I’ve not decided yet. I think the Mizzen mast may be the only option give the mizzen boom’s swing through the stern area. I’ll decide all that when we starting working on the rigging and hauling the masts. I think the radio already holds the signal better and we’re just sitting at the dock.