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Systems - Hull, Systems - Plumbing Slug: flu-impacts-productivity Status: published

Two weeks ago I took off work on Friday to work on a bunch of projects one of which included using epoxy and I wanted to take advantage of the warmer weather and have an extra day to get things done. That Friday went pretty well and I worked on cutting the hole in the cabin top and sealing the edges with epoxy so I can install the mushroom vent for the composting head (more on that to come) but about 11pm that night the Flu (or maybe food poisoning) hit me and I was down and out for about 4 days. Well this weekend I’m feeling much better and Dawn and I are ready to tackle the to do list. Here’s the goals:

• Finish Installing the mushroom vent in the head
• Wire up the DC power to the fans in the composting head
• Change the Oil, Oil Filters and Fuel Filters, remove sediment and water (don’t think we have any water) from the RACOR catch bowl
• Check the Port water tank for a leak. I think one of my fittings is leaking :-(
• Check the Propane tank overboard vent – I’ve not expected this since the purchase. I want to make sure its not clogged or broken
• Secure the Plumbing – All of the plumbing is working great but all the lengths of hose need to secured under the salon floor. Not hard, but time consuming since the work space is so confined

That list feels a little ambitious, but I think we can get it done. I have a bunch of pics from cutting the hole in the cabin top for the vent and I’ll take some more as I get everything installed and do a write up about the installation process.

Systems - Electrical, Systems - Entertainment Slug: installation-weekend Status: published

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.

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

As I told my neighbor at the Marina, “We can check something off the list… and add 12 more things to it!” The plumbing project is now complete!!

We started this project because were unhappy with the quality of the water which had a but of a smell to it, the look of the faucets and the LOUDNESS of the water pressure pump. We resolved all those issues, especially the pump. The old pump was so loud I was embarrassed to even used the water, the new pump is so quiet I wasn’t even sure it was working at first. I also did away with the splices connecting both the water pressure pump seen in the picture and the wash down pump in the v-berth and put in a power bar instead which will let me add things in the future.

There are some random pics on TwitPic too.

Here’s all the new pieces that went into the project:

• All plumbing hose replaced with Trident 1/2” white hose. The old hose was clear which had allowed growth within
• Jabsco Sensor Max VSD 31750 Variable speed water pump
• Added American Plumber water filter to the to the pressurized side of the system. Foot pump had filter previously.
• Galley faucet with sprayer
• Head faucet
• Blue Sea Systems 30 Amp Power Bar
• Removed faucet from v-berth
• Removed sink drain to thru hull connection in v-berth. This thru hull is still used for the anchor wash down pump. I need to add a strainer here as there is not one today.

Tomorrow we should finish up with the tile in the head and bolt down the Nature’s Head composting toilet. I’m also going to determine where the Nicro vent will be installed as well. More posts and pics on that later.

There are a lot of additions and a  major reorganization to the Pearson Upgrades page. I spent a few hours on this last night. This is one of the pages I keep going back to when I want to figure out how to attack a project on Deep Playa. Its great to have an active group of owners.

I also added some linked to the Pearson Information page for the groups I created on the social networking sites to which I belong:

• Pearson 424 Group on LinkedIn
• Pearson 424 Group on Facebook
• Pearson 424 Group on Flickr

Deep Playa has her stern tattoo completed.

Nancy the sign painter did an awesome job! She's in the back of 48 North, tell her we sent you.

One of the things we knew we had to do going into this was to repair some of the tabbing holding up the shelves in the v-berth and one of the settees in the salon. I was a little nervous having never done this myself, but the reality is that the process is really simple. The executive summary of this process is as follows:

1. Put on a respirator.
2. Grind away the loose fiberglass and remove any paint in the area you need to attach new glass.
3. Clean the are well and and then wipe it down with acetone.
4. Mix up your 2-part epoxy. I bought mine at Fiberlay here in Seattle.
5. Cut and Dry fit (no epoxy) the piece of fiberglass. You are just getting everything ready.
6. Brush epoxy onto the hull about 1/2 to 1 inch wider than the glass.
7. Lay the fiberglass down onto your wet area.
8. Brush more epoxy onto the fiberglass until it is well saturated the kind I used turned translucent when it was well covered.
9. Use a laminate roller to remove any area bubbles. Brush on more epoxy where you missed spots.
10. WAIT for it to harden.

When you reach step 10 you'll have left over epoxy. When this leftover amount starts to finalize its reaction its going to put off a LOT of heat. If its in a plastic container it may melt it. I put on my respirator and stirred it until it was hard and stopped gassing (looks like smoke). This seemed to allow it to cool down faster.

You might need to build up layers depending on the work your doing. Read a more detailed book for specifics on all of that, but its really easy and you can totally handle this job! the book I have is Sailboat Hull and Deck Repair by Don Casey.

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. :-)

We started today removing the fabric hull lining from the places where there was one. turns out this fabric was also pretty moldy on the backside. (Welcome to the Pacific NW) We're pulling it down and scraping the hull as clean as we can which is turning out to be clean in some places (nothing loose or gummy) and not so clean in others. Our desire is just to get it all to solid material (hardened glue counts, but caulk and rubber cement does not) so that we can prime it and paint it with anti-mildew bathroom paint. That was the recommendation for all the smart kids at SSCA anyway.

Project is in-progress Flickr updates nightly.

I know this isn’t 100% complete, but I attempted to create a set or categorized links to upgradesrefit projects from all the Pearson 424 owner sites I was aware of. You can see it here: https://www.deepplaya.com/page/Pearson-Upgrades.aspx

The sites I know about are (in no particular order):

• Spirit
• Black sheep
• Regina Oceani
• Oriana
• Hi Flite
• Whoosh
• Sarah
• Indulgence
• Ketch Ya Later
• Silver Heels

If you have a site or some links I’ve missed let me know I’d love to keep this page up to date. It will be a huge help to me as I start my own projects to have an organized set of reference examples, I hope it’s useful to others as well.