Wiring

We plan on launching the boat this January or February and are at a stage in construction where there is plenty of individual projects left to do. Rather than trying to map out a rigid schedule we typically climb the ladder to the boat and work on whatever job we feel like tackling that night. I find the flexible approach to be more productive for our crew....its all got to be done before she sails so if one feels like cutting and fitting "have at it" ...if electrical is your interest break out the wire! 

Speaking of wire, we've been tackling some of that lately. I decided that the led lighting and low current draw items would be easier to run from two Blue Seas fuse boxes mounted forward rather than running everything back to the panel. I located one of the boxes in the head on the port side and the other in the V-berth hanging locker on the starboard side. The small loads for the port side run into the head fuse box and the starboard side loads run into the hanging locker. The fuse blocks are wired back to independent breakers on the main panel.

So far we have an LED two way light over the galley (shines red or white), a spot reading light for the starboard settee / berth that currently has a G4 bulb that we will swap out for an LED bulb, and a surface mounted LED light in the head that shines, red, white, or blue. The crew calls it our patriotic light.

A gold plated Cantaloupi light is mounted to the aft cabin wall above the chart table and doubles as a chart light and reading light for the port settee / berth. We installed an LED bulb in it to keep the power demands low. Its remarkable how far LED lighting has come. You can get almost every type of bulb in an LED now. Its great for retrofitting existing lights into low power drawing lights without breaking the bank.

The original plan was to use all gold plated fixtures below decks and stainless on deck thereby reducing the need to polish as the stainless and gold plating doesn't tarnish like brass and bronze.

We managed to purchase only the one gold plated fixture before reality climbed aboard and we realized we would not have enough "fun tokens" (money) to outfit her all in gold on our budget! It does look awfully nice over the chart table though, the gold sparkling in the light. Perhaps someday we will retrofit the rest......perhaps.

We found some self adhesive low profile plastic wire chases at the local Lowes hardware store and used them to run the wires in on the surface of the cabin.

While at Lowes we spotted a low profile strip of six outlets and bought it and installed it behind the port settee back. It was a bugger to install back there but its a great place for it. The A/C wiring comes out of the panel into a GFI duplex outlet above the shelf on the port side Settee. From there it goes down and into the strip of outlets then carries on through the head and into the V-berth and ends in a duplex outlet. 

The entertainment system will be wired into the strip, things that aren't usually unplugged until they fail, DVD player, Hi def TV, Bose system, etc. Their wires will be hidden and tucked up out of the way.

The two Duplex outlets will be used for laptop computers, cell phones, etc.

Installing Deck and Cabin fittings

We placed the cowl for the chain locker onto the deck and moved it around until we were satisfied with the location. As the chain locker is a self draining watertight compartment there was no need to install a dorade box under the cowl.

 A hole saw was used to cut the hole, starting on deck and cutting through about halfway then finishing the cut from under the deck drilling upwards. Cutting the hole from both sides prevents fragmenting the laminate as often happens when pushing through from one side.

Once the hole was made the Fein Multimaster was used to remove the core material between the laminate and the void was filled with a mixture of West System Epoxy and colloidal silica.

Once cured a drum sander was ran around inside the hole to clean up any epoxy spurs and ensure we had a uniform surface. The fitting was then bedded in 3M fast curing 4200.

The same method was used to cut the hole for the bulkhead compass. The notch at the bottom was cut out using a small flat blade on the Fein Multimaster tool.

In response to the comment below and request for information; here is some pictures of the blades we have used in the MultiMaster tool.

The above blade we used to remove core materiel

The above blade was used to cut the lower portion of the compass hole

 

I really like the above blade with the flat portion. You can keep the flat edge very close to a shelf (for instance) and cut the bulkhead  neatly and flush to the shelf.

We have found the scraper blade  to be very fast at removing stubborn materiel. We used it a lot when re-coring portions of the deck to remove the balsa core and also on the hatches and window frames for removing old hatch gaskets and sealants. 

The Power of the probe

Soon it will be time to hang the rudder back onto the boat.

Derek used the video scope to examine the rudder tube and ensure we left no voids or pockets that could cause problems later. Its a very useful tool and we can capture images or record video with it.

It was Derek's first time using the scope and as you can see by the picture he was suitably "wowed" by it.

The shaft and cutlass bearing is temporarily placed while we design the motor platform. 

There be tunes aboard!

With the majority of the dust making out of the way we brought the entertainment system aboard to install.

A Bose stereo system was installed and a nineteen inch Hi definition TV was mounted to the bulkhead on an articulated mount. We still have to tidy up the wiring for it all but its nice to have a high quality sound system playing while we work.

We thought it only fitting that the first movie to be shown aboard was "Yves Gelinas With Jean-de-Sud Around The World". The crew really enjoyed it and it was (and still is) played over and over while we work.

Hardware

Now that all the nonskid is down we've been busy bolting down hardware.

All the rails and stanchions are in as are the main-sheet traveler and jib and genny tracks.

We put the fore and aft hatch hinges on the buffer and polished em up and got em installed and the hatches mounted. Both hatches were reinforced with several layers of roving and bi-axial cloth to stiffen them up. Taco neoprene hatch seal was used as a gasket on the hatches and cockpit lockers. Its a hollow "D" that compresses and seals very nicely. 

Gary suggested getting the prop shop to polish the rest of the old hardware, they have a $10,000 polisher they place the props in and it shines em up nice. I liked the idea and sent the rest of the hardware to them for polishing. Should be back in two days and we will see how it looks, the old chrome was peeling and hopefully they will be restored to polished bronze again.

Cockpit

We hope to get her in the water before the big freeze hits and have been plugging away getting as much done as we can.

We masked off the cockpit and applied Pettit Easy Poxy semigloss "buff" paint. This is the same paint we used on the window frames. We decided it would not look as dirty as quickly as the white would in the cockpit.

We unmasked the area and let it cure up for a few days then re-masked it and applied KiwiGrip to the nonskid areas. When we unmasked the area we were surprised by how dark the semigloss looks next to the much lighter  nonskid, if it didn't come out of the same can as the paint we used on the window frames I'd swear it was an entirely different color!

Portlights

After Jessie had the window frames picked as clean as possible we brushed on some strong paint stripper to remove the really stubborn deposits. A medium scotch-pad  was used with a little water to scour off the last of the sealant after the stripper had gone to work on the frame.

Jerry from Perception Plastics stopped by to have a look and gave me some tips on making templates for the windows. "don't use corrugated cardboard as it makes a frilly edge that cant be followed precisely when cutting out the material,  use poster board or something like it". I had some thin sheets of stiff foam that is used for building radio controlled model aircraft that was a good material for the job so Jared and I set about making templates.

Once the templates were done and on their way to the fabrication shop we continued getting the frames ready.

They were sanded to bright metal, wiped with awlprep and primed. Two coats of Pettit semigloss Easy-poxy was sprayed on as a finish.

 A few days later Jerry delivered the finished, 3/8" thick, acrylic panes for the windows. They were cut out precisely and were a perfect fit. I wanted a light tint to help keep out some of the UV rays and keep the cabin cooler. The acrylic only came in clear or bronze and the bronze was too dark for maintaining good visibility at night so we decided to tint them ourselves. We bought a light tint from the local Napa store, cleared the lunchroom table and got to it. The literature on the box stated that the tint wold block out 50% of the UV rays. That seemed like a happy compromise, a nice light tint that would block half the UV rays but still enable us to have good visibility out the window at night.

I rough cut the tint to be a little bigger than the window panes while Jared mixed up a batch of soapy water in a spray bottle. We misted the pane with the soapy solution then applied the tint and used a plastic squeegee to chase out air bubbles and smooth it down. The edges were trimmed with a razor blade and the panes set aside to dry. 

Once dry the windows and frames were assembled without sealant to ensure everything was ok. The panes and the adjacent cabin sides were masked off to make cleaning up the caulking a little easier.  3M UV4000 sealant was used for the final assembly as it will not damage the plastic. After assembly we waited about fifteen or twenty minutes for the sealant to start to gel and then used a West Systems plastic mixing stick to remove the excess sealant. The Mixing stick has a fairly sharp edge that removes the sealant easily but wont scratch the acrylic or painted cabin side and the gelled sealant lifts right off without smearing.