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February 8, 2012: Applied a second coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish to the two pieces of floorboard for the aft head. There was definitely some form of contamination in the previous coat which resulted in significantly more fish eyes than normal for a first coat of rubbed effect. I sanded out the first coat with 320 paper and then came back and worked each of the fish eyes individually. The next coat of rubbed effect varnish looked much better going on. By the third coat we should be free sanding and be able to quickly apply additional coats. Working the fish eyes probably doubles the amount of time to prep and apply varnish. This took about 90 minutes to do both boards with most of the time in the prep.

February 6, 2012: The third coat of gloss varnish came out very nicely on the floors in the aft stateroom bathroom. Moving on to rubbed effect varnish and applied first coat. I sanded out the gloss varnish with 220 paper and then had to go to work, I applied the varnish in the evening having stood the boards up with the faces pointed down and when I returned used a tack cloth to wipe the surfaces. The result was more significant fish eyes than I would have expected for the first coat of rubbed effect varnish. At this point they look like the "soft" variety of fish eye which are easy to sand out and generally go away within a couple of coats but dissapointing. Not sure if it was a problem of an older can of rubbed effect varnish, contamination of the sanded surface due to waiting 12 hours, contaminated tack cloth, or (hummm) a contaminated brush... I am using relatively good throw away brushes for the lower coats and the plastic cover was already off the brush when I started cleaning it up (pulling out the loose bristles and fanning out the dust). At any rate, less than one more coat of varnish in the old can and four coats to go. I am sure these will work out fine. Next are the three boards in the aft stateroom.

February 4-5, 2012: The floorboards in the aft head had their third coat of gloss varnish applied. This coat looks good enough to convert to rubbed effect varnish. Continued to work on finishing the aft shower stall, re-installing the teak trim, sealing the edges, routing and planning the shower head installation. It looks like there may be a nice way to recess a flat shower head like a home into the ceiling and provide a very nice vertical shower with less spray and provide a wand for low water use. While working on the fridge drain I discovered standing water in an unaccessable area under the fridge. Luckily this is an Oyster, the fridge was designed so that if there were leaks it would not remain in the foam and that if there were leaks an area under the fridge would catch the water and eventually evaporate. However, there was no easy way to install a limber hole. I am going to provide access from the aft stateroom hanging locker under the teak floor. Probably use 1" thin wall PVC pipe so that I can insert a piece of flexible half in tubing into the hole and vacuum out any accumulated moisture. Should not happen if the fridge is working correctly but like the area under the toilet it is important to be able to check from time to time.

January 29, 2012: The sink drain and shower drains are now fully operational, the toilet inlet line has been re-routed to be in it's final configuration with a shut off valve in the line. Completed removing the damp wood in the freezer freezer. The bottom and inboard face have had the wood completely removed. Also removed the drain from the bottom. I prefer to not have a drain in the bottom of the fridge or freezer, too much heat is lost down the tube and if you dump over milk in the fridge/freezer the mess in the bilge is HORRIBLE. The fridge still has a drain but being that I have access I may go ahead and remove it and plug up the hole. Then I am going to add an extra two inches of foam insulation to the base of the fridge and freezer. They currently have about 4" of brown foam. Luckily, unlike LBB, the foam was basically dry. I am hanging four desicant bags in the freezer and two in the fridge to make sure everything is dry before I start the repair. This is somewhat temporary as I will eventually replace the holding plate system with a constant cycling evaporator system and will most likely do this when I replace the countertops so I can start from scratch. So, this is a band-aid for a few years until I get around to that upgrade.

January 28, 2012: Both of the pumps for the aft head were able to fit under the floorboards in the head. The plumbing got a bit complicated down there to have it all fit and still be able to close the seacock either rotation direction. I guess I could have given up on one rotation or the other but the dark of the night I would really not have to think to hard about which way to turn the valve. The Whale Grey IC appears to have a different profile on the intelegent control, it tends to tun on and stay on for longer rather than cycling on and like the manifold pumps tend to do. Might just be my imagination too. I now have four of these pumps installed, I will probably end up with one near the mast to deal with rainwater coming down the mast and pick up the condensate water from the forward air conditioner, another one for the aft air conditioner condensate and perhaps the dehumidifier I will put where the washer/dryer was originally installed, then one or two of the bilge pump models. So perhaps four more of these pumps for a total of 8. By design these pumps all use the same pump head with different manifolds and so the ones for the air conditioners are spares in case one of the other pumps fails. 

January 26, 2012: And now both floorboards are ready for their second coat of gloss varnish. At minimum I will apply three coats of gloss varnish and five coats of rubbed effect varnish like the other floorboards. The important decision is how many coats of gloss varnish, I keep applying coats until I get very clean sanding without any fish eyes and then apply at least one more coat of gloss varnish. Then the rubbed effect varnish goes on very easily and is easy to sand. (1.5hr)

January 25, 2012: Now the second of the two floorboards was prepped and a first coat of gloss varnish (2hr)

January 24, 2012: Carefully prepped the first of two floorboards in the aft head. These will be exposed to wet feet after the shower is functioning and I don't want any dings in the wood resulting in water intrusion and discoloration. The first coat of gloss varnish went on very nicely. I am currently using single edge razor blades as scrapers to take down the old varnish. The level of dust is almost nothing and the result is a very smooth surface which is pulled down very evenly if the number of passes scraping is kept very even across the surface. (2hr)

January 23, 2012: It rained very hard all day today. In the evening I looked everywhere for indications of deck leaks and could not find any. 

January 21-22, 2012: The aft head is up and working! The new installation looks beautiful. The salt water feed side is not yet installed but otherwise the computer controlled toilet is performing as desired and the run to the holding tank seems to not be an issue (about 30 feet horizontally). The sink and shower drains are both being upgraded with Whale IC series pumps. The shower stall is getting a Whale Gully IC which screwed nicely onto the bottom of the existing fitting of the shower drain. A Whale Grey IC is being installed in the drain for the sink and the vent side of the manifold will be installed such that either a pan under the washer/dryer or a dehumidifier will also be drained by the same pump.   

January 14-15, 2012: Worked on installation of the aft head, platform for head to sit on is complete, the backstop for the toilet is installed, teak trim pieces have been cut and installed. Toilet now bolts down cleanly, the connection to the fresh water system has been created, replacement shut off valves have be installed in the lines running back to the washing machine. A good solid weekend of boat maintenance. 

January 8, 2012: Back from French Polynesia, pushed large update to web site with updates for the recent things I have been working on during 2011.

December 16, 2011: Trying a different kind of cruising, boarded the Regatta (Oceana Line) for a repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Papette via Hawaii and Christmas. I definitely need a bit of time at sea and the price was right so why not! The first day out we are definitely getting a bit of motion. It is hard to guess the sea state from higher up than I am used to but I would guess 8 foot seas with about 15 second period. Winds look to be in the 14 - 18 knot range. The second day at sea was glassy flat with a mild swell. Saw a whale spout from the aft dining deck at breakfast.

October/November 2011: The remodel of the aft head compartment has been the largest part of the work although a distraction of pulling the battery bank out to get access to the aft holding tank under the salon floor proved to take about 4 weekends! What started out as a simple task of replacing all of the hose to the holding tank (which is under 400lbs of golf cart batteries) turned into quite the project when I dropped a hose clamp into the bilge under the tank and could not retrieve it. In the end the tabbing holding the support holding the tank down had to be cut to remove the tank. In the end it was a good thing as the removal allowed cleaning the bilges completely and correcting some compromises of maintenance performed over the years.

Reinstallation of the battery bank allowed some time for re-wiring of the main battery bank. Dedicated 100 amp fuses were used in each of the two 24V strings. The size of the fuses were determined by the 1/0 wire from the batteries up to the main cutoff switch about 18" away. The fuses are internal to the battery box like those of the main engine and generator starting batteries.

The intention is to eventually enlarge the size of the wire on the main bank to to a large inverter which will need much larger cables and fuses.

While working on the installation of the new aft toilet I took to aggressively looking for the source of a small amount of water which shows up in the aft bilges from time to time. In the end it turned out to be a combination of a fresh water system leak and two areas which do not have limber holes and also are not easily accessable. The first of these was under the platform that the toilet is installed on. I was not sure if I could get into the area without damaging anything and so drilled into the compartment from under the shower seat to ensure the hoses could be routed. In the end I found that the moisture accumulated under the toilet had caused some deterioration of the mahogany plywood which the toilet sits and so after removing the Formica was able to remove the 6 screws which hold the plywood in place and remove it. The area was dry but had a significant amount of dried cleaning products (a couple of hand fulls). I have remade the sub floor and provided better support to avoid flexure. Additionally the toilet can now sit further back against the bulkhead which makes for a better installation. Fortunately, all of the permanant structure was well sealed with gelcoat and no other deterioration was found. I have not decided if I am going to cut air vents from the front to provide fresh air or provide a small tube for drainage perhaps using a vacuum cleaner,

The other area which did not have a limber hole and had no access was under the aft shower pan. The hose for the shower drain had come loose and was leaking so I tried taking as much fo the teak trim off as possible in hopes of pulling the pan up. Unfortunately I later determined that the pan is sealed into place and was not easily removed. After drilling a couple of small pilot holes I found that there was support structure under the edges and the corners which would have had structural implications I decided to use a hole saw to install an access port in the sloping part of the shower pan. This provided access to the underside of the pan and inspection in the future. There was definitely an accumulation of water under the shower stall most likely from the shower stall drain leak and the occasional fresh water leaks into the sump behind the shower stall. Like the other areas, use of teak structures, high quality plywood, and coating everything with gelcoat has avoided deterioration of the permanant structures. 

The plan is to install a new gulper Gully IC shower pump for the shower and a gulper IC two port manifold for the sink drain.

September 23: The second Raritan Marine Elegance Toilet ( Model #220HS024 ) arrived at my local West Marine store. Planning on getting it bolted down this weekend even if not hooked up to start building the new cabinetry and installing the electronics, pumps, and other parts required.

I also need to finish pulling up the shower pan to get access to the drain and either use the gulper for shower drains or use the same type as in the forward head and galley.

September 17 - September 18, 2011: Commodores Cruise! The trip over was mostly a motor sail with light winds on the nose. The return trip was almost all sailing. Hoped to see blue whales but none were to be found. Dinner at the cove was spectacular with fish and chicken grilled to perfection.

Tom and I managed to get the washer / dryer out of it's locker and out of the aft head. It will come out of the head without too much trouble if the head door is removed and all of the towel racks. Once the washer / dryer was on the aft bunk I setup a lifting harness using the boom to lift it out of the boat. The installed unit is 230V and 50 cycle. Thus far I have not found any washer / dryer which is not frequency sensitive. Most likely I will be shifting the generator to 60 cycles and replace the two sensitive pieces of electronics (i.e. the washer / dryer and the microwave). Removing the washer / dryer gives access to all of the head plumbing and so I am now working on replacing and replumbing the aft head.

Pulling the aft head and the removeable cabinetry shows that there should be room for an identical toilet to the forward head (Raritan Marine Elegance with Smartflush). By using an identical toilet in the forward and aft heads will aliviate most of the concerns of only having electric toilets. The first installation has been running well for about 6 months without any problems at all. Having two identical units results in having a second unit to cobble parts from if both were to have independent failures and the ability to carry some specific parts.

The the forward head installation the 26 gallon holding tank can handle 23 "full" flush cycles or 43 "saver" flush cycles before being relatively full (still probably 10% room).

Started removing the teak bungs in the aft shower sump to get access to the shower drain which I can't get access to any other way and is leaking (i.e. the source of the water I have been hunting ). About half of the bungs are out at this point.

September 2 - September 5, 2011: Labor Day Cruise! Had a nice ride over to the island and even saw a blue whale pass close behind Botany Bay!

Coming home from Cruise week I noticed that the extrusion in the mast for the in mast furler did not look right and on closer inspection was offset by about 30 degrees from what it should have been. This most likely explains why the furling gear has not been operating as smoothly as it has before. Troy hauled me up the rig with the mainsail off the furler when I got back to the slip and determined that the extrusion was not twisted, however, something did not feel right.I found that a screw had come out at the bottom of the extrusion where it goes into the mandrel which results in the extrusion being held down only by the clamping action of the other 4 screws. Over time the extrusion had lifted and then settled  back in the wrong position. By losening the turnbuckle below the extrusion I was able to get everything back into place. However, the system did not feel quite right so I loosened the turnbuckle until the hardware was flopping around a bit, then with a good shake the bearing set at the top of the mast settled back correctly (I think), and the system turned completely smoothly again. The missing screw is 1/4 x 20, countersunk, 1/2 inch long. Don't use too long of a screw or risk hitting the piece of rod rigging inside of the extrusion.

August 12 - August 14, 2011: End of Cruise Week!

July 1 - July 4, 2011: 4th of July at the Cove!

Two more small pieces of cabin sole needed to be varnished quickly. The two pieces which make up the steps down to the galley get more wear than much of the other pieces due to how you turn going down. The varnish was becoming very thin and I was concerned about moisture getting into the wood. These currently have 3 coats of gloss varnish and 3 coats of rubbed effect varnish. These two pieces need at least two more coats of rubbed effect varnish when I have time. 

Much of the rest of the sole will need to be completed this winter to prevent damage caused by the varnish getting too thin. There are 6 floorboards forward of the saloon to do, all of these are pretty good size. There are 10 floorboards aft of the saloon to do of which one is very small but the rest are all pretty good size.

In the saloon there is one remaining floorboard to finish, the one under the saloon table. This will require taking the table off and the pedistal to make sure the part which goes under the table gets a good coat.

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