The water hoses slink on

Well, our cozy little cabin on the boat is a mess. Running these water lines has necessitated keeping the hatch on the storage area open and that's in the way. The fridge had to be slid out and that makes it impossible to open the doors under the sink. But, the radio still works so we can listen to NPR while we work, so that's some consolation.

Saturday's accomplishments won't seem like much but we did pass a milestone. The new hot and cold water hoses are now under the galley sink. Not connected yet but they will be soon.

We began by installing the new galley faucet. That meant that we had to slide the fridge back under the counter so we could open the cabinet doors under the sink. Our arms are just long enough to reach the nuts that hold down the faucet.

We reused the adapters from the old faucet that transition from residential pipe thread to barbed 1/2-inch hose but, remembering how difficult they were to remove, we connected a 10-inch section of new 1/2-inch water hose to each one before we mounted them to the new faucet. We used our heat gun to soften the ends of those hoses, slipped them into the barbed fittings and tightened a #6 hose clamp on each one. They will never, ever come off. Those 10-inch sections of hose will allow us to install the "T" fittings on the new hoses down where we can actually see and reach it them.

Then it was time to once again pull the fridge out from under the counter so we could run the water hoses behind it and into the area under the sink. The fridge doesn't slide easily and we're pretty sure it gets heavier as the day wears on.

Again using our heat gun, we ran the two hoses along the plywood partition behind the fridge.

Even on a relatively warm day like today, that hose has a built-in curl that won't quit unless we apply some heat and even then, it isn't exactly installer-friendly.

We'd love to re-route what we have captioned the "Evil AC drain" that now dumps lots of water into the bilge during the summer. There is no under-deck access to the end of that hose and we don't know if we could fish a new length of hose from there all the way forward to the shower sump, which is where a lot of boat manufacturers put it. The plywood floor you see here is glassed in, so getting that up won't be possible.

We have a lot to do as it is, so maybe this won't get done this winter, but we'd love to fix the evil drain.