Into the bilge

The bilge isn't a pretty place. On our boat, it's a giant step down from the deck into the space between the engines, both of which face aft because the boat has v-drives. Our goal was to make some simple covers for the space between the stringers. That would enable us to step down onto something solid when we had to do engine maintenance and also provide a place to store oil and other stuff underneath. Without these covers to step on, it's a long way down there.

We arrived at the marina just after the Middletown power plant explosion and saw the emergency equipment racing down the road across the river. We had no idea what had happened and went into the bilge to make one final measurement of the distance between the stringers. "Measure thrice and cut once" is Frances' advice and in this case, it was worth doing.

The covers certainly weren't difficult to make out of what today passes for 3/4" plywood. We primed them and then painted them with two coats of Benjamin Moore house paint, which we had on hand. In the past we've found that good quality house paint is really tough and can take abuse.

 

 

Our lifting handles are stainless U-bolts held in place by stainless stop-nuts. That's what Silverton used on the engine hatches so they should work for the stringer covers.

Here's what the new covers look like installed.

Now that we have something to stand or kneel on between the engines, we'll figure out how to make a cover for the area over the batteries that is just forward of that.  Exhibiting typical Silverton design excellence, the four batteries are simply sitting between the engine stringers in a compartment that very roughly holds them in place. From what I remember, marine batteries are supposed to be held in place and covered in a way that will vent battery gas. What we have now is pretty sloppy.

How about all those red battery cables? Luckily, I know where they all go. It would be nice if the ground cables were black but for now, we'll have to make do with what we have.

This area will also have to be covered so that we can crawl up there between the engines to service the transmissions and v-drives.  Crawling over batteries is very hard on the knees and can expose you to battery acid, which will quickly burn a hole in your shorts. We'll have to add partitions to that space to hold the batteries in place and also re-route some of of that primary wiring before we can fabricate a cover.

This is going to be a lot of work but, that's what we like. It's also one of those improvements that no one will ever see but we like to know that things have been done right.