We haven't been able to devote much time to the boat over the past two weekends because of the cold or work-related obligations. We weren't looking forward to this weekend because it is still cold. As you can see from the photo above, at the turn in the Connecticut river between Middletown and Portland, the river is completely frozen, although south of here, it is partially open.
We understand that earlier this week, the Coast Guard cutter "Bollard" came through to open the channel and they were moving right along. When they churned through the ice at that speed, it created a wake of ice across the river that snapped off five of the boatyard's pilings. They are $1,100 each, installed. Expensive week for Portland Riverside. No word from the Coast Guard about compensation.
It was 24 degree in the sun when we got to Portland and inside the boat it was an indicated 24 degrees, although it felt one hell of a lot colder inside that metal shed. In fact, it was too cold for us to get any real work done even with our electric heater on. But we weren't too cold to think.
What we are trying to accomplish
Our goal is to replace the hot and cold water lines from where they enter the boat on the port side, forward to the galley and then to the sink and toilet in the head. Part of that effort is to also replace the old hot water heater, which we have already removed.
We've been stuck on how to access the hot and cold water hoses and even more precisely, how do we free them up so that we can use the old hoses to drag in new ones? We've disconnected them at both ends but they run under the salon floor in an area that is completely inaccessible to us and they won't move when we pull on them from the engine space or from the galley.
If you step though that sliding door, you will be standing on a hatch. Today, we took that hatch up to see if we could get at the water hoses. Here they are, way out of reach, between those dusty old passive vent hoses.
That metal thing in the photo is a lifting eye for the 220 gallon aluminum fuel tank. The clearance between the top of the tank and the underside of the salon sole is about eight inches. Yes, in case you're wondering, the brain trust at Silverton Engineering put the tank in and then glassed the salon liner in over it.
As we were standing there looking down into that hatch opening, we thought of something. The fuel tank isn't right up against the hull on the port and starboard sides. There's a foot or more of clearance. There's no way to get at that space on the port side, but the starboard side has access from both the engine space and from a storage space located under the lower helm. That's were we ran the new control cables last winter. We spent lots of time fishing speaker wires, antenna lines and other stuff right down that space. So, why do we have to use the old hose routing? Why not re-route the new water hoses through that space on the starboard side?
If we knew how to insert a light bub icon, we'd put it right here.
We closed the hatch and opened the hatch under the lower steering station. Nice big space. There's even a plywood panel that you can remove to access the area next to the fuel tank. From there, the new water hoses can make a turn, pass through a hole we'll have drill to for them and then, they are behind the fridge. Lots of room back there and once the hoses make one more turn, they are under the galley sink. Perfect. We'll just cut off the ends of the old water hoses and let them stay down there where the sun doesn't shine.
The run from the galley sink to the head is trivial. Only one bulkhead and we can get to that from under the vanity. God knows, we spent lots of time there when we installed the new toilet and holding tank a couple of years ago.
OK, now we know what we are going to do. If the weather moderates a little, maybe we can get started next weekend. If you think we're a little odd enjoying this stuff so much, well, that's the way we are.
Before we left, we shot some video of the yard. Nothing exciting here but it does help us revive our old editing skills.
On Sunday, we looked up the various plastic water fittings we'd need to begin this job. Looks like the easiest way is to use 1/2" ID Polyester reinforced PVC tubing that is meant for this purpose and reacts well to our heat gun. We can make nice neat turns with 1/2" OD nylon elbows and split the cold water lines were necessary with nylon Ts. All this stuff is fairly cheap and I can order it through the boat yard and save a little more money.
We'll also need a 1/2" check valve for use at the cold water inlet of the new water heater. The one we took off the old water heater wasn't in very good shape. We found an exact replacement in the Port Supply catalog so we'll order a new this week.
While we're messing around with the plumbing under the galley sink, we also gained good access to AC unit, which has always worked fine. We did notice that the fins that cover the heat exchanger were completely covered by accumulated dust. We vacuumed all of that off so maybe the AC will cycle less often next summer.
While we were in there, we also gained access to the AC drain. Silverton's solution (or whoever installed this AC unit) was to drain the AC condensate into the bilge. During the really warm months (with Frances living on the boat), the AC produces enough water to cause the bilge pump to come on perhaps as often as once or twice a week (or maybe more).
Silverton's solution on newer boats is to route the condensate to the shower sump. Nice idea, but the shower sump on our boat is a long way forward and decidedly difficult to run anything to. We've seen some venturi fittings that can be put in the AC cooling water discharge line to suck the water out of the drain pan. We'll have to think about this issue and see how difficult it is to get to the discharge line.
Nothing is easy on a boat.
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