Packing List

Stolen from various places and distilled:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtA8jKNH8nVLdFhuOG5RNHloSkdTblk3ZkZ2Zm9fUUE&pli=1&hl=en_US#gid=0

washdown

Jabsco Par-Max 4.0 pump under head sink, teed off toilet intake, deck fitting by anchor. Sweet!

Pump. Out of the way, tolerable access.

Deck fitting. I was going to go with a flush-mount system, but in the end decided to stick with simplicity at the severe cost of having to twist a hose end for a couple seconds every now and then. I'll live.

tillerpilot

Raymarine 2000+ in hand - waiting on a bracket...

solar

After much arm-waving and boat-stalking and soliciting opinions of how exactly to put a usable amount of solar on a pointy double-ender, I found Custom Marine Products' solar mount. It's a really great idea, but 1) it's $800, and 2) I couldn't figure out where to put it on my boat. So, I ordered about $200 worth of junk from onlinemetals and McMaster-Carr and got out my trusty sawzall.

2 100-watt panels mounted on poles above the pushpit. These twist and swivel - here one is "up" (in back) and one "down" to catch the morning sun. (Mid-March 38*N)

125W panel on the dodger

Morningstar 45-amp MPPT charge controller. Plenty of capacity to grow.

9-ish AM. Mostly-full batteries. Backstay shadow on one 100W panel, boom shadow across dodger panel, dew on all the panels, kinda-sorta pointed sun-wise. 11.5amps. Whoa!

Table

The boat came with a very nice teak table plonked down right in the middle of everywhere and taking up way too much room.

We finally just unbolted the thing shoved it under a bed. We've tried various folding and rolling and collapsing tables, but all of them found a way to piss us off in one way or another. Dogs and babies and coffee habits and boats and shitty tables don't go so well together - who knew?!?

So, after a year or so of staring and drooling, a masterpiece emerges. It's perfect. It's wonderful. Sadly, it's also a mockup of a real table, made from $14 of Home Depot ply"wood," (can wood be that shity??) mostly cut out with my trusty sawzall. The heavy-wall stainless and teak slidy-hinge-thingee is real enough, so I just need to find wood, skills, and/or tools, replicate the table, and screw it to the hinge-thingee. If anyone knows someone in the SF Bay area who'd like to make me a real table...

The hinge is 2 pieces of 1.5" teak - crappy plantation stuff, but at least it was expensive - and 36" of heavy-wall 316 stainless tubing. The table is held on by 4-inch screws.

One bulkhead table, folded up out of the way

Folded down, folded up, slid in - it's almost entirely over the starboard setee and out of the way.

Open but not slid out, the boat is still mostly usable, although the head door won't open in this configuration.

Open and out. It's a couple inches narrower than the original table, and comfortably seats 4.

"Normal" position - easy access to head and V-berth, plenty of room for a laptop and legs. Also, I wanted to show that we really do own cushions. See the scars from the old table on the sole.

I think this is going to work well.

Also, if someone wants to buy a pedestal-mount table made out of 5/4 old-growth teak, make me an offer.

Electrical: Part - uhh, lots

Starting from the "starting battery" has always been dicey at best. So I finally sucked up and replaced the battery cables that weren't replaced during the initial electrical upgrade and - viola! I have a spare electrical system that - you know - will start the boat! I also have all new, all oversized battery cables now. No idea why I didn't just do that in the first place...

sail handling

Lazy jacks. Got em.

Slab reefing. Check.

Pictures? Crap....

Monitor Self-steering

I managed to make it through an entire Monitor installation without taking a single picture. Whatever - it's stupid-simple to install, and works like MAGIC! Pictures to follow. Eventually. Maybe.

Refrigeration

Top off. Insulation was dry and looked good. Surprising.

Liner out

And plywood liner-liner out

Original structural newsprint

.

For sale: 1 icebox liner. Small dent, will buff out easily.

Sawzall action complete.

Engel drop-in enroute.

Updates imminent. (Eventually!)

The Engel arrives, with giant thermos for scale.

Helpful instructions. Yep, that's pretty much all of it. Now we have to find something printed in Korean....

Fitting

I added anywhere from 1 to 3 inches of foil-backed blueboard insulation around the already-insulated Engel box, because why not.

The box is hanging from a composite plywood ring. There's also some aluminum angle in there to stiffen things up.

TA-DA! The trim ring is cheap pine, and I'm slowly replacing all the counter tops with cheap laminate flooring. We're sort of waiting until we get to somewhere with cheaper and more reliable labor to do something fancier, but in truth I don't mind the "poor man's yacht" look....

We also ended up with a new large locker. No idea what we're going to do with this yet.

chartplotter

I wanted to mount my new Garmin 740s where it would be usable from the cabin and the cockpit, so a swing mount made sense. My companionway is lined with hand holds, and the inner cabin wall housed the compass and a light fixture, making room tight. I couldn't find a manufactured mount that fit right, and I didn't trust the PVC option (from a recent Good Old Boat magazine) to hold up a couple thousand dollars in electronics.

I had a foot-long teak 1x4 laying around, so I bought a small teak cleat mount, a 1/2"x3" stainless bolt, a nut, and some washers.

I first notched the cleat base so it would fit over companionway trim, and beveled it so the "top" (which fases down in this application) was level. I drilled a 1/2" hole, and using my wood chisel recessed the head of the bolt and expoxied the bolt in place. The block is secured with 2 1/4"screws into the companionway frame. A stack of washers provides clearance. The GPS is mounted on the provided bail mount, installed upside-down. A pair of heavy stainless fender washers sandwich the teak "arm" to provide a bit of extra support, and a stainless lockwasher keeps everything in place. I'll probably locktite the nut once everything is settled in. I'll take it all apart and finish the wood - eventually.

Cleat base notched, beveled, and drilled

recessed bolt

mounting pilot holes drilled in companionway frame, through trim

Finished product. The internal GPS works great, even through the bracket, teak board, cabin top, and dodger!

The hinge point

Next up: Installing a transducer and my new GMR 18 radar dome.

GARMIN 200/50 KHZ 12/45 DEG. ADJUST IN-HULL TRANSDUCER mounted under the starboard setee. It's glued on with 4200 and filled with mineral oil. I could only find foo-foo scented mineral oil at my local CVS, so the boat smells like a whorehouse now.

Closeup of the transducer mount. Performance has exceeded all expectations, and I have no holes in my hull.

 I decided to pull the mast to install the radar. I really liked the idea of having the radome up and out of the way rather than on a pole in the cockpit, and I'm pretty sure the mast hadn't been off since it went on in 1982.

KKMI hooked me up with a shed to work out of the rain. They're a little expensive, but the service is spectacular. I ended up pulling the mast on a Friday evening and sticking it back in the next Monday morning. Then I slept for a couple days.

Stick-less. Ouch.

The radar is mounted on a SeaView platform below the spreaders.

I added Antal fiber mast steps while I had the mast down. One of the best things I've done to the boat.

All new wiring, including the radar wire. I spent most of the weekend trying to stuff all that shit through the mast-to-deck hose and fittings.

Ta-Da!

 

port gaskets

Rhapsody has 6 bronze opening ports, all of which came equipped with long-expired gaskets.

Crunchy rubber. This was one of the "good" ones!

I order 5/16 inch square Buna-N O-ring cord stock from McMaster-Carr.

I'll take this opportunity to just say thanks. The service was exactly what online service should be, but very rarely is. I'd done some research, figured out what I wanted, and found it online. I halfheartedly clicked the "order" button about 5PM, hoping I'd get something in the mail in a week or two. Around 9AM the very next morning my package arrived, all for a shipping charge of five dollars and thirty-three cents. So, McMaster-Carr, thank you!

I carefully cleaned out the old gaskets, tightened the screws, checked the glazing, and fitted the new gasket material into the groove. I sealed the ends with a dab of flexible super glue, and did not seal the rubber to the frames in any way. Reinstallation went as expected, although the rubber was not as flexible as I'd have hoped.

Rubber and glue

The ends of the rubber were joined on top of the portholes, where imperfections are not likely to cause leaks anyway. I used my trusty re-appropriated garden snips to trim the rubber to fit.

Prepare to snip....

Ready for reinstallation. The joint is under the cordstock/pointer, just to the right of center

Everything got a good coat of Lanacote (why not?!) and was re-installed. So far, so good....

anchor

Rhapsody came with a 35-pound CQR on a short 1/4" chain plus nylon rode, riding on a small side-mounted roller. The mounting was not particularly satisfactory because the anchor could swing into the bobstay, and was mounted off to the side of the bowsprit.

Original CQR installation on bronze roller

Anchor locker containing 250 feet of 5/8 rode, 50 feet of 1/4 chain, and a spare 250 foot 1/2 inch rode. (Plus the usual junk!)

Original deck showing bronze deck plate for anchor rode

We installed a large stainless steel roller, a manual Simpson Lawrence Seatiger windlass, and 200 feet of 5/16 HT (G4/G43) rode. The windlass was mounted on top of the bowsprit, feeding chain through an existing gap in the teak. ABS pipe was sanded, heated, and "beated" to fit the oval chain feed of the windlass and epoxied into the deck for a chainpipe.

New Manson Supreme 35-pound anchor on new rode

Seatiger windlass installed on top of bowsprit

ABS pipe used as a through-deck fitting

Chainpipe from the inside, with 200 feet of 5/16 HT chain piled under it. The line is 50 feet long and provides the ability to cut the anchor and rode free in the case of an emergency, while retaining the anchor and rode in a lesser emergency.

A piece of the ABS pipe was split and screwed to the caprail to provide chafe protection. When taut, the chain just touches the teak and stainless

Final install from the front. The anchor is lashed to the lifeline stanchion, even though it's rock-solid without the lashing. And I think this is a cool picture....

The original rode was left in place, with a hook installed on the deck pipe cover for quick and easy retrieval.

We still have to find a place to store the CQR, which will serve as a secondary or backup anchor.