Quarter Berth Destruction

I took the plunge and have torn apart the quarter berth and the ice box in preparation for relocating the head and installing a D.C. fridge.  Total time was about 10 hours over 2 days.

Original Quarter Berth 

If you look at my previous post you will see a section showing what I have planned for the cockpit seating.

QB Stripped Out

Chart Table / Ice Box

  The chart table is 42" wide which just about takes a full size chart.  Since the laptop with charting program is my primary source, I feel I can take 12" out of the width to give more space to the head.  At 30" wide, the new chart table will allow a paper chart to be folded in half as back up to the laptop.

Ice box destruction

 I originally thought I could cut the aft end of the ice box off and make it shorter to allow enough room for the head.  It turns out that idea would have been a huge amount of work.  I'm glad I decided on the DC fridge.

Fuel Line & wiring

I've been chasing diesel smells since I purchased Blackheart and have addressed a few issues with the fuel tank venting and sealing the filler plate to the tank.  I would never have guessed that the original fuel line was routed through the insulation of the ice box.  The hose had deteriorated and leaked into the insulation where it's been sitting for who knows how many years.  I hope cleaning this up will reduce the diesel smell!!!

Ice Box Removed

 The new fridge will butt up to this partition with a 30" chart table above.  The head will then fit between the fridge and the back of the cabin.

Novakool RFS 7501 Freezer / Fridge

This is the Novakool (http://www.novakool.com/index.htm) DC refrigerator I will be installing.  It is a side-by-side unit and is 7.5 cubic feet.  This should be adequate for a week on the water.

A new year and a new plan

Sanding is almost completed in the V-berth and the saloon so painting can be done when the weather is  a bit warmer.  Really not much to show in the way of pictures.

I've re-worked the design for the the head and the cockpit seats half a dozen times, and I think I'm finally satisfied.  The plan is to remove the existing chart table (with cooler below) entirely along with the quarter berth.  The head will begin at the aft end of the cabin and run forward and take up about 1' of the chart table area, leaving about 30" for a 12volt refrigerator/freezer with a flat top counter above in place of the large chart table.  This will give me enough room in the head for a stand up shower and since we have the chart plotter along with the laptop and digital charts, the paper charts can be folded in half and still fit on the counter.  Also, the chart books we have for the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound will fit nicely within the 30" counter space.
With such a narrow cabin, it's difficult to make anything work really well, but I'm sure this will be a huge improvement over the current head.

Once the head has been relocated, I'll just extend the galley counter aft to the back of the cabin.  This will give us an additional 20" of working counter space for food prep; right now there is only the 13" above the drawers that's really inadequate.

Section of port side cockpit seat

Plan of head and galley layout

Plan of cockpit 

Back to work

Can you believe it's the middle of November? How time flies when you're sail boat racing!

I crewed on a Hanse 400 for the last three events of the VARC season.  The first regatta was a bit of a bust as we only got in one race on Saturday due to lack of wind, and Sunday we blew out the main sail in the first race in 20 knots of wind and had to retire.  I was assigned to foresail trim Saturday and main trim on Sunday.  The second event was a distance race from Jerico to the Fraser river's south arm light and back, but we lost all wind just after turning for home and we had to retire. I was trimming main sail agian. The last regatta went a bit better as we completed 5 races over the two days, but finished a dismal 12th in a field of 14. I was trimming main again.  I admire the skill of these skippers who put their boats within a few feet of each other going in all directions and manage, for the most part, to avoid trading paint.

Haven't got much done on Blackheart lately and now the weather is colder and days are shorter I don't feel much in the mood to tackle sanding fiberglass.  But the work must be done so as the saying goes "suck it up princess".

I did manage to clean out the diesel tank and was happy to find there was very little water and not much crud to clean out. I pumped 27 gallons of diesel through a 30 micron filter into 5 gallon fuel cans, scrubbed out the fiberglass fuel tank with brushes, rags and solvent and then pumped the diesel back into the fuel tank through a 2 micron filter.

I also replaced the fuel pick-up from a rubber hose to a copper pipe with a 90 degree bend at the bottom which rests tight on the bottom of the tank.  I also noted that the fuel vent line did not protrude down into the tank at all so fueling would fill the tank completely to the top and overflow via the filler pipe.  The tank side of the vent fitting was threaded so I installed a 2'' pipe nipple which should cause fuel to squirt from the vent hose when the tank level is 2'' from the top.  Also previously installed a whistle in the vent line which should warn me when vent line begins to fill with fuel and prevent fuel from venting onto the teak deck.

I spent most of last weekend sanding the V-berth in preparation for painting. I still a long way to go.

Summer, Summer Everywhere

Summer finally arrived late in July. We spent our vacation sailing Blackheart every day.  Nothing like 15 days in a row of sailing to get to know a new boat.  Most days we enjoyed10 knots of wind and flat water with a few days of 15 - 20.

The only issue that popped up was a fuel pick up problem which I found was due to an exessively long fuel pick up tube which slid up the tank during an acute heeling angle and was lodged there.  There is a lot of crud in the tank, so I installed a 30 micron filter/water separator between the tank and aux fuel pump.  I'll clean the tank thoroughly this winter.

Our neices and nephews  and the neighbour's kids think it's great having a pirate ship  moored in front of the cabin flying the skull and crossbones.

Some awesome sailing the past few weekends.  Lots of positive comments from neighbours, passing boats and gas jockeys.

Finally got around to purchasing a bosun's chair and went up the mast this weekend to tidy a few things up.

- I lost a jib halyard up the mast some months ago so I fed a line weighted with 1/4" nuts over the sheive and down the mast.  This worked like a charm and I was able to thread the new halyard in.

- I also installed a tube type radar reflector at the top of the intermediate shrouds.  These were quite loose, so I hand tightened and then added two turns.  Leewards are still slightly slack in a 10 - 15 knots so I'll add another turn next time up.

- Inspected all fittings and found no problems

- Taped shoud ends

- Replaced the spinnaker uphaul line

Summer, Summer wherefore art thou Summer

So far summer in the Pacific northwest has yet to arrive. We were lucky to get sunshine last weekend and  we decided to spend it on board Blackheart.  We arrived about 10:00 a.m. and set sail for Plumper Cove on Keats Island.  With 8 knots apparent, we sailed closed hauled at 4.5 knots.  We arrived at Plumper to find all moorings taken so we motored over to Gibson's Landing for fuel and water.  First attempt at docking Blackheart went well although the current pushed the bow away before we were secure and then had to jockey a bit to bring the bow around.  After fueling we tied up to to municiple docks and went in for an ice cream.  4 hours at the dock is now $12! I know!  We had lots of positive comments on Blackheart which really makes all the hard work more rewarding.

We sailed out the "Gap" and around Popham Island before the wind died and motored back to our mooring. We spent Saturday night on board Blackheart and Sunday had very little wind so we motored over to some log booms and practiced our docking.  We took some speed readings for future reference and was quite suprised to find we make 3.5 knots at idle and 6.5 at full throttle.

Vacation begins next week so I hope summer will finally arrive and we can get two weeks of sailing in.

Splash

We launched Blackheart on Saturday, June 11, 2011.  We were hoping to make it in time for the Round Bowen Island race, but it wasn't to be. 

 As we motored up to the cabin at Williamson's Landing, we passed the race leaders on their spinnaker runs along the north shore of Bowen Island.

We're tied up at a mooring bouy in front of the cabin for the summer.

New Furler

We got some great deals at the boat show.

First we purchased a furler from Pro-Tech Yacht Services. After considering my options, I elected to purchase the Harken Mark IV unit 1.  Installation was dead simple and took about 4 hours.  Only issues were that the toggle that is required between chainplate and forestay utilizes 1/2" clevis pins. My old rig uses a 9/16" pin.  So I drill the holes in the toggle and had to make a 9/16" pin. I also had to trim the original shackle slightly so the furler would fit over.

I supported the mast with a couple of halyards and removed the tension from the backstay, pulled the clevis and shortend the turnbuckle by 1.75" to accomodate the toggle.

I fed each section of foil over the forestay and dropped the bottom end through my forehatch which allowed me to insert the joints, glue and screws at a comfortable height above the deck.