Rebedding, Refinishing, and Joinery

Rebedding is a priority due to leaks. The various refinishing and rennovations are less important except attention needed to protect exterior brightwork from cracking. Where wood has dried to the point where cracking is possible, teak oil can be applied immediately and sanding and oil can be applied later. The interior work is cosmetic and therefore low priority.

Rebed Mast Collar and Openning Ports and Hatches

The mast collar seems to be leaking when a driving rain pushes water under the collar. This leaks down the mast and also into the cabin near the mast. The port forward cabin openning port also leaks in a driving rain. No other ports are known to leak but the bedding compound may be decades old and they should all be rebedded. The aft chainplates also leak into the cabin. The other chainplates don't seem to leak but should be rebedded.

Leaks at the chainplates have caused the sidedeck damage that will be addressed by Richardson's Marine Services very soon. As part of that repair Kent Richardson will also be rebedding the chainplates. Kent has also been asked to rebed the mast collar, ports and hatches.

Interior Rennovation

The sink in the galley and the sink in the forward cabin vanity are both corroded. This seems to be strictly a cosmetic issue as neither currently leak. The shower fixture is cheap and looks that way. These will be upgraded to better quality plumbing fixtures.

The countertops in the galley and forward cabin are laminated (likely formica) with the scratches and fading that comes with a soft material and age. These will be replaced if possible.

Ice box replacement

The original ice box was enormous, some 16-18 cubic feet including the well for ice and melt water. A previous owner had added two very well cut 1" sheets of foam insulation effectively cutting the ice box almost in half. This left a large useful portion of the ice box with what seemed like an exceptionally deep space for ice and melt water for no apparent reason for the depth.

The ice box will have to be removed and made smaller or replaced. The ice box is likely to be inside a plywood box with foam poured in. It is also possible that foam sheets were used but these are likely glued in place. This will make it difficult to remove the existing ice box and impossible to remove it without destroying the foam insulation.

The ice box is rectangular with a sloped bottom, sloping from aft and getting deeper forward. The box width the box can be kept the same. It might be possible to make the box less deep and shorter fore and aft by cutting out sections in proportion to the slope of the bottom. If not, then the box can be made shorter and less deep and a new bottom made by reusing bottom peices but changing the slope. Worst case would be creating a two part mold and building a new box.

Removing and reinstalling the ice box would be a good time to fix the top openning so that it is less prone to leaking air. The original lids had about 1" of insulation and prior owner duct taped a few sheets of foam insulation. This provides better insulation but look bad and the lids provide a poor seal.

Galley

The current galley stove is CNG. The tank regulator is in very poor condition and should not be trusted. In the interest of not risking a boat explosion the galley stove will not be used until replaced. The plan is to replace it with a Force 10 3-Burner Gimbaled Electric Range which is slightly smaller but the only electric stove available. This will require a large inverter which is covered in the electrical web page. The extra room to the side and beneath the stove will be used for narrow cabinets for trays or flat pans such as frying pans, cookie sheets, and shallow baking pans.

The countertop above the ice box and across the companionway enterance will very likely be difficult to remove. The bungs used to hide screws may have to be drilled out to remove the fiddles before removing this countertop. This can be done at the same time that the ice box is replaced.

The galley sink can probably be removed from the bottom. Removal of the countertop supporting the galley sink will very likely require drilling out the bungs and removal of the fiddles. The sink and faucets will be replaced. The salt water foot pump and faucet will be removed and not replaced. A drinking water filter may be added with a single bar style faucet.

Forward cabin vanity and shower

The forward cabin vanity has a corroded faucet, lightly corroded sink, and laminated counter top. The shower is functional but cheap plastic. Issues with the plumbing are described in the plumbing web page.

Replacing the vanity sink and countertop may be much easier than replacing either of the galley countertop areas. The vanity counter top only has a straight fiddle on the front.

The shower fixture will be easy to remove. The replacement will have to fit the hole pattern or a plate can be made to cover the old holes and look decorative. This could be either teak or if corean countertops are used a piece of corian to match. The same corian could be used under the head to provide some needed height. The shower head is detachable but currently hung well to the back of the head compartment. It might be possible to move this forward, using a narrow horizontal teak board or piece of corian to hide the prior holes and provide towel hooks as long as the hooks are wooden or sufficiently rounded that they could not possibly cause injury.

Countertop material, sinks, and fixtures

Granite, silica, or marble countertops are beautiful. These materials are hard to cut and making many curved cuts could prove difficult and therefore expensive. In addition these materials add weight. They will be considered with granite most likely.

Another material that may be considered for countertops is corean. Corean is not as attractive as the stone products but is lighter, much easier to work with, and less costly. It is also quite easy to make little extras with with spare pieces since the material can be cut on a table saw, edges made with an ordinary router, and easily sanded. Corean is definitely a contendor for countertops.

The sinks normally sold as marine sinks are expensive and generally small. Good quality household stainless steel sinks provide better quality at comperable or lower cost. If corean countertops are used, then molded corean sinks can be used.

As with sinks, household plumbing fixtures offer a wider variety and better quality for the cost. Materials will have to be resistant to a salt air environment. Stainless steel or polished nickel could be used as these are not prone to corrosion. Quality fixtures will be used rather than low cost fixtures.

Selection of countertops, sinks, and fixtures have not been made at this time.

Galley and cabin electrical outlets

The cabin had a small number of electrical outlets with no apparent inverter. These seem to be only connected to the shore power connector via circuit panel. One cabin outlet was removed as it was too low and would be too prone to spills. There was no galley outlet. One outlet was in the vanity area. The AC wiring ran through the bilge and has been removed so no outlet is now live. A few outlets will be provided, each with a nearby small inverter to eliminate all but very short AC wiring. Nothing except a battery charger will be connected to shore power to provide a high degree of isolation from shore power. This is covered in greater detail on the electrical web page.

Bunk storage and ventillation hoses

The v-berth and pilot berth are both very wide, following the curve of the hull and narrowing at the feet. Near the shoulders these berths are wider than they need to be. The width can be reduced providing space for shallow cabinets or cubbies, perhaps 9-12" deep, though 15" might be possible in the v-berth.

There are plans to add air conditioning and heat in the forward cabin. When storage is added space can be provided for ventillation ducts to carry the cooled or heated air and distribute it in the forward cabin.

Navigation station

Navigation has changed since the navigation station was constructed. There is a greater reliance on electronics and GPS. Paper charts still provide essential backups and provide a better means of route planning due to the small viewable area of chartplotters or laptop computer screens relative to chart sizes.

To better support plotting using paper charts plotting board kit that was purchased year ago will be installed. The plotting board kit is similar to an arm style drafting machine and makes the chart table use similar to using a drafting table. Charts that are larger than the table and extend over the top of the table can be accommodated unlike a drafting machine that uses a set of tracks rather than an arm.

The plotting board kit contains a hinge that allows the protractor head to swing up. This will either be mounted on the side of the table nearest the hull or mounted on a narrow teak board that can swing outward toward the hull side of the table with the supplied hinge swinging the protractor head down onto the table. If an additional hinge is used care must be taken so choose a hinge with little or no play so as to not reduce plotting accuracy.

To improve electronic navigation from the nav station, a Garmin Axiom 7 multifunction display may be installed to provide the same visibility as the Axiom 9 at the helm and to the extent possible, also some level of control. More on this can be found on the instruments web page. Another possibility is to use an SBC running OpenCPN. This is discussed in the OpenCPN Navigation section of the DIY Monitoring web page.

Monitoring battery health will be important. Small displays will most likely driven by small single board computers (SBC) or microcontrollers. These draw little power and will be always on to archive summaries of battery state, charging, load, and summaries of information of gathered from instruments using a NMEA interface such as navigation track. More on this can be found in the General Purpose Computers and Data Aquisition section of the DIY Monitoring web page.

Archived summary information will be accessible so that it can be displayed on the larger display of a laptop computer and examined in greater detail. Audible or visual alarms may be used for such things as AIS, radar, low battery conditions and driven directly from the SBC or SBCs.

The Axion display and any small displays will likely by in the nav station area, but may be mounted above the pilot berth, behind the nav station chair or on nearby cabinetry to avoid crowding the nav station itself.

Refinish Exterior Teak

Sanding and oiling teak is labor intensive but nominal cost (if the owner does it) and may occur gradually as other work proceeds. Some of the exterior wood may be removed and sanded elsewhere. This can be done with at least the cockpit gratings. Most of the wood will require drilling out and later replacing too many bungs to make it practical to remove and sand.

Refinish Interior Teak

The interior wood is in very good condition with the exception of the cabin sole which is in good condition. The teak and holly cabin sole shows signs of decades of use and will need to be course sanded, then fine sanded and then oiled. The teak cabinets and other joinery could be simply oiled or to restore the wood to like new condition, fine sanded and then oiled. Very few knicks have been found, which is surprising given the age of the cabin.