Plumbing Archives - S/V Akupara

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018

Fresh Water system continued…

Made a bit of progress today on the water system. I was able to remove the old hot water tank which actually didn’t look too bad, of course when I tipped it up, it did indeed leak so out it goes!

Of course removing the tank, which was screwed to the half rotten board you see in the picture above, led to removing the board itself of course, as well as the system of valves for the water tanks. Underneath the lovely rotting board was another fantastic mess to clean up…

We did manage to get most of the dirt and grease and grime out and will paint it nice and white when it warms up a bit.

Hidden away under the galley sole, was a very nice Whale Shower sump,

a newer Jabsco pressure water pump,

and a nice mini accumulator tank. Still LOTS of work to be done.

The list doesn’t really seem to be getting any smaller, but I did order the new electrical panel today, pretty pleased about that to be honest.

Back to Akupara tomorrow to re-bed a few deck fittings that have once again begun to leak, hopefully this will be the last time for a while.

Boat show next weekend so probably not a lot of work is going to get completed, but if we find any treasures I will be sure to post about them.

January 7, 2018January 7, 2018

Hoses, hoses and more hoses…

I had originally left all of the plumbing intact when we started this refit in order to be sure that I remembered where everything ran. Well that was a big waste of time. There was absolutely no point to that whatsoever. Lesson learned. The plumbing in Akupara was a mess to say the least. There were more tee’s and joins than a city water system. Managed to rip out the majority of it yesterday and began running the new Pex tubing. Because I bought the rolls of Pex as opposed to straight Pex tubing, it took a little longer than expected as I had to straighten and fight with it a bit but it is all in place now not including the aft head.

I think I have decided to locate the manifolds and pump underneath the galley as there is a fair amount of empty space there to work with.

Also managed to finish up some electrical work yesterday which is nice.

Engine is still in – damnit – I wish they would hurry up and get it out or perhaps I will start taking it out myself piece by piece.

The boat show is coming up fast, another 10 days, I wonder if the Admiral knows how much this show is going to cost us??? 😉

Also spent some time this morning planning out the new system.

September 4, 2016November 5, 2016

Back to sanding

As we approach the 2 year mark the Admiral is still smiling. Hmmm maybe we should buy a bigger boat?

Sometimes I wonder if we had just saved all of our dimes and nickels for all this time, we probably could have a bought a working version of Akupara by now. But then again, we would have an unknown boat with all kinds of yet to be discovered issues. At least with Akupara we will be 100% intimate with every nut bolt screw wire fixture fitting piece of wood rope material and know for sure that if and when there is an issue exactly how to fix it.

April 24, 2016

The throne.

Our first sailboat had one of those potable plastic camping toilets.

All of our other sailboats had proper marine heads but they were all compact. It would be an understatement to say they are uncomfortable.

Yesterday I purchased 2 brand new heads that are full size. Ahhh the luxury.

I have set them in place temporarily just to see how they fit until the heads have been remodelled as well.

November 22, 2015

Little by little…

Little by little we are reassembling Akupara’s interior and at the same time emptying out our basement. We are down to one more load of wood to bring back and it is all fiddly bits. There is still a plethora of drawers and things to sand on Akupara but the Admiral is getting a lot closer to having it all completed.

We have one more wooden area inside Akupara to sand and refinish and that is underneath the main salon companionway ladder, the back of the nav station and the little bit of wood in the hallway.

We are almost at the point of masking and taping it all off with dropsheets and giving the interior liner a rough sand before priming and painting it. Once that is complete we can complete all of the interior trim.

We have cut the insulation for behind the watermaker, made a new top and hatches out of 3/4 marine ply and dry fit everything.

We have also sanded and hung the dishrack/bookshelf in the main salon. Currently it is held on with little wee angle brackets which was how we originally found it. I will definitely be beefing this up for sure. I do not want a cabinet full of fine china to come crashing down 😉

We have also temporarily reinstalled the last big panel. I had to do a little bit of epoxy repair work where the fold down bar hinge attaches so the admiral will have a little more sanding before we can permanently install it. As well, I need to buy yet another sheet of teak plywood for the back of the cabinet and then build in the shelves again.

I am still working on the exact layout of the watermaker and the grumblings around the house are indicating to me that I should probably hurry up a bit. Apparently having a watermaker on the coffee table is not a good thing. I don’t really understand this because it gives me great pleasure to have it there. I can rearrange, and tweak the placement, and visually plan out the routes for the hoses and all the while I am getting more and more familiar with each piece and how the entire magic little system works and I marvel at how ingenious it is and I think about how the sailors of old would drink stagnant water from old barrels for months on end and what they would have given to have one of these little miracles, okay I get it, I will hurry up.

I think very soon we will be starting work on the galley and the heads or another way to look at it, we are down to 4 rooms left to complete. Galley, 2 heads, and last but not least, the engine room. Of course I am skipping all of the little details like electrical and plumbing, and rigging, and ok are we ever going to be done? 😉

May 2, 2015May 2, 2015

The perfect marine head?

As we slowly get closer to completing the v berth, I am beginning to turn my thoughts and research towards the foreward head.

We have been looking at many different ideas as to how to cover, change, update, repair the white plastic laminate on the walls, new taps for the sink and shower and of course now I am starting to research marine heads, or toilets, for those who don’t speak pirate.

It absolutely amazes me that there are so many choices. Manual vs electric, macerating vs not etc etc. Don’t even get me going on marine sanitation hose and the myriad of choices (read costs) there. It doesn’t seem to matter which brand we decide to go with as all of the reviews, yes people post reviews about their marine toilets, have both good and bad comments.

For those who are not in the know, marine toilets are extremely sensitive little marvels of technology. They suck water in from outside the boat through a special hole that you have drilled, at the same time as not sinking your boat. They have a bewildering network of hoses and valves and fittings and pumps and many different ways of disposing of the contents.

The major rule of law is, if you have not eaten it, it does not go in the head. The second rule of law, at least on my boat, is if you plug it, you fix it. I am adamant about this one and so far it has worked in my favor as I have yet to have to unclog any of our marine heads.

I worry about installing the right heads as, since we will be living aboard eventually, it will be subjected to a lot more use than a weekend boat and the last thing I want to do is spend my days repairing heads.

So in my search for the best of the best, most reliable, non clogging, easy to repair, simple to operate, easy to clean, quiet, non smelly marine sanitation system, I have finally found the PERFECT solution!

Now to convince the Admiral and crew!