More plumbing

Started this week with more work to the plumbing the warm weather has not been conducive to getting a lot of work done but some progress has been made the first job was to fit the plywood platform to support the calorifier once this had been done and the calorifier secured I connected the engine cooling system to the calorifier heating coil using some half inch bore radiator hose I had previously fitted ball valves to the connections on the engine so that I could run the engine without the connection to the calorifier.

Hose connection to calorifier coil

Once the calorifier had been secured I could then connect the cold feed which is the tee below the coil connections and the hot water flow pipe which is the elbow connection on the top. The pressure relief valve, which is at the rear of the calorifier, was secured and fitted with a discharge hose which is led through the bulkhead to discharge into the engine space bilge I did it this way to keep the saloon bilge dry the engine space bilge always seems to have a drop of water in it from the hinged joint in the cockpit floor. The expansion vessel for the calorifier arrived this week and the installation will be a job for next week the aim is to install it in the space with the calorifier. Also I have been giving some thought to securing the vertical pipework up to the taps and to this end I have fitted some wooden blocks to the bulkhead in the galley under sink locker and the heads locker so as to secure the pipework with 'P' clips, as can be seen from the photograph below one more is needed in the galley locker to hold the pipework straight this one will have to be epoxied on to avoid drilling holes through the locker moulding. 

Securing hot and cold pipework

The mixer tap/shower unit for the heads also arrived this week so the first job this morning was to open up a hole in the worktop with a hole saw so that it could be fitted the shower head pulls out of the tap on a long hose when being used as a shower.

Mixer tap/shower installed

After fitting the mixer tap/shower unit I decided it was about time to go sailing and as there was a reasonable tide I set off down the creek for a couple of hours on the tide I didn't get very far as what little wind there was was coming from the direction that I wanted to go so I spent some time slowly tacking through South Deep until the wind gave up altogether then it was time to turn round and motor back up the creek. As can be seen from the photograph below of the plotter display progress was slow.

Slow progress

Sailing in the Swale

I made a bit of a pigs ear getting back in the berth but I didn't hit anything and managed to make good in the end strange as the first time I berthed the boat when coming round from Queenborough it was perfect it is amazing how it can all go pear shaped especially when you have an audience, but other than that it all went well but further trials will be conducted when there is a bit more wind.

Next week will depend on the weather but I hope to get the heads tap connected and the expansion vessel installed at sometime this will just leave the water tank/tanks to sort to complete the water system.

Plumbing

I went off on a sailing trip last week so this post will cover two short weeks work I began last week by fully securing the aft and outboard backrests in the saloon seating area they had up to now only been secured by a couple of screws, these backrests hinge down to reveal further stowage spaces behind and once this was done I cleared out all the stuff from the galley and heads under sink lockers.

Saloon backrests

Once the galley and heads under sink areas were clear I made a start on the hot and cold water plumbing I am using 15mm FloFit PE-X flexible plastic pipe, with push on fittings, a 25 metre coil from Screwfix is £16.89 much cheaper than Hep2O although unlike Hep2O it does not come off the coil straight, but it can be partially straightened, however at the price I can live with that. Another plus point the FloFit pipe is made by FloPlast in the UK in fact it is only just up the road in Sittingbourne. So far I have run the hot and cold pipework from the calorifier through to the galley and connected the taps and then on into the heads which is about as far as I can progress for the moment as I still need to source the mixer tap/shower unit.

Calorifier and domestic water pump

As can be seen in the above photograph the pipe is difficult to fully straighten. 

Pipework to heads

Pipework to galley mixer tap

The galley taps are connected but one of this weekends homework jobs is to make up a means of securing the vertical pipework to the bulkhead. I now have the materials that I require to connect the calorifier to the engine cooling system I just need to finish painting a plywood plate to support the calorifier as it has fixings for three screws and at the moment it sits on two parallel bearers I could only utilise two fixings I have cut a square plywood plate which will be screwed to the existing bearers and then all three fixings will be utilised. The other remaining issues are to install an expansion vessel to the domestic water system and decide on some water tanks, I think that I shall go for a pair of flexible tanks installed under the quarter berth just need to find something that will fit the available space.

Headlining

I had previously bought some light grey foam backed vinyl for the the heads when it arrived it was more of a blown vinyl which was not what I was really looking for however I decided to go ahead and use it. The first operation was to cover the sides of the coach roof this is only a small area although on the starboard side it meant removing the concealed lighting. Once this was complete I could fit the panel above the lockers on the port side I had made this and covered it some time ago. I had already made some new panels for the roof lining these just needed to be covered and screwed into place.

Port side

Starboard side

I have been searching through the pile of hardwood trim pieces that I have which came with the boat to try and find the original pieces for this area so far I have discovered the pieces that run fore and aft above the windows varnishing these will be this weekends homework job. I am not particularly happy with the headlining it shows every finger indentation into the foam backing clearly not memory foam but I will keep it for the time being.

I put the mainsail up for the first time today I was pleasantly surprised how easily it went up only needed the halyard winch to finally tighten it up, it came down just as easily. While the cover was off I cut down a spare batten to replace the missing lower batten.

Mainsail up for the first time

The sail itself is quite old and is a bit on the baggy side inviting some comparison with my grannies bloomers, it is probably going to need replacing in the foreseeable future but I think that it will have to do for the rest of this season possibly see what sort of offers I can get at the Southampton boat show. There is a bit of a coincidence here as my previous boat Shuda, a Bowmwn 26, was also sail number 17 although the hull number was 12.

To finish off today I re tensioned the engine alternator belt and did a bit more investigation into the electrical problem I had on launch day as previously mentioned I thought that the alternator diodes had blown but on checking it was still charging the battery so I turned my attention to the engine preheater relay but again this seems to be working correctly in fact I can find no reason for the smell of burning electrical insulation further investigation is obviously required.