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.