Hauled Out for the Winter

ECHO is now hauled out at a marina on the Connecticut River.  This location is close to my cabinet maker friend.  I like this place. Their prices are cheap and they are friendly.  Not the typical marina where the whole staff treats you like dirt and never responds. These people are nice!

ECHO is hauled out next to Ada Belle II and Ron and I built a platform between the two boats, a staircase up to the platform.  I use a saw horse and a box for steps up to my boat.  Under the platform is a workbench and an electrical distribution box, below that is another shelf off the ground.  I may shrink wrap around this area to keep it somewhat protected.  I also plan to put in a small flood lamp over the workbench.

Much of ECHO is unloaded and stored at home.  A few more things need to come off the boat.  Both boats will be shrunk wrapped this year and I'll need a zipper doorway to load things inside.

This is an update to this post showing the frame put together to provide some headroom inside.  

That is Echo behind the maroon Mercedes.  Marco is working on Ada Belle.  Three of us worked on the two boats.  We spent part of a day building frames and installing strapping to support the shrink wrap, and a day (4-5 hours) on each boat.

 Inside view.  I used a boom from another boat--the smaller one on the right.  It was not needed as I was given some PVC which made a nicer arc.  I will probably remove that and take it home.

Here is ECHO looking pretty dry and tight.  There are a few small gaps at that I will try to tape up, but I don't expect much water to be able to get in.

I have a nice piece of marine plywood for the aft bulkhead I'm installing.  I'll need to measure carefully before installing it, to be sure I can fit it in the boat and secure it to the boat and steering supports.  That will be the next major project on ECHO.  Once complete I can order a 100 gallon fuel tank and install it.

Thoughts on Aft Fuel Tanks

I like range.  And I know installing my main fuel tank will be a tight fit though the main hatch.  So as I reported earlier, I installed a temporary tank.  While crawling around inside the lazarette working on the binnacle, and scoping out a future auto-pilot installation, I found myself in the usual situation of sliding down into the bilge.  I have always wanted a flat platform in there but did not want to waste the space.  It suddenly occurred to me this would be an idea location for two fuel tanks. 

In the past there were two triangular boards to contain all the items stored in the lazarette.  While I still want to contain things, a flat platform makes sense, so why not use the space underneath for fuel storage.  It would not be difficult to build two tanks on port and starboard for this purpose.  And since these would be the first tanks, I'd use motoring, once empty they would provide some floatation if this compartment flooded.

I recently received a marine plywood shipment.  This piece of plywood will be a bulkhead cofferdam to isolate the steering compartment from the middle of the boat.  If my steering fails or another boat crashes into the back of my boat, I will be able to survive.

I also plan to install a watertight compartment forward above the waterline, which will be my forward collision bulkhead, with some of this scrap material.

The only question would be the dimensions.  I need enough space to work in there, so two smaller tanks might be appropriate.  I also have to leave space for an autopilot ram on the port side.  I also want to build these so they can be removed easily.

The last question would be how to plumb them in?  I could gravity feed them into my main tank as it gets depleted, or burn off the fuel straight from these tanks.  The issue is complicated by the fact that I must consider what to do with the return fuel lines. It would be too easy to mess this up and have fuel pumping out of the breath hoses and making a mess.  I'd like to make this as idiot proof as possible. 

Finally, I'd like to reuse my temporary 23 gallon tank for either gasoline when in the islands, or diesel when on a longer voyage.  If I had a bladder tank in the cockpit, I could carry 413 gallons of fuel on ocean voyages.  That would give me a range under power of nearly 2500 miles.  That 23 gallon tank could fit nicely on top of one of the aft saddle tanks, be accessible on top of it, and serve dual purposes.

Did you know that a gallon of fuel will make way more than a gallon of fresh water?  It is less weight to carry diesel fuel than water.

Why would I need that much fuel? It is about 5160 miles from the Virgin Islands to the Greek Islands.  Figuring an average of 150 miles a day, I'd need to maintain an average speed of around 6 knots to travel that far in at least 34 days of sailing time--it will be more than that plus time for layovers and side trips.  And it is at least 34 days sail back the other way.  It is important to keep my speed up to cover that distance in a reasonable amount of sailing time.  The longest leg, Bermuda to the Azores could also have a fair amount of light winds and against the wind sailing.  Lots of people run out of fuel making that passage.  I could motor that whole way, and in fact I could motor the entire trip if I refueled along the way.  So there would be no worries about running out of fuel. I could also refuel in places where fuel was cheap like Morroco.

Another reason to carry that much fuel is to run generators--I don't plan to, I like wind and photovoltaic.  I am very interested in heat.  I like colder weather sailing, and this amount of fuel would keep me warm an entire winter.  I like that very much.

At some point I want to sail to the South Pacific.  The longest leg between the Galapagos Islands and the Marquesas is nearly 2900 miles.  Many people complain that they should have brought more light air sails and should not have started the motor until their speeds were under 3 knots.  If I could motor most of this trip, I could do it in 20 days instead of the typical 40 days. Chances are I could motor sail also and have fuel left over when I got there. 

The theme of all this is you can't have too much fuel.  You will eventually use it, it can save you many days of voyaging, help you avoid storms, keep  you warm in cold climate, make power, and make water out of sea water.  While I love to sail.  I also love to get where I want to go in a timely manner with comfort.

Cabin Sole, Forward Hatch and Binnacle

Cabin Sole:  I have Marco busy tearing up the cabin sole to repair a couple of spots where there is core de-lamination.  It should take a few days to do that, and all this is on hold because of the hurricane coming towards us.

Forward Hatch:  Instead we are focusing on finishing the forward hatch. I have new plexiglass to pick up tomorrow.  The old wood will need to be epoxied, new angle brackets attached, and all gaps filled with filler.  I also want to add a rubber strip on the back edge to prevent water intrusion.  Right now with the back of the boat stripped out, ECHO is bow heavy and water has been pooling behind this hatch.  That area had been repaired once, and poorly. I had Marco fix that, so my decks are even uglier which after all the other work on the deck, of course they will have to be completely repainted in the spring to bring them back to perfect.

Binnacle:  Well some things seem to come together well.  I was lucky enough to get the new Pedestal Guard in.  This one is 1.25" in diameter instead of the original 1"--leaving more room for wires.  I have a beautiful stainless steel Edson Top Plate.  I rushed out to buy some more epoxy primer so he could get started on priming the binnacle, so it can be painted tomorrow.  Still to do is replace the plywood backing under the cockpit sole.  These are more in the nature of alignment shims for the quadrant cables. That should be easy enough to do.  My only hangup to getting this work finished are the four flathead bolts used to secure the binnacle to the cockpit sole and quadrant sheaves.  I have them on order, and it will be a few days.  If I'm lucky I can get it installed the day before the hurricane hits--that will seal up that hole--which is the last area on ECHO that needs to be sealed up!

And this will be one of the few things needed to be completed before moving ECHO to Portland, CT for the winter where it gets it's new interior.

New Bow Pulpit

My friend Carlton, helped me out by coming over and repairing my bow pulpit and fashioning new mounts for my running lights.  I still need to attach pig tail wires, fish them though the stainless tubing, drill holes in the deck for them, and run the wire from the main panel.  That should be easy.

 

Instead of hardware eyelets, the lifelines will be attached to welded on eyelets.  The two forward supports are new, as are the stanchion bases.  On the left side is HOOT repositioned to provide a work platform.  Unfortunately, Marco managed to get epoxy spray paint on one of HOOT's new compass lenses.  I hope I can clean that off.  I will have to replace the lens otherwise.

Temporary Fuel Tank & Thoughts on Range Under Power

I installed a temporary 23 gallon  fuel tank yesterday and added some fuel and primed the lines.  The motor started up fine and ran without a bump or stumble.

I drawn plans and have an estimate to build a permanent 110 gallon aluminum tank from a New Jersey fuel tank builder.  First, I'd like to make a mockup of the tank to be sure it fits, to locate flanges for mounting it, and also to be sure I can get it through the front hatch and hallway.  I will need three bilge pump bulkhead fittings  and one exhaust hose fittings to pass these hosed though the cofferdam I am building.

I hope to get the cofferdam installed next week. The marine plywood I ordered should be in on Monday.  Once that goes in I can build and test fit the fuel tank mockup and then order that tank. It will be close to 110 gallons and give me a range of around 660 miles at 3/4 throttle.  That is enough to motor to Halifax and almost as far as Bermuda.  These numbers are just estimate.  I'll have a better idea of how it does after I motor around an burn off a tank.

I still need to decide if I want to put two more fuel tanks in where the old tanks were.  That would give in an additional 60 gallons per side, for a total of 230 gallons and a serious range of about 1380 miles--enough to motor through the doldrums, and nearly enough to motor to the Caribbean.

I plan to be sailing not motoring, but if I find myself short handed, it would be nice to be able to motor to make better time. Fuel can be used to make power, fresh water, or heat as well as propulsion.

What to do about the 23 gallon temporary tank I just installed after the primary tank is installed?  I'm wondering if I can mount it in aft in the transom area to use as additional diesel storage for long trips and as a gasoline supply for an outboard when inshore.  23 gallons would last a long time if only used for an outboard.  For an ocean voyage, the extra 23 gallons if used for diesel would boost my range 136 miles up to a total range of 1518 miles.  Bermuda to the Azores is 1900 miles. The Azores to Lisbon is another 835 miles.  So an Atlantic crossing following this path is 3240 miles.  It starts to seem more interesting to have extra fuel when talking about very long passages.  Now consider going the rest of the way to Greece?  I'll guess that is another 2000 miles.  So round trip that would be well over 10,000 miles plus time spent sailing around the Greek Islands.  Yes, I want as much range as I can, and I'd like to be able to carry a bladder tank in the cockpit holding another 100 gallons and be able to carry 353 gallons.  Even that would only give me a range of 2118 miles.  It is much better to build this in easily than it is to hang a  dozen jerry cans off the back of the boat, like many cruisers do. 

Compare these numbers to the typical 40 gallons tank on a sailboat that has a range of 240 miles. If your boat never leaves home waters, you will top up once a year.  But if you plan on ocean voyaging and want to keep to a schedule and cover much longer distances with little or no wind, a big tank is a nice thing to have.  It means you can boost your speed by motor-sailing, and get ahead of a storm, or maneuver into the safe quadrant, or get out of the worse of it.  If dis-masted a boat with plenty of fuel could motor to the nearest port of continue on.  For a boat the size of ECHO, the extra weight in small compared to the size of the boat.  One ton, 2000 lbs will drop the waterline just under an inch.

Coffee Grinder Rebuild

My huge Barient two speed coffee grinder has been primed for some time.  I tasked Marco with disassembling it and gave him a bucket of diesel fuel to clean the chain gears and assorted parts.  He put much of it together today.  One of the bearing in the top part was frozen up.  I took this part to the parts store to order a pair of new bearings, races, and seals.  When I got back I took a close look at the bearing that Marco didn't pull and decided I did not like the way it looked, although it might hold together a while, the ball bearings looked pitted.  I don't think this is a high load bearing, but I'm going to replace it anyway.  A few  spots on the ring and pinion gears have chips missing on the edges, but nothing significant enough to warrant making new gears. 

Here are some pictures of the bottom part of the Coffee Grinder.  It cleaned up well and I'm especially pleased with how well the chain cleaned up. 

Road Blocks

One thing is clear. Working on boats is a series of setbacks.  Take two steps backwards to take one step forwards.  Space is limited so often one step backwards, is just cleaning up. Today I plan to remove lots of stuff off of ECHO and to do that I need to clean out my garage some, and make a trip to the dump.  There are three steps backwards.  Here is the forth.  My motor gearbox is not working.  While I bench tested it, it is not working.  Either there is some interference on the inside or else, their is an electrical problem in the motor gearbox.  I have to remove it to test it and find out.  I hope I don't have to replace it.  The motor is a sealed unit and it could mean buying another one.  I did a quick check online, and the prices seem to be around $900.

What else?  My bilge pumps do not seem to be working on automatic.  I may have to pull both of these again.  At least I now have a system to pull them in less than an hour of work.  They are still working manually.  And one of the two might be working on automatic.  I need to do some testing to be sure.  I will run the hose into the bilge to fill it up and test it out.