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.

Leak Patrol!

Leak Patrol:  I am catching up on some older events.  We had a lot of rain about a week ago, and Marco and I found a few more leaks.  Noteworthy is a leak in the main cabin where a second of deck was cut out and not repaired properly.  I expect to revisit that in the future.

The Forward Hatch.  Found a drain hole clogged with debris, causing water to back up and flow into the V-berth.  The hatch needs to be rebuilt completely.  While the teak is good, it still seems like a good idea to make some changes to the hatch.  More on that later.

Bow Access Plate: There is an access plate in the bow that was leaking--the seal has shrunk and water was getting in and collection under the V-berth in a spot with no limber holes.  He has already sealed that up.  I plan to glass in a water tight collision bulkhead up there with an anchor locker above the waterline.  For now I just want the leaks fixed.  Later on I'll probably remove this and build a nice anchor locker and windlass mount.

The Cockpit:  With the back of the boat opened up in preparation of glassing a bulkhead cofferdam--for increased safety, we spotted several leaks around the binnacle, emergency steering port, and the binnacle guard rail. 

Marco has been busy fixing the area around the emergency steering.  It has to be done in stages because it meets the rudderhead, and I don't want to fight to get those screws back in. He has also done some work to fix the area just aft of the forward hatch.  I have him sealing that up, but I plan to cut it away and fix it properly  And that will depend on the forward hatch replacement/rebuilding.  I want that area to keep water out.

Just in front of the companionway hatch was a depression that would collect water and overflow into the boat.  Marco suggested filling that with epoxy and filler, and I asked him to angle this so that water would go forward and flow out the limber holes under the winches.

Binnacle:  Sometime ago, my binnacle mounting bolts failed and I replaced them.  I'd like to revisit that area and replace the plywood reinforcing with some new marine plywood.  I expect to have some left over from the aft bulkhead project.  I have orders a new stainless top plate from Edson, and need to check a few measurements of the binnacle before ordering a new larger double bend NavPod 1.25" guardrail, and some sort of quad-pod housing.  I'd like to install a 15" chart display, and I'm leaving room for that, but for the short term, I'm very happy with my iPad for on deck navigation, and I plan to use a Mac Mini down below for navigating.  I will need to wire in the instruments I have, fix my compass light wiring.  There will be space for a Raymarine autopilot control in the Quad housing.  While many people don't like Raymarine, I like their interface, and I plan to put a heavy duty hydraulic auto pilot in the boat next year.  It would be great if I could afford to buy all new instruments, that is neither practical nor necessary.  I would like radar also, but I can wait on that too.

The bottom line is ECHO is almost all the leak sources fixed.  There is a very small leak on one of the cockpit hatches.  I think the wind has to be blowing hard for any water to get in there, and not enough gets in to form a drop.

The mast leaks very slightly.  I think a bit of shrink wrap tape would stop it.

Hatches:  The two remaining problems are the companionway hatch and the forward hatch.  Both need to be replaced.  I need to job that out.  These hatches are made out of wood and acrylic.  My idea is to make a frame for each out of aluminum and wood or starboard with Lexan laminated in between, and corner reinforcing.  I have two pieces of acrylic I could use for the companionway, I'd rather use on piece.  In any case, I need to move this onto a higher priority.  What I'd like to do is job it out, perhaps in two phases, welding and woodwork.

Installing and Wiring in the Powered Winch

The winch body is installed here. I had to lop off the ends of two bolts for clearance on the flange.

Next the shaft coupler is installed.  You can see one stud temporarily installed in the top of the picture. The blue and red wires are for the control circuit.  I still have to run those wire.  It occurred to me that I can pull power from the heavy cable and likewise ground and put a 5 amp fuse in this circuit. I wonder if I'll need a choke to avoid power surges.  I may run the wire back to the panel but that seems unnecessary.  

I used locktite on the eight studs.  I was missing four flat washers with notches cut out.  I will have to get four more tomorrow and grind the edges to clear the flange.  I don't suppose flat washers are necessary, but I might as well be consistent.   The white thing at the top is a relay (Solinoid) to control the heavy current going into the motor gearbox.  The control wires are not yet wired in.  The motor gearbox has a pair of wires also--a thermal protection circuit which is wired in series with the switch.  There is a spacer in there too.  I could move the whole motor gearbox up 1/8" if I wanted to go to the trouble, but it does not seem to be worth my time.  I also like the idea of a little space between the motor and the deck.

Another view looking forward.  I will need to fabricate a fiberglass cover for this to keep things pretty.  I mounted the powered winch on this side to avoid head bump.  It is right over the sink and not in the way.

This shows the view from the bottom.   Those are red cables from the battery and 100 amp breaker supplying juice to the motor gearbox.  This is a windlass motor gearbox, so, of the three studs on the motor, only two are used, lift and ground.  I need to figure out which is which. 

This will make a number of jobs easier.

1.  Measurements:  Taking Measurements for replacement rigging.

2.  My Backstay:  I want to pull my backstay to fix a very poor job done Tom Anderson of Hathaway Riggers.  I hope I can re-terminate it myself. I will probably bring it back to Tom Anderson even though the job was done many years ago.  While it is true I waited too long to return it, it remains a very poor job and I may have to do a lot of rework to make it right.

3.  My Forestay:  I want to build a new forestay and install an already purchased, Harken furler.  Once that is done, I can think about a new headsail.  I will probably modify my current Genoa, but I'd also like a new Yankee for better visibility.  The option of hoisting both while sailing downwind has a certain about of appeal. Much less work and I'd only need another spinnaker pole for a tidy, non-chafing rig that would keep ECHO pointed downwind without a lot of work.

4.  Inner Forestay:  I want to replace my inner forestay and install a Harken furler on that.  I have a used furling drum and only need new extrusions and the small piece parts to install that.  I want a small self tending staysail, so once this furler is installed and I determine where and how to mount a track for this.  A self tending staysail will make tacking upwind a breeze for one person. 

5.  Jumper Stay:  I seem to have lost the small wire cable that connects my Highfield Lever to the bow of my boat.  It is a short cable, and I might as well practice on that before working on the other stays.

Power Winch

This shows some detail on the power winch modification.  I am using what turned out to be a windlass motor/gearbox.  To mate it up, I needed this coupler (dark piece at bottom), a spacer, not shown, and the light gray flange (between the bronze mount and the coupler) had to be drilled and tapped on a wider spacing.  That is all done and ready to mount.  The winch is installed but some fiberglass work needs to be done to seal off the mounting area. After that I can install the motor-gearbox, contactor relay, deck switch, 100 A breaker, and run the heavy cables to serve it.

Bilge Pumps Complete

I am back from a trip to the west coast.

After completely removing and re-wiring my bilge pumps I was stunned to find them not working properly.  Well, I've fixed everything. It turned out there were two bad circuit breakers, and I also discovered that when power is applied, to the automatic circuits, the pumps run for 6-8 seconds.  I was scratching my head wondering why they came on in an empty bilge.

So--both pumps are mounted, set on automatic, and I have two independent circuits for manual operation.  I can trust my pumps are working--for the time being.  I still would like to update these in the future to a smaller lower pump to remove more water, and a higher volume non-submersible pump, and a also an engine driven high volume pump.