I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for so many things, the least of which is the opportunity to follow our dream of building AtLast and getting underway.
Today, just a short post about our engine. A couple years ago I posted CAI's successful installation of our engine, a 38 HP Beta Marine. This is a link to that older post: The Engine Is In
You can see that CAI has built the boat up around the engine. The stairs of the companionway descend right over it. The stairs are removable so this means we have very easy access to the engine.
CAI shows how he can access the engine for maintenance.
It is designed with all maintenance points on the front side.
Someone was thinking!
(APPLAUSE!!!!!)
Flashback to 2012
For those of you who like to see before and after, check out the photo above from 2012. CAI is standing in the same location as the engine sits now. Note the engine mounts and compare them to the photo from today.
This post is about storing propane. It seems a bit mundane but it's really important.
Propane can be very dangerous on a boat. Why? Because propane is heavier than air. If there is a leak, it will settle at the lowest point that it can, and this could be the bottom of the bilge. If there is a spark or flame, then it can cause a fire. And fire is one of the absolute worst things that can happen to your boat.
That is why the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) has specific regulations to ensure the propane is stored safely. They say that your propane locker should ....
have an air tight lid
be dedicated only for propane and fuel storage
have a bottom drain so any leaking gas will drain OUTSIDE of the boat.
'Seems pretty smart to me.
So this week, CAI cut and installed the floor of our propane locker. It is located at the very back, in the last locker on the boat.
Once he installed the floor of the locker he filled the gaps between the floor and the hull with expandable foam. The excess foam has to be trimmed away. You need to achieve a smooth, curved shape so that you can fiberglass over the seam. This makes the locker rigid and secure.
This kind of trimming task is a common task on AtLast. We have used various tools. This week CAI tried using hole saw. He said it worked great!
Sometimes it's all about the power, in this case, electrical power on the boat.
Electrical power on AtLast will be provided by a "house bank" of batteries that CAI installed in the bilge of the boat in October.
AtLast will have a seven-battery system that will supply 12V DC. There will be one starter battery rated at 90 amp-hrs and six batteries in the house bank with a capacity of 600 amp-hrs. For comparison car battery capacity is typically 35-50 amp-hrs. All together our batteries should allow us to run our electrical devices for 2-3 days without recharging.
Our batteries are flooded lead acid, deep cycle golf cart batteries. Here's why....
They are inexpensive
They can be tipped without damage when the boat heels.
They are available worldwide so we can easily replace them.
We will be careful to discharge our batteries only to 50% and then we will recharge them. This extends the life of the batteries by 4x to 6x compared to if we discharged them all the way each time. That's a HUGE difference.
Flashback to 2011:
2011: CAI is pointing down into the bilge where the future location of our batteries, water and other storage will be. Notice the jackhammer. He removed the old bulky ballast and replaced it with lead to increase storage capacity.
September 2016:
October 2016:
Each pair of batteries is easily accessed by removing two screws in the lid.
This post is about the forepeak where we have been adding stiffeners to the hull. Stiffening the hull will
make the boat more rigid and therefore stronger and quieter. I think most people can imagine continuous creaking sounds that boats make. We want to minimize that.
CAI also warns me that when the bow of a boat hits large waves the hull can ring almost like a gong. The stiffening will reduce those effects too. Fortunately storms and weather that produce big waves should be the exception, not the rule.
Flashback to 2013:
2013: In this ooooold picture of the forepeak, CAI has attached paneling onto the forward bulkhead.
He has also built and
installed the overhead beams which will support the deck/cabin top.
October 2016:
2016: In this recent picture, the forepeak is almost all enclosed.
The bulkhead and cabin top are both completed and storage compartments are built up.
But there were no stiffeners on the hull yet.
Here's an overview of the forepeak:
Last week I built the stiffeners, or ribs, on the hull sides in the forepeak. The completed installation looks like this:
New ribs or stiffeners are shown here on the starboard side of the forepeak.
Here's a summary of the construction method for the ribs:
To prep the hull I sand it and then clean it with acetone.
Then I build pillars with 4-inch blocks that CAI made.
The bottom-most block has to be shaped to match the contour of the lid of the storage compartment below.
Once everything was fitted OK, I epoxied the blocks onto the hull of the boat. It's an overnight cure.
Next I cut the fiberglass that reinforces each tower of blocks.
I cut it in batches, 3 pieces per rib, and numbered them to keep them organized.
Then I applied the fiberglass, layering 3 pieces per rib,using epoxy to adhere each piece to the hull.
I demonstrate the fiberglassing technique in the video below:
The epoxy that we use with the fiberglass will "go off" in your cup if you don't use it up quickly enough.
It gets really hot, smoking and smoldering like a little cauldron. It will melt your cup. You learn to move fast!
The next step is to add insulation in the spaces between the ribs. More on that later.
