Keeping it warm, cool, dry, quiet - The benefits of insulation

No one wants to be cold and wet on a boat. I mean the whole idea is to go somewhere warm and wonderful, right? And if it's not warm outside, then the boat should be a cozy and welcoming retreat.

But boats get wet inside.  Clearly water can come in from bad weather and waves. But damp air also condenses on the cooler hull and deck.  And when things don't dry out it leads to mold and "boat smell" not to mention related health implications. 

This post is about how we are insulating the boat to mitigate these problems.  Another benefit is.....it's quieter.  :-)

Most production boats aren't insulated or the insulation is minimal.  The cabins are often built with a core construction - that's balsa wood with fiberglass on both sides. The insulating value is modest and when the fiberglass cracks (from some unanticipated impact) then water can get it.  It probably won't dry out and then the balsa wood rots and potentially molds.  Even without cracks and penetrating water, non-insulated walls are vulnerable to condensation and the resulting dampness.

AtLast won't have any core construction.  AtLast is solid fiberglass construction with wood framing.  The wood is sealed with penetrating epoxy or painted with anti-mold bilge coat.  And in many cases we are using black locust wood, a hard wood that is rot resistant. 

The fiberglass and wood structure doesn't insulate so we are insulating the hull and cabin. This should produce a strong boat that is warm, drier, and resistant to rot and mold.  Once we are in the tropics, the insulation will help keep the cabin cooler.

So what are we using for insulation? 

It's Armaflex, a dense rubber elastomer based material with special qualities:

• it's closed cell foam, so it doesn't absorb water
• it's anti-mold
• it's non-toxic if burned
• it dampens noise
• it doesn't break down over time
• it's easy to cut and flexible so if fits easily into odd spaces.
• it's light weight
• it's not cheap at $5 per square foot.

We are insulating all around the boat above water line.   Anything below waterline, however, will not be insulated.  The reason is that it is important to be able to inspect for damage that could affect the integrity of the hull.  All of the below-water surfaces are painted with bilge coat and should be relatively easy to clean.

Before and after:  Adding insulation to the forepeak. 
The vertical rails are hull stiffeners.

The insulation can be cut by scissors or I use a band saw. 
It conforms into spaces under the deck as well as on the sides of the hull.

Here, insulation is being installed above the starboard settee onto the hull side. 

After installing the insulation, I attach varnished slats over it.  This protects the insulation and it will look great! There will be little gaps between the slats for air circulation.  You can see here that I painted the stiffeners black.  I did this so they will be less visible through the air gaps.

Here are some varnished slats ready for installation in another cabinet. 

The varnished slats are ready to be installed in the picture above.  They will be installed like "paneling" on the back wall, which is, of course, the hull.  In boat language, the hull sides are called the "ceiling".  How's that for confusing?

The stiffeners give me something to attach the slats to.  I drill holes into the stiffeners and screw the slats into place.

We glued and stapled roughly 200 ft of little 1/2x1/2 ribs onto the deck beams.  The ribs have two purposes.  One is to hold up the insulation so it doesn't fall out and secondly, they provide a surface to which we can attach wooden paneling.  The paneling will be white and it will brighten up the cabin.

We are about 70% done installing insulation. There are storage areas in the bow and stern of the boat that are still bare.  Getting to these areas will require crawling into tight spaces.  That will be a little more challenging!

Water, water.... and some perspective on cruising!

As the saying goes, water water everywhere but not a drop to drink! 

But really, water on a cruising boat is a precious commodity. It is very limited when you are sailing and sometimes limited even in port.  When we are at sea or remote anchorages, we will rely solely on water in our fresh water tank and water collected from rain.  Some cruising boats have water makers that create water daily.  We will not initially have that because it takes too much power, and, if you recall from my post about power, electricity on a boat is about 25-100x more expensive than on land or about $4/KW-hr.

While we are on AtLast, we will use water for 

drinking,
cooking,
rinsing dishes.

Yeah, that’s about it.  I wince a little as I type this and CAI jumps in and tells me that when he was sailing across the Atlantic as a kid, they didn’t even rinse their dishes in fresh water. “We washed and rinsed them in salt water and dried them right away. Nobody got sick!” Uh.  OK, CAI, do we have to do that?

CAI's here -  Yes, when we are spending time in a remote Pacific island atoll or crossing large waters we need to conserve.   But the fact is that we are spoiled. 10 gal/minute from our well and no water bill.  Filling the pond with 5000 gal of water ....no problem.   That is more that 10 years of water usage on a boat.  Watering the lawn every day.   Water is available with just a twist of our hand.  Never to run out.   Power is just there (most of the time) with a flick of a switch.   OK we need to pay the bill. 

So what do we do for everything else we use water for?  If we are in a warm climate, we will swim for our showers.  Maybe a quick rinse with the fresh stuff.  We shouldn’t create a lot of laundry because we will be wearing less, like shorts and swim suits.  Laundry will get done in salt water. And another quick rinse with "freshies". Finally, the head uses saltwater so no issue there.

Alternately, we can use shore services if they are near.  Many marinas provide restrooms and showers and sometimes laundromats, too.  We will have choices.  And when we just have to have a hot shower, then we'll go splurge on a nice hotel room and lounge in their shower for an hour or so :-).

If we are in a cold climate, like Port Townsend, Washington, then we will have to depend on shore services.  And we will be refilling our water tank more frequently.  We WILL have a very simple shower on AtLast for those times that feel we must shower on board.

CAI's comment -  Yes. No running water.  No hot water.   No TV.  Yes, No late show making fun of the president. A crummy internet connection sometimes.  Radio playing music we do not recognize.   Locals telling stories we do not grasp.   Being harassed in every new port by the customs.   Trouble finding the post office to send letters home.  Walking everywhere since we have no car.  Carrying the food supplies to the boat.

No snowplowing.  No turkey for Thanksgiving.  No Christmas tree.   Just visiting a 3rd world country that has no Kellogg red berry cornflakes.  A life without a smartphone.  Visiting a place were they do not have bus time tables. 

Yes, back to water!  If we work at it we could limit our water usage to as little as ½ gallon per person per day.   That's pretty good. Compare that to typical American water consumption of 80-100 gallons per day!  If we relaxed a little, then we’d use potentially 5 gallons per person per day.  Maybe in reality we’ll be somewhere in the middle, say 1-2 gallons.  

How long will that last us?  

AtLast will have a 54 gallon fresh water tank.  Therefore it should comfortably hold us for about 10-20 days. And we do have backup.  In addition to our primary tank we will have a 35 gallon rain water tank and a couple portable 5 gallon water jugs.  In an emergency we have a hand operated reverse osmosis water maker.  So no worries about a crisis.  It won't produce gallons and gallons, but it will be enough to drink.

Tank Construction

CAI made his own water tank to maximize our water storage.  It would have been easier to buy a water tank but it would have been rectangular and an inefficient use of space.  He used a 316 stainless, a high grade less likely to corrode and it’s weldable.  He chose to stick weld the tank using low hydrogen 309L welding rods.  These rods produce a softer, less brittle, more durable weld. After he finished welding, he pressure tested the tank to 4 psi and repaired several pin hole leaks.  This was, after all, his first major welding job!

Cutting sheets of stainless

8 seams welded, a little more than half done.

We are pretty happy with our progress!

Detail work

I thought he was done after pressure testing, but then he said we had to polish the tank, an important final step. Polishing rids the surface of pits, scratches and abrasions that could be starting points for corrosion, even with the 316 stainless. It was about this time that I was starting to help out on the boat so CAI outfitted me with a grinder, sanding wheels, polishing wheels, SS polishing compound…..  eye protection and breathing protection and set me loose to polish the tank.

Sorry - no pictures of polishing.  I think they are on CAI's phone, which died. :-(   I think we spent more than 40 hours polishing that tank.  I learned that some people make a living polishing stainless steel.  I believe it! Our tank shines like a mirror now and it's waiting to be installed into the keel of the boat.  It's under a pile of snow right now so we'll wait for a warm dry spring day.  

We have a little shoveling to do before we can put this tank in the boat....!

Shine on!

Its final destination:

CAI rests his feet in the future home of the fresh water tank.

CAI again - Why do we work so hard?   To accomplish what?  What are the stories we will tell our grandchildren?   What things will make us feel that we had a long good life?  An instant hot shower?

Seagulls and the Original Name of our Boat

When we bought AtLast, in June of 2010, we brought home a hull with some bulkheads and ballast and that's about it.  Except of course the boat had a name, "Chiang".

Hmmm,  Chiang.   Chiang?  Really? Why did they pick that?  I never felt close to this name. I found it difficult to remember and, well, it's Chinese.  And, while the Chinese have a rich and diverse history, we do not have a connection. This hull was built in America and, clearly, we'd be finishing it here too.

So we thought we'd rename the boat.  We decided on "AtLast" as it highlights several aspects of who we are.  To begin,  both CAI and I are in our second marriages and we both feel that, at last, we found our partner to spend the rest of our life with.  In celebration, we danced our first wedding dance to the classic and eternal song "At Last", as sung by Etta James:

At last my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh yeah yeah
At last the skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you
I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Oh yeah yeah, you smile, you smile
Oh and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
For you are mine... at last!

And then there is CAI's dream.  Ever since CAI crossed the Atlantic at age 14 on the double-ender Albatross, he dreamed to build a boat in the same style.  It was 35 years later we bought the hull and moved it out to Newman Lake.  His dream was starting to take shape, at last. 

And one more thing. It has been 6.5 years so far building this boat.  It will probably be another year or two before we make it out there to really sail her.  When we go, I'm sure we all will be sighing, "at last!"

This name feels right.

But CAI thought it would also be meaningful to reflect the original name in the boat.

We found out that "Chiang" is from Richard Bach's book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  You may recall, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was cast out from his flock for his "misplaced" love of flight instead of food.  Jonathan continued his search for truth and perfection in flight.  In his travels he encountered a wise elder seagull whose name was "Chiang".  Chiang took Jonathan beyond his previous learning.  He said, the secret to move instantly to anywhere else in the world, is to "begin by knowing that you have already arrived."

He continued with his teachings.  "We can start working with time if you wish till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love."  After much practice, Jonathan developed his skills and Chiang left, however not before giving Jonathan one last piece of advice:  "keep working on love."

In reflection of everything "Chiang", we have seagulls accenting the interior and exterior of the boat. 
Here are some examples:

Seagull cutouts at the top of our storage cabinet provide important ventilation.

Ventilation at the bottom.

More ventilation for another cabinet.

And you recall, seagull inlays adorn the companionway hatch.

This is the bow of the boat. The previous owner painted seagulls flying about the leading edges.
We will be repainting the hull and I'm sure we'll do something with the seagulls here too.

Our Table and Saw Stop Table Saw

It's the main settee table.   Or saloon table. The saloon is the main room in the boat. Some saloon tables are gimbled (they swing like our stove).  Ours is not. Our table is fixed to the sole (that's the floor of the boat)  so it does not move then you sail and a big rough wave throws you on the table.  Read it needs to be sturdy.   It's large to serve as a work table, dinner table and small too. Leaves turn down so you can pass by.   In reality it is something between a coffee table and dinner or work table.  

The tabletop is composed of 5 components.  A center console runs the entire length and four leaves fold up/down. Wings underneath the console rotate out to support the leaves.  CAI sketched out a proof of concept last week:

Concept for main saloon table. 
A bookshelf is planned at the far end.

The table will be large for a boat our size!  It will measure 38" x 62" with all 4 leaves in their up position.  The center console will provide additional storage which is accessible from the top. 

CAI finished cutting the tabletop last week and pieced them together for an important fit check shown in the photo below.  The light colored wood is the maple and the dark wood is mahogany. 

Tabletop fit check atop CAI's SawStop tablesaw.

Each of the four leaves must be glued and clamped. Here's the first of the four:

The first of the four leaves.

CAI's table saw is really something special.  It's called a SawStop.  This tool will protect you if you get your fingers in the blade because it stops in an instant if senses skin contact. 

A lot of people manage to get hurt by their table saws. Google reveals there are 64,000 table saw accidents every year. 4,000 fingers are lost.  A friend of ours cut off half of his hand. So sad.

CAI and I agreed that this "finger-saving" saw was worth the extra cost.  See the video below.  If you haven't seen this before, you will be amazed.

The Companionway Sliding Hatch

The companionway is, in a way, the "front door" of AtLast.

It provides protection from the elements, will be lockable to keep out unwanted visitors and will offer a warm welcome to friends and family.   It took CAI several months to build the hatch and then he gave it to me to varnish and paint it. This post illustrates the steps to add the laminate and inlays to the piece I call the sliding hatch.

Double click any image to enlarge it.

The basic construction:  

First, a "Before and After" photo:

Here is the sliding hatch structure, sitting on a bench in CAI's shop.  This is prior to adding laminate and inlays:

A closeup of the final construction is shown below:

Fabrication of the laminate top:

CAI cut the panels or "slats" from boards of black locust using his table saw and
then used a thickness planer (shown here) to cut them to the right thickness.
This is a "gross" cut.

Each slat was then processed through a thickness sander which has
micro thickness adjustments (~.008 inch). 
This tool produces a much better surface finish too.

The slats were placed on the hatch to verify fit.
Actually, you can see the slats are constructed with two kinds of wood.
The lighter wood is the black locust and the dark wood is Brazilian Cherry (aka Jatoba).
That's ANOTHER story.

CAI used epoxy to bond the slats to the hatch.
This "MAS Epoxy" is used all over the boat.
It's expensive, more than $100 per gallon.  We try not to waste any of it.

First he coated the hatch with the epoxy.

Next, he coated each slat prior to placing it on the hatch.

He carefully placed each slat.

Then he clamped the slats in place.
You know now that if it gets glued, ahem, epoxied, it gets clamped.

Additional pieces of wood (20"x1.5"x1/4") were used to spread the clamping forces.

Final inspection of the clamps.  This was left to sit for 24 hours.

Creating the Inlays

The seagull patterns below are being used around the boat, so why not on the hatch????

These were the patterns used for the inlays.

Small wooden seagulls were cut from black locust.

CAI cut the shapes of the seagulls into the hatch using a small router.

5 seagulls were placed in the hatch.

The seagull inlays were epoxied into place.
Lead weights provided "clamping" force while the epoxy cured.

The blue seagulls aren't really blue.  That's just a leftover tape, a visual aid when working the inlays.

The final product:

This is the sliding hatch today, with about 4 layers of varnish.  I found out how hard it is to take pictures of something so shiny!

Companionway hatch for AtLast

 A nice front door if I say so myself!

Extreme clamping, and some insulation work

Two weeks ago I posted a discussion about gluing upside down and clamping. This week CAI is gluing in the framework and paneling around the door to the head. This is an extreme application of clamps, but not that uncommon.  Thought you'd like to see. I counted 20 clamps on the doorway alone.

You might notice the chunks of black foam stuck onto the ends of some of them.  That's so we don't poke our eyes out.

Building up the doorway to the head.

Those chunks of foam are leftovers from my ongoing project of insulating the boat.  It has been frigid here in Spokane.  The insulation means it can now get up to a pretty comfortable 60 degrees inside.  And on the flip side it will keep us cooler in the tropics.  Yay! 

Cutting insulation while using my new selfie stick to "get the shot". 
I can't believe I have a selfie stick.

Here I am in the forepeak again.  The insulation goes on the
underside of the deck as well as on the hull sides.

Our Eutectic Cold Plate Fridge

No, we won't have a dorm fridge in our boat. 

Why?  It's all about power and reliability.  CAI tells me that power on a boat costs about $4/kW-hr.  That's more than 30X what you pay at home which, on average in the USA, is a mere 12 cents/kW-hr.    Based on that, wouldn't you want to conserve?

But we will have a fridge. So instead of a dorm fridge, we are using an "Isotherm 3701" that employs something called a eutectic cold plate and will be installed in a HIGHLY insulated box.  This system is like having a big chunk of ice on the side wall of a camping cooler.  The hallmark of the Isotherm 3701 is that the cold plate will freeze colder than ice.

It can do this because it is eutectic.  Eutectic means it uses two fluids that, when mixed homogeneously, freeze at a temperature lower than either of the two fluids alone.  The freezing point of our cold plate will be 18 degrees colder than ice. Pretty cool.  OK, yes, pun intended.  :-)

As I said our "cooler" box will be highly insulated. It will have 4" thick walls. Let's get our head around that.  Imagine the typical camping cooler.  It's about 36" x 17" x 17" and holds about 3 cubic feet, like a dorm fridge.  If you changed the walls of this cooler to 4"thick, the storage area drops down 65% to only 1 cubic foot.  So the insulation comes at a cost of space but it preserves our precious energy. We aren't sure the final storage volume of our fridge yet but I am expecting it will be about 2.7 cubic feet. 

Our Isotherm 3701 Refrigeration System
(big honkin' insulated box not shown)

So together, the extremely low freezing point and the huge amount of insulation will retain sufficiently cool temps to chill our food for hours after a charge.  Maybe even a whole day.  And this is good because we want to avoid running the compressor because it is such a power hog.  If we are lucky we will be able to run the compressor only when we actually have excess power.

Wait, excess power? Yes.  We have excess power when we are running our engine. And this brings me to another hallmark of the Isotherm 3701.  It actually recognizes when we are running our engine and will automatically cycle on to charge the cold plate at that time.  We might be running the engine to charge our batteries once a day, so this should work well.

If it didn't work this way, and the fridge cycled on and off all day long, it could eat up to 50% of our budgeted battery bank every day.  If we only chill our cold plate when the engine is running, and if we do do this daily, then our batteries never have to power the fridge.  Very very cool. (I like puns).

Here are some stats:

Typically power draw from a boat fridge:	50 to 150 amp-hrs/day
Capacity of a typical car battery:	50-70 amp-hrs
Capacity of a 100W 3ft x 3ft solar panel:	36 amp-hrs  (sunny day)
Capacity on AtLast:	~300 amp-hrs*

*(Actually 600 amp-hrs, but we shouldn't use more than 300 before recharging in order to prolong our battery life.)

A final note.  Our system will be water cooled.  It will dump the heat to the sea water through a hole in our hull.  Ugh.  Another hole in the boat.  I never like holes in the boat but they are a necessary evil.

There are at least two reasons to dump the compressor heat to the water.  In the tropics, when it's 90 degrees, we will avoid heating the cabin with hot air from an air-cooled compressor. 

The other reason is that it increases the efficiency of compressor.  It doesn't use fans and heat is transferred much easier from fluid to fluid than from fluid to air.

Disappointment in the Galley

It's been a slow week for the boat. 

Of course it’s the holidays.  But then it snowed.  And then the snow plow broke down.  :-(    And then our backup, a monster 42" wide snow blower, broke too.  Dammit.  As a result, CAI has been Mr Fixit Guy.  He’s not a mechanic but he can troubleshoot almost anything.  I recall once our little RV refrigerator was on the blink.  After hours of poking around he discovered a carpenter bee had built a mud nest in one of the propane supply tubes!  Clever little bee.

So in additional to the snow storm and the holiday we had a disappointing discovery in the galley. For years CAI has been planning to put a refrigerator/freezer in our galley.  But the other day as he was designing the installation of the system, it all changed.  He came into the house and said to me,

"Would you rather have ice cream or be able to poop?"

Huh?

Long story short, he discovered there isn’t enough room for the refrigerator/freezer that he had planned.  In order to make it all fit, he’d have to get rid of one of our black water tanks. Or he could save both tanks and we would forfeit our freezer (and some storage).  So, therefore his question...ice cream or poop? 

Well if you know about cruising you might argue that sailors dump their black water into the ocean.  That's an infinitely large black water tank, right? Who needs two tanks, right? Wrong. You can dump like that only when you are at sea a long way from shore. When you are in port, you are restricted to using your black water tank and pumping it out when it’s full. Some marinas, like Catalina, CA, are so serious about this that they put dye into your tanks when you enter the harbor.  If you dump your tank everyone will know.  And really, who wants to pollute like that?

All right, so when it’s time to empty your tank you need to move your boat to get it pumped.  It’s not a short 15 minute affair.  So CAI built in a 2nd black water tank to stretch the time between pumpouts.  Good move.  You can see the tank in the image below, outlined in red.

So now the question made more sense to me.  Ice cream or poop.  We settled for poop. 

Next week I'll tell you about our special eutectic cold plate fridge and why we don't just buy a little dorm fridge.

Glueing updside down and our keel stepped mast

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

So today I wanted to tell you about one of CAI's techniques. He has an abundant "toolbox" of various techniques that make building this boat possible.  In this case it's about gluing or bonding. Gluing is a very common process in the build out of AtLast.  Nearly everything is glued and screwed together, unless it's fiberglassed into place.  When pieces are both glued and screwed together it prevents these mating parts from creating unpleasant creaking noises when the boat is moving on the water.

When using glue, pieces are clamped together while the glue cures.  For an example, see the photo below when CAI was bonding the slats to the top of the companionway hatch:

CAI adds clamps to the companionway hatch while the slats are being glued in place.

But it's not always so easy.

Recently CAI was gluing reinforcements to the inside surface of the cabin top in the location where the mast will be.  Masts are either keel stepped or deck stepped.  Keel stepped boats have a mast which goes down through the deck (cabin top) and to a mast step at the keel in the hull.  This design is the classical way and the most secure way to install the mast.  But when using this approach, the mast protrudes through the cabin top or deck and that hole is a vulnerable location of the boat.  To strengthen that area, CAI glued additional pieces of marine plywood to the underside of the cabin top.

In this next picture, you can see the 4 pieces of marine plywood glued to the underside of the cabin top.  This is an AFTER picture, after the job was completed. 

Looking UP at the mast boot support. 
The mast will stand in this location, just aft of the forepeak.

So you can imagine it's impossible to use traditional clamps to apply pressure to the plywood.  We are gluing upside down here so we can't load the parts under bags of sand or lead either.  So CAI's solution was to place several 4x1's underneath each piece of plywood and they exerted upwards pressure to compress the plywood against the cabin top.  

The forepeak was off-limits for a day or two while this was going on. 

The Beginning of our Galley (our kitchen).

Here's a preview of the galley.  It's one of CAI's many projects on the boat these days.  I'm helping out with details but he's the master mind behind it.

Here are a few features of the galley.   When you climb down into AtLast from the cockpit, the galley will be on your immediate left, at the bottom of the stairs.  CAI put it here to make it convenient to directly hand hot food to the captain or whoever is on deck.  In rough seas, this is a real advantage as you will not have to walk and manage a plate of food when the boat is being tossed around.

I have to say, I read these words as I type and I am really NOT looking forward to dealing with this kind of weather.  But I'm confident that we will have a boat designed and built to deal with it.

OK, more about the galley....

AtLast will have a refrigerator.  This is a real luxury on a low budget cruising boat, which ours definitely is.   We will have solar panels and a wind generator to help supply power for the fridge.  It's a real power hog.

The stove is a "Force 10" brand and it is gimbaled.  That means it will stay level even when the boat heels to the side. CAI has to allow space for the stove to "swing" when he installs it.

When the stove is not in use, there will be a shelf that can be pulled out over the stove to provide more counter space.

We will have a shelf for a microwave.  This is another  luxury and we will use it when we have access to AC "shore" power.  So we probably won't use it much while we are underway.

DOUBLE CLICK on photo to enlarge it for a closer look.

CAI and Jackie's galley.

A side view of the galley.

Any guesses?

Any guesses what this might be?  

This picture is looking up from inside at the cabin "ceiling."

Here's the view from outside on top of the cabin and deck:

It's our "hi-tech" winter fresh air circulation system, a 250W box heater.

You see, it's getting pretty cold outside.  The highs are in the 30's and it's definitely freezing overnight.  We are continuing to work with some pretty smelly and dangerous chemicals.  Of course we need to circulate in fresh air to dissipate the chemicals.  But who wants to blow in cold air?  So, instead, we set up a simple routine to keep the air in the boat warm and fresh.

First we try to paint or epoxy at the end of the day.  Then we let the heater continue to run all night, pushing in warm clean air.  By the morning the fumes are pretty well cleared out.