New things to try on Koan

Since Koan doesn't have standing head room, everything belowdecks is done either sitting on the berths or kneeling. The cork I installed a few months ago didn't hold up at all, so I've decided to try out these gym flooring tiles. Bonus points that the best berth in the boat while at anchor, that is, the floor, is now somewhat softer!

I also finally finished connecting the GPS to the VHF, so that the VHF can transmit our coordinates over DSC in case of distress, and it can also be powered by the house battery bank. That meant I needed somewhere to mount the VHF so that the cable would reach, the device would have signal, but it would also be somewhat protected from the elements. The default solution tends to be the companionway, and I confirmed with Mike, who owns the Moore 24 that I race on, and who has the same Garmin 76 device, that the companionway works for signal. So I went with it. I really liked the strong but flexible Gorilla-style arms that I've seen on some of the Mini Transat Zeros, so I looked for something similar. I decided to go with a solution from the photography world, where 1/4''-20 thread tripod mounts are ubiquitous, and modern DSLRs weigh more that my GPS. I'm using an i-Stabilizer bracket to hold the GPS and it connects to a stainless steel gooseneck with a tripod mount on the top end and a female socket for the same size bolt on the other. The default position is up (and invisible from the cockpit) and then you can bend it sideways to make it visible, and presumably improve the satellite reception.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have solar!

A while back I ordered cheap, but allegedly accurate, digital voltmeters from ebay, and today I cut out holes in the tops of my battery boxes and installed them. I built them up so that they hook up to the batteries with little alligator clips, so they can be disconnected if need be.

I also moved the AC charger closer to the new location for the batteries, so that the cables run without tension. It's the big gray box on the right in the photo. Finally, I installed a PV7D solar charge controller, the little gray box on the left.

The improved battery situation.

The charge controller is fed by a cheap 20 Watt panel, also from ebay, mounted on a Sunsei articulating mount from the sale rack at West Marine. I finished the installation (14 AWG throughout, so the panel amperage can be increased in the future) yesterday and tested that everything works today. I'm pretty happy with it, except for the water resistance of the panel-side connections. It's pretty clear that this panel is not marinized, so my quandary is whether to wait for it to crap out somehow or replace it with something marinized and save this one for some sort of terra firma application.

The solar panel.

Pit and mast upgrades

The way things used to be:
a Garhauer stainless steel rigid vang and a wooden backing board for the pit control line clutches.

The pre-1993 Harken 150 cams for the pit controls were corroded beyond belief! Of the 6 cams on the pit board and the mainsheet controls only 2 were serviceable, one as was, one after a rebuild. Here's the carnage:

This is how it is now: 
A Seoladair Boomkicker fiberglass rigid vang:

and a Starboard backing board with new Harken 150 cams:

Lessons learned:
* the vang is a Boomkicker K0800. However, the K0800 mast-side fitting is made with bolts that are too big fit in the track of my mast (the original 1973 Proctor mast). The K0750 mast-side fitting uses #10 bolts that fit in the track, and Seoladair was happy to swap it out. On the boom side they have recently adopted female-style track, rather than the T-track they used before. In my case, there is already a 1 inch T-track bolted to my boom to fit the Garhauer vang that I wanted to use. They were happy to send me a car that fits that track. Finally, with the mast-side fitting at the very bottom of my mast, and the boom-side fitting almost as far aft as it can go, I still needed to hack off about 8cm of the fiberglass tension rods. But I love the way this has all worked out!

* I tried using a round-over router bit at the fastest RPM of our drill press to round-over the Starboard. No dice. It kicked and bucked. Not sure if the speed was too low or the material too finicky, but don't try this.

New shelf in the port locker

I recently converted the starboard locker (formerly the head) to a hanging locker. Then I made a removable shelf to subdivide the port locker into two. The bottom section is for tool bags (the boat has three tool bags: electrics, hand tools and caulks) and shoes. The top is for things like towels, blankets, pillows, etc. I removed the foam-backed liner so the bases of the eye bolts that hold up the shrouds can be immediately inspected.

Converted the old fluorescent light fixtures to LED

I gutted the old fluorescent light fixtures of their innards, and hooked the terminals and switch up to two adhesive strips of 9 LEDs each. They work beautifully and consume 1/10th the power.

New battery tray

New windows

The old windows were the originals, and were finally beginning to leak.

So, inspired by Blue Moon's plastic bolt-on windows, I decided to replace them. I sourced 1/4'' plexiglass from the local glazier's discards and cut, drilled and beveled them myself.

I went a little too ambitious the first time around, and they all had to be trimmed a little smaller so as to fit the cabin sides. I'm happy with the cosmetic outcome, and time will tell if they'll be any more water tight than the last ones. At least they should be easier to maintain.

New hatch slides

Aaand now I need new hatch boards to fit the larger hatch slides. These, by the way, were one of the most unpleasant things I've ever had to fabricate, because I didn't have exactly the right tools for cutting and shaping, and had to resort to manual methods like nibbling and sanding. Ugh. And I don't love the way they fit and don't think they'll last, either, making them possibly a horrible investment in time and pain. Oh well.

Main hatch and port bunk rebuild

For the last couple of months I've been working on refurbishing the main hatch and turning the port bunk into more of a storage and cooking area.

The port bunk now has a new hatch on it, which will eventually be completely lockable, so it can't fly out in case the boat gets rolled. It also has a hard storage bin, similar to the ones on the J105, for things like the auto-tiller. That will have a canvas cover flap on it, again so things can't fly out. For now I haven't done anything about mounting the stove securely, but that's next.

The main hatch situation was pretty annoying. The original hatch slides were teak, and they were badly worn, with the caulking failing in the corners and leaking onto the bulkhead directly below the hatch. They came off with extreme prejudice! Additionally, there were about 6 useless holes in that bulkhead screaming to be properly epoxied.

So I removed the bulkhead below the hatch, which had the oval opening through which the bilge is accessed, and the bulkheads between the bunks and the bilge area. I made a replacement for the section directly below the hatch, which you can see in the photo, just to keep things looking neat, but I won't be replacing the rest. I fabricated hatch slides from an aluminum I-beam, which I'm about to install. The rest of the openings I've made are staying open.

Lately I have been really inspired by the economical interior design of the Mini Transpac 6.50 boats, which have that area all open, and, since none of those bulkheads are structural or even contributing to  the folkboat's rigidity, I'm going to work towards that more modern and open design back there.

Next up: move the batteries to the centerline, directly below the companionway. More photos coming!