Guest cabin dressing room

The basic layout of the cabin area below is as follows: Down four steps from the salon above. Once at the bottom of the steps, you can either turn left through a door and get to the master cabin, or go straight through another door to get to the guest cabin dressing room/hallway. One has to go through this area to get to the guest cabin/kids cabin located in the forward area of the hull. Each cabin has a door to access the common bathroom where the shower and toilet is located. Each cabin ( master and guest) has it's own sink. The engine room is accessed from the master cabin through a water tight steel door.

Standing in the guest cabin dressing room, one will find a large sink base with storage underneath, four wall mounted cabinets, and a bench seat with storage underneath it. There will be two ceiling mounted DC lights, and one ceiling mounted AC light with all lights being controlled by switches on the wall. There is also a decent amount of wall space available to have some hanging storage without impacting ones ability to walk through the space.

Because of my wish filled thinking regarding shower sump pumps, I had to re think how I was going to hold the gray water from the shower and cabin sinks. I decided to add a holding tank, and the most logical place for it was under one of the bunks against the dressing room bulkhead. I was going to buy a plastic tank, but since I had enough stainless plate left over from the water tank construction I decided to fabricate my own and save some cash. The tank ended up with 47 gallons of capacity.


Under the sink base in the dressing room is some of the gray water plumbing. The through hull fitting you see is above the water line. When we have to hold our gray water, the blue valve will be shut and the black valve will be open. This will direct the water to the main sump which will then direct the water to the 47 gallon holding tank I just built. When we can discharge gray water, the blue valve will be open, the black valve will be closed, and the shower sump will discharge overboard via the black pipe when the sump selector valve is in that mode. It's a pretty simple set up albeit a bit on the bulky side, but I made everything from parts found in the shop and did not have to depart with any cash. The elbow on he end of the manifold is for the guest cabin dressing room sink once I get that sink installed.

I built four more cabinets to fill up the wall in this room, and stopped them well short of the port light. One of the cabinets will be the medicine cabinet above the sink, while the other three will be general storage. The cabinets are 12 inches deep at the base, and about 18" deep at the top. I'm also using these cabinets as the chase for the air conditioning duct that will feed the guest/kids cabin. That duct will be a four inch flexible pipe.

In order to give one as much privacy as possible, there will be a door between the dressing room and the bunk room. The door will be 20" wide.

I had enough room to create a bench in the dressing room so people could sit down while they were getting dressed. I installed a piano hinge on the lid of the bench so the bench could double as a locker for more storage.

The room is a fuzz narrow, but I'm able to easily navigate through it without bumping my knees or having to turn the least bit sideways. I think this space will be an important part of the boat in regard to helping all on board with privacy, and a sense of having ones own space. To be honest, this is a very comfortable room even though it's function is mostly utilitarian.

I have six doors to build for this room, and one more sheet of plywood to install on the partition between the master cabin and this space. I also have to plug all the screw holes, sand everything, and get a coat or two of finish on the wood. Once those jobs are finished, I'm ready to start work on the sleeping room and its four bunks. Once the doors are installed and some finish on the wood, I'll post some more pics.

Anchor Winch

Wood working continues in other parts of the boat, but I thought I'd blog a bit about the anchor winch.

I'd always intended on using a chain windlass to handle my anchor, but this used winch was available, so I made the switch to a deck winch. This type of winch is a pretty simple piece of equipment with very few working parts which should provide me with a reliable tool to handle the ground tackle. As you can tell, this is a used winch, but given the simple nature of the beast, it will not take much to go through it. Once I'm done with the wood working, I'll do a re build on this winch.

The valving on this winch lets me power down, free spool, and power up. The line pull on the unit is 1500 lbs, which is adequate to handle my ground tackle.

I like the commercial, fish boat look of this winch, and I think it will look sharp on pulpit of my trawler. The winch is on the fence in terms of being just large enough for our boat. I spoke with the manufacturer, and they felt as if it would do the job. The line pull on the next two larger size models is the same, but the thickness of the metal base is more on the larger units, along with being able to handle more rode. This unit is cast aluminum, and the base plate ( the area where the winch bolts to my deck) thickness is 3/4". The manufacturer was concerned that a boat of my displacement might risk cracking the base plate if I were to get caught in a strong blow. He suggested that I use rope vs wire rope, and snub the anchor rode to a bit. The winch can handle 275' of 5/8" rope along with 40' of 3/8 chain leaving a 1" gap below the housing. I like to use a 5:1 scope when anchoring, and the amount of rode is at my minimum comfort level. I've never anchored in more than 40' of water, but you never know.

It's nice to be able to check another item off the list.

More Plumbing

I finished making all the plumbing connections for the cabins.

99% of the connections are under the sole in the bathroom. This space has turned into a busy area as it has passing through it four fill lines for the water tanks, the shower/sink pump sump, the water supply lines for the two sinks, the drain lines for the two sinks, the drain line for the shower, the "Y" valve for directing the sump discharge, the transport lines for the sump discharge, the 1 1/2" transport line for a possible future macerating type toilet, and the wiring for the sump. I made a valid attempt at keeping this space orderly, and if I had used some more fittings on the drain and discharge lines, I could have kept things really tight but I instead opted for less fittings and more flexible pipe.

I'm going to build the shower stall out of tile. Since I was working in this area, I decided to install the backer board for the tile, and the shower pan. Before I installed the backer board, I glued a closed cell foam gasket to the flange of the port light to stop condensation. Once the tile is installed along with the port light, I'll detail the gasket more so it will make more sense to anyone reading. As per a request from the three woman in the house, I built a ledge in the shower stall for a place to prop up a leg.

After making all the connections, I ran the shower sump to verify the flow rate. The shower sump is not going to have enough ass to move the shower water to my proposed gray water tank area ( the rear of the boat). I'm going to have to find another area for my gray water holding tank. The best place for this tank is going to be close to the overboard discharge point in the forward cabins. The tank will probably end up in the "V" up against the crash bulkhead @ station #1. I think I'll be able to fit a 40 gallon tank. My other choice is going to be under one of the kids bunks. The problem with going under the bunk, is that I'll eliminate a much needed storage cabinet.

I'm ready to sheath the bathroom, the dressing room/hallway, and part of the kids cabin. I'm going to have to hold off on sheathing the rest of the cabin until I get the gray water tank installed.




I'm going to use a composting toilet, but just in cast it does not perform, I installed a transport line for a future macerating style toilet. I plumbed this in with 1 1/2" sch. for pipe, using pressure fittings. I wanted to stay away from flexible pipe for this application so I had to use a few 45 degree fittings to get the pipe squared back up with the framing as it enters the bathroom area. This 1 1/2" line goes to the rear of the boat where I'll have a black water tank. The folks at Raritan assure me that their toilets can handle the lift and length of pipe just fine.