Salon

Spring has finally sprung in our part of the world, and this salon sheathing boat builder couldn't be happier. The weather last week was a little raw with some rain snow mix, and lows in the 20's, but today skies were clear blue with the thermometer hitting 80 F. This might sound foolish, but the downside to spring arriving is that my phone is ringing off the hook, and for all practical purposes, I'm booked solid with work until at least September. Being booked so far in advanced is a nice problem to have, but getting the boat in the water this season is important to me so, work and the build are going to have to get along .

I hit the salon pretty hard this weekend past, and I have it sheathed. The rain/snow storm we had on Friday gave me a day on board to finalize the water line runs for the washer, the 1/2 bath, and the galley sink. I also was able finish the behind the walls AC and DC wire runs along with finishing the hard piping for the waste lines.

All the waste lines on board are 1 1/2" SCH 40 rigid PVC. I have a little bit of flexible PVC, but not much. The galley sink gravity flows either to the aft holding tank or overboard via a Y valve. The 1/2 bath sink also gravity flows to the aft holding tank or overboard. The 1/2 bath toilet is a macerator, and that is forced to the holding tank via an 1 1/2" SCH 40 rigid PVC. Below deck, in the cabins, is another toilet that is a composter. In case the composting unit does not suit our needs, I have another 1 1/2" forced main run from the below deck head to the rear  holding tank via the starboard salon wall. So before I could sheath the salon, I had to finish these pipe runs along with the galley sink pipe run that runs behind the port side salon wall. On all the forced pipe runs ( a pump is doing the work), pressure fittings have to be used. On any gravity line, one is best to use DWV fittings. DWV stand for drain, waste, vent.  DWV fittings have a smaller shoulder to glue, but have a more gravity friendly flow line.

I had originally planned on running the water lines for the salon macerator toilet, sink, and washer dryer behind the salon walls, but that space was getting crowded so I chose to run these lines in the wall/ceiling chase.

The 1/2 bath is one of those deals where some compromising had to be made. I had the 1/2 bath mocked up in the shop when I built the super structure, and knew it was going to be tight. Now that I have it framed in real time, I'm happy with  how roomy it is. The width of the 1/2 bath at the toilet is 30". The 1/2 bath tapers to an 20"w x 18"d square cube where the sink resides, so the 20" wide entrance door will be in the taper between the two above measurements. My  biggest concern was the width of the passage between the 1/2 bath and the wheel house steps as one heads below deck. The width of this passage ended up being 21", but to make it feel better, I think I'll radius the treads on the wheel house steps, or maybe clip off the corners. The wheel house steps are pretty wide @ 26", so there's plenty of room to work with. This picture shows the door layout line along with the temporary construction steps leading up to the wheel house.

The 1/2 bath was built out of 1/2" cherry ply. The corners are joined with laminated posts that I plowed 1/2" dado's in to. To finish the outside edge of the outside corner post I cut a substantial chamfer. It's hard to see the chamfer in unfinished wood, but once a finish is applied, the chamfer really pops and gives some nice detail.

Another weekend, and I'm fairly confident I'll be ready to start getting some finish on the salon. I also feel pretty good that I'll have the table saw out of the salon by the end of April with 95% of the wood work complete. With this wood working schedule now attainable, I have May and June to work on mechanical's , which gives us a July launch date. If I was a patient guy, I'd spend another  year getting her 100% finished, then launch her. Maybe giving  her another year is the right choice, but I'm ready to spend some evenings on board doing what this project was meant to do . When she hits the water in late June or July, I"m going to guess her at 95% complete. Hopefully we'll get  her to 98% complete.

Cheers