Window package

The window package showed up a few weeks ago and today I finally got around to picking it up from JCM Equipment. JCM Equip. is a the mechanic shop that works on my equipment and from time to time, they will off load a big delivery for me and store it. A testament to how busy I've been with work is that I had to wait three weeks to find the time to pick up the window package.

I had the windows built by Motion Windows ( www.motionwindows.com ). I first did business with Jeff Kemp from Motion Windows about ten years ago when I restored a Carver cruising boat. Those windows gave me zero problems over the ten years I owned them. The main reason the Carver boat sold as quickly as it did in this depressed market was because of the windows.

I didn't unpack the whole window package but I did pull a few out to inspect. I'm very happy with what I saw in my window package. I went with radius corners for the windows. There is no sign of the tooling required to shape the metal of the window frames. All the bends are perfectly executed with zero sign of a kink or faulty bend. The gaskets are as tight as a bull's ass and are flawless with no marring. All the reveals on the window are perfect. The powder coating is flawless. I'm totally pleased.

The sliding tinted window you see in this picture is one of eight that will reside in the salon.

I went with clear windows for the four windows on the front of the wheel house. The two windows in the center front of the wheel house are fixed. The two other windows on either side of the fixed wheelhouse windows are hinged up and this is one of them.

The small tinted fixed window if for the port and starboard side of the wheel house @ the back of the wheel house.

There are nine windows in the wheel house and eight windows in the salon.

I re packed the windows in the crate they arrived in, screwed the lid back down and moved them to the back of the shop. I won't be ready to install the windows until next Spring. I'll blog more about the window package once they are installed and we can see them in more detail

Fuel delivery system

The fuel delivery system is how I'm going to supply my main engine, generator and any other diesel fired device that might end up on the boat. This system is separate from the transfer system and is fed from one 200 gallon tank.

The delivery system is fairly simple although having quite a few valves. Basically, I'm pulling fuel out of the 200 gallon day tank, through another Racor filter followed by a five port distribution manifold that directs fuel to either the main engine, generator or another device.

In case I have a problem with the Racor filter while under way, I installed a couple of " T's " in line along with three valves, so I could quickly by pass the Racor filter without shutting down the main engine. I could then change the filter or do whatever was needed while leaving the main engine running. Once the problem with the filter was resolved, I then would bring the Racor back on line by moving the valves back into the filter mode.

Between the Racor and the distribution manifold, I added two more " T's ", and three more valves so I could add a 12 volt pump to prime the main engine or generator. Both the main engine and generator have a manual primer pumps on them, but I wanted an in line electric pump to make priming the engines a quick process. If for some reason any engine looses its prime, all I have to do is close one valve, open two valves, turn on the electric pump, and crack the fuel intake line on the injection pump. I'm just guessing now, but I'd say I could prime either engine and have them back running in less than a minute with this set up. For me, this is an inexpensive set up that is easy to do while I'm running pipe that could pay me huge dividends some time down the road.

Because I'm using a manifold to feed multiple engines, I felt as if I should install check valves where the engine supply lines connect to the manifold. I'm afraid that one engine could want to pull fuel from another engine, and start messing with robbing an engine of primed fuel, or causing air and headaches to enter the system.

I'm waiting on the check valves to show up and I'm looking into different fuel pumps for my electric lift pump I want to install. I left myself plenty of room to fit the lift pump between the valves and "T's", but I'm stopped on this system until my parts show up early in the week. Besides having shut off valves at the manifold, I need shut off valves right next to the main engine and generator. While it may seem like I'm have too many valves on this system, I think that they will pay off big once I start having to service the engines and system.

Because of where I want to install the electric lift pump and and the type of pump I want, I held the 1/2" steel fuel line 1.25 inches off of the fuel tank. An added bonus of doing this is that I now have a nice grab rail running the starboard length of the engine room.

Fuel transfer system complete

The fuel transfer system is complete, and I don't have to do any more work on it. Well, I guess a persons definition of "any more work" should be discussed over a beer sometime. I do have to decide which electrical circuit I am going to use and make that connection. I only have one circuit ran to the engine room so far ( lights) , but I'm going to be installing some more circuits in the next week or so as I am beginning to do some design with Kevin Morin ( www.metalboatbuilding.org) on the electrical system.

I backed my service truck in to the shop and pumped 30 or so gallons of fuel into tank #4 . I temporarily wired a plug end on to the fuel pump transfer switch and once I made sure I had the correct valves open ( I need to label the tanks), I turned the pump on. It took a about a minute for the pump to pick up the fuel, but once the the fuel hit the flow meter the sound of the pump changed and the flow meter started clicking off tenths of gallons. It felt good to finally have a system up and running.

To make sure things were as they appeared, I checked the amperage draw on the pump. The pump is only pulling 5 amps, which is lower than it's full load rating. I also ran the pump for five minutes to check the flow rate. The flow rate of the pump is just about 220 gallons per hour based on my five minute run time. The flow rate I measured is is exactly as advertised by the manufacturer. The 1000 series Racor filter is rated at 190 gallons per hour maximum flow, so I have to figure out what is happening with the measured flow rate of the pump and the maximum flow rate the filter is advertised as capable of. At a first glance, I would have figured that the filter can only physically allow 190 gallons per hour of flow through it given the micron size of the filter media. I might put in a call to Racor and ask their opinion. A gate valve would choke down the flow rate and give the pump some head to work against. I've always felt that pumps live longer if they have some head to push against.

I want to install a vacuum gauge on the filter to monitor when it begins to clog. I think I've seen Racors with a vacuum gauge in the "T" handle, and given how I've plumbed things, that looks like a good option.

After I had ran the electric pump for a half hour or so, I closed a valve, and opened the two valves for the emergency manual transfer pump. I pumped about five gallons to see how it worked, and I'm pleased to say it worked fine. I will say that whenever one of the kids makes it to ye ole shit list, they can meet me in the engine room to manually transfer a 100 gallons of fuel.

It really feels good to finally have a system up and running. Because I now have all the fuel pipe work completed, some of the smaller jobs will begin to fall in to place. I can now install the generator in it's final resting spot vs rolling it around the engine room on 3/4" pvc pipe. Once the generator is set, I can finish the conduit run for my AC in the engine room, and so on and so on....

Now that I have fuel running through the tanks, I will continue on my schedule and build the fuel system for the main engine and generator. This is not nearly as complex or costly as the transfer system, so hopefully I'll have that up and running in a week. I'll fire the engine once I have all the fuel parts in place.

Fuel system update- fuel transfer

The fuel transfer system resides in the engine room on the port side of the boat against the aft water tight bulkhead. I've put a huge dent in the amount of work building the transfer system, and there is enough of the system completed for me to blog about. I want to use JIC fuel fittings on the lines between the intake manifold, the filter, the pump and the distribution intake, so I have to wait until Tuesday to get the lines made. Once I run the wire for the disconnect switch and get those lines fabricated, I'll be able to pump fuel from tank to tank.

I have four fuel tanks on board for a total of between 1300 - 1400 gallons. Three of the tanks will be used for storage, and the fourth tank will be a 200 gallon "day" tank that will be used to feed the main engine and the 10kw generator. The fuel transfer system is completely independent from the fuel delivery system which feeds the machinery out of the 200 gallon day tank.

Every day we are traveling on the boat we will manage our fuel by transferring fuel from tank to tank and making sure the day tank is full. As the fuel is transferred it will be filtered through a 1000 series Racor filter that will also remove water. The fuel that leaves the day tank to feed the machinery, will again pass through another Racor filter before being filtered by the factory filters on the main engine and generator. I have a mechanical flow meter in the transfer system that will be the primary way we keep track of how much fuel we have left and how much we are using. Once I fill the tanks and have some sort of base line for tank capacities, we'll use a log book to track fuel usage along with a flow meter on the main engine and dip sticks for the tanks.

The transfer system's pump is a rotary vane pump driven by a 120 volt 1/2 hp motor. The motor is continuous duty rated motor so I don't have to worry about run time. The pump and motor can move 220 gallons per hour which exceed the 180 gallon flow rate of the 1000 series Racor filter. I don't know if I need to put a gate valve on the pump to choke it down or if the Racor will do that for me. The motor pulls about 7 amps, and I'll have it wired in to the inverter circuit so I don' have to worry about having shore power or the generator running if I want to transfer fuel. The rotary vane pump is self priming and is pretty close to bullet proof. This is very long life pump made by Procon that should give me a long life of reliable service. If for some reason the pump or motor fails me, I have a manual pump plumbed into the system that will handle our fuel transfer needs. I got the idea of the manual pump from a careful builder doing a fine job on building their 55 footer. You can check out Peter and his families boat building blog here: building koloa . If the manual transfer pump fails me I can use one of the four drain valves and another type of manual pump to move fuel. If I don't feel like doing that, I can block the vents and carefully use my air compressor and a regulator to push fuel from tank to tank using the transfer manifolds.

When transferring fuel,the fuel is pulled for one of the four tanks via a four port manifold. After the fuel goes through the filter, pump, and flow meter it is then pushed through a distribution manifold with five valved ports. Depending on what combination of valves is opened is how the fuel will find it's way to the desired tank. On the five valve distribution manifold, four valves are for directing fuel to any of the four tanks, and the fifth valve is used for pumping fuel to some place else. If I ever have to give fuel to a stranded boat or get fuel off of the boat for some other reason, the fifth valve will be the way to do it. I actually have a sixth port of the distribution manifold since I did not know from which end I was going to be feeding the manifold. I have the sixth port plugged. All the flexible fuel line I've been using in the engine room is Coast Guard approved marine fuel hose.

This was a pretty involved project, but I'm for sure on the tail end of it and will have it operational within a few days. If I were to do it all over again, I would have paid more attention to how I was going to run the piping while I was building the tanks. A plan would have been nice, but you know how that goes. Stainless steel pipe would have been another good thing, but since I'm on a shoe string budget, painted steel pipe will have to do. All the piping has been air tested from the manifolds, through the tanks to the deck fills and vents. I'll probably put 30 gallons of fuel in the system and start moving fuel around to clean the tanks. The next part of the fuel system to build is the delivery system and returns for the main engine and generator. I'll be starting on the delivery system this week.

Fuel system

This is going to be the first of a few posts relating to my fuel system. I'm glad I did not bid building this system for someone as I'm finding this job burning up a lot more time and material than I would have guessed.

The first order of business for building the fuel system were installing the fill pipes. I have four integral tanks in the engine room with a capacity between 1200 - 1300 gallons. I have one 200 gallon tank that I will use as a day tank. The day tank will supply the main engine and generator with fuel. On the aft deck of the boat I'll have two fill locations, one fill for the starboard tanks, and one fill for the port side tanks. Both the port side and starboard side fuel fill pipes have ball valves in line to direct fuel to either the forward or aft fuel tank on each side of the boat. When I want to fill the forward port tank, I close aft ball valve and open the forward valve. Likewise, when I want to fill the aft port tank, I close the forward ball valve, and open the aft valve. When the tanks are full, all the ball valves on all the fill lines are closed. The fill pipes are steel pipe, 2" sch. 40.

The tank vents are 1" steel pipe sch. 40 and will exit the boat with the fill pipes and terminate at the fill stations.

After the fill pipes were fabricated I turned my attention to the fuel transfer piping. With four tanks on board, and one of those tanks being used as my day tank, I have to be able to transfer fuel from any one tank to any tank I desire. In order to transfer fuel I'll utilize an electric pump with a manual pump as my back up. Each tank has a dedicated pick up tube that extends to about 1" above the tank bottom for the transfer system. I added a second pick up tube to each tank to give me the option on using the second pick up tube for feeding the machinery while still having a stand alone fuel transfer system. The fuel transfer system has a large Racor filter that will clean the fuel and separate any water in the fuel before the fuel goes to the day tank.

I wanted to get a decent flow rate out of my transfer system, and because I was a little nervous about friction loss in the transfer pipe, I used 3/4" sch. 40 steel pipe for the transfer system.

I'm in the excavating business, and I'm always calling to have underground utilities marked before I dig on a job site. The marking companies spray paint the location of the various utilities on the ground using the following colors: red for electric, blue for water, yellow for gas, orange for cable and phone, and green for fuel or oil related. Given I have to paint the pipe to protect it, I have chosen to paint all the fuel related parts in the engine room green.

There is a lot to the fuel system, and I feel as if I got a good start on my first week of working on it.

Guest cabin complete

I've finished the work in the kids cabin, and I'm moving my tools back to the engine room. All the major wood work is completed in the cabins and bathroom except for the building of the passage doors. I've got to decide on the door hardware before I commit to building the doors. I'm a little burned out on wood work, and a little time away from wood working will do me some good allowing me to finish some of the mechanical systems.

I had a visit from fellow boat builder Brian Russell last year and took some of his comments to heart. Brian is building a Dix alloy sailboat and you can check it out here:Welcome to Odyssey YAchts
While Brian and I were looking over my build he had some concern about the lack of ventilation in my hull. His concern had been gnawing at me for a while and so I started to make some choices about how I was going to keep air moving in the cabins. Since I'm blogging about the kids cabin, I might as well talk about the ventilation plan for this room. The guest cabin has a 20" x 20" Lemar Ocean Hatch as it's primary source of ventilation. I wanted more vents in the cabin that would work while under way and while we were off of the boat, so I added two six inch vents in each corner of the cabin. I found some 6" SCH.40 galvanized pipe at the scrap yard and purchased eight feet to fabricate the passive ventilation system. I carefully laid out the vent locations then cut away the insulation two inches larger than the pipe. I wedged a metal bucket with a little water in it tight to the ceiling @ the cut area, then used my plasma cutter to cut out the deck large enough to accept the pipe. I welded in my pipe vents and extended them up to an elevation lower than the cap of the Portuguese bridge. Because of the high bulwarks and me wanting the vent intake up where it will actually catch some air, I want to make sure the cowl is above the Portuguese bridge when I'm finished . I'll fabricate some Dorade boxes to work with the 5" cowl vents I'm looking for. When it's all said and done, the air intake will be above the Portuguese bridge, and the cowls will look quite shippy. I primed and painted the below deck pipe work then glued some plywood on the below deck pipe ends to act as a nailer for the bead board ceiling. Because I'm paranoid about sweating metal, I wrapped the pipe in closed cell foam gasket material I had in the shop, and spray foamed the rest with some of those cans you get at the hardware store. Doing metal work in a finished section of the boat is a bitch and really slows me down, but this was something that had to be done. I also added a 12 volt fan in each corner of the cabin that will be controlled by their own switch. The kids cabin also has one four inch duct for air conditioning and heat when the weather calls.

The last wood working project in this cabin was building the drawer unit under the port bunks. There was really not enough usable space to build the lower of the two drawers so I built a cubby and installed a drawer front on the cubby. I installed two self closing cabinet hinges on this cubby/drawer along with a catch to hold the drawer front fast. The drawer unit is built against the bathroom bulkhead, and that angle turned out to be 28 degrees. Building the angled drawer was a challenge that took more time than one would figure, but I think the effort was worth it as this drawer added a fair amount of easily accessible storage. The drawer will have one inch of clearance as it slides past the bathroom door casing. The bathroom door will have to be closed to use the drawer unit, but I'm pretty sure it will be closed all the time since having the door closed makes the room just a fuzz larger.

It's not green

For anyone who thinks this ceiling is green, I have news for you. The manufacturer calls this color " Early Morning Forest Glenn". Once I figure out what a Glenn is I'll probably have a better clue as to why this is not called green. But in case anyone cares, from this day forward, I'm going to say that I have a green ceiling in the kids cabin.

I decided to use bead board for the ceiling in the kids cabin. I chose bead board because it is relatively inexpensive, has a traditional yacht look, is light weight and easily installed. White is probably a more traditional color, but I like the green, and I think it works.

The work in this room is winding down and after a few more evenings of work, this room will be finished. I still have a two more weeks until Spring is officially over, and I think I'm going to make my deadline of getting this room done before Summer. I hate to have a schedule on the boat build, but I want to get her finished and out of the barn, so I'm pushing a little harder and placing some deadlines upon myself.

The way the boat is framed, has caused me to build access panels along the port and starboard side where the ceiling meets the hull sides. On both sides of the boat, I now have an easily accessed chase from the bow to the engine room. Once inside the engine room, I'm good with screwing conduit and other mechanical parts to the walls and ceilings where I can get my hands and eyes on them, so I don't need decorative chase ways.

The port side of the hull chase way houses the water lines feeding the cabins. The starboard side has the spare forced main from the head if I ever decide to go with a toilet other than the composting unit. The four inch duct for the heat and AC that feeds the kids cabin and dressing room will also be in this chase. I think I have room to get the hydraulic lines for the anchor winch in this chase also, but that has yet to be decided. I really think the hydraulic lines will work well here, so maybe I'll just have to make that work.

I had welded a chase way in the frames along the center line of the hull so I built a removable panel for the bead ceiling to access that area. Other than a few visible screws that I painted over, the chase is almost impossible to see, and is quick and easy to remove. This center chase was my original choice for the anchor winch hydraulic lines, but I'm not so sure now. I'm leaving the small ceiling out of the area above the blanket chest until I decide on the hydraulic line route.

I installed the two port light trim rings, and also started to fit the battens that will cover the hull liner joints. I've yet to install the hatch, but I was able to trim 80% of the hatch as the top trim piece needs to be removed to access the hatch mounting bolts.

The guest cabin has three flush mounted 12 volt LED ceiling lights controlled by one switch. Each of the four bunks also has a LED bulkhead mounted reading light on their own switch. There are also two 12v fans in each corner with their own switch. I also have a duplex 120 volt AC receptacle for a TV along with a coax box. The blue water line you see in ceiling headed towards the bow is for the anchor wash down.