The Tubes to Nowhere

The weather didn't hold up here as much as it held on, so there wasn't much in the way of epoxy and/or painting. While standing in the boat, my tools and equipment strewn about, I wondered aloud as to why I'm not farther along. I have the planks for the sole sitting in the kitchen, where they've been for a few days. I have unfinished touch up painting. I still don't have the dashboard cutout. And then I looked down and saw a mass of wires and understood. My obsession with the wiring scheme has easily cost me a month, maybe more, in the build. In the end, I'll get what I want, but at what price wires?

Here's what's going on back here:

1. Port/Starboard Locker LEDs (blue)
2. Port/Starboard Lazarette LEDs (blue)
3. Port/Starboard rear cabin lights (white - wires will run aft through the corner of bulkhead 7)
4. Stern light
5. GPS/Chartplotter
6. 4-12 volt 'cigarette lighters,' two on each side installed in the locker wall.
7. Port/Starboard cabin speakers
8. Port/Starboard locker speakers
9. RAM3 VHF microphone
10. Horn button & wiring (controlled from cockpit with horn in dorade box)

The good news is I managed to pull the wires all the way through the conduit using a plumber's snake. Was surprisingly easy once I found the right tool to do that. I'll have a couple dual bus bars back there (one for electronics, the other for lights) and another for the speakers.

The wiring scheme from the transom back.

The conduit threw up on my rug.

Conduit and wires running into the front storage locker.

I've been to the Big Box store easily 6 times in the last few days trying to find the perfect way to ensure that I can run the wires aft-forward without risk of swamping the boat. That's because anything that comes through bulkhead 8 must be watertight, but I keep having to buy things to test and fit. The tubes are a prime example. Since the through-hulls are 1/4", the tubes have to be 1/4" inside diameter. The larger conduit is 7/8" inside diameter, so the outside diameter of such tubes have to be no more than that if I want them to fit snugly. Unfortunately, 3/4" ID / 7/8" OD doesn't exist. I tried shaving down a bit of it and jamming it into the conduit but it doesn't work. That means I'll have to go the other way: get a larger tube to stick the conduit and smaller tube in to ensure it's watertight and secure. That means another $15 and yet another trip to the Big Box store. Oh, well.

Two sets of speaker wires, two sets of pos/neg, and a thin wire for the horn. Yes, a horn. The horn will be in the dorade box.

Frustrated, I gave up trying to finalize the wires (and therefore, permanently installing the sole) until I can get the last little bit of tubing to do this. It took a bit to get up the courage, but I made the leap and installed bulkhead 8 speakers. Now, I posted a question about this on the PocketShip forums and to a man, everyone said it was a bad idea, mostly because of stuff getting in the way of a proper sound, and two, because people aren't sure how to make it watertight. The watertight business is easy. The speakers are low profile, only jutting 1 1/2" inches, which means together with the thickness of bulkhead 8, it's a simple matter of building a small speaker box into the lazarette area.

As luck would have it, the portlight/deadlight was the same size as the speaker. It served as a good template to mark the circle to cut, and then follow with a jigsaw. I wasn't too worried about precision here as long as the cabin view was flush and neat. I'd take care of any issues with the jigsaw with some epoxy, what else.

Speakers installed. I was deciding between two designs. The caterpillar on the right is a LED strip that will run under the cleat. Wires will run aft into the laz and then the hole will be sealed.

From behind. I'll close this off with a watertight box spanning the cleats. The wires will run out a small hole drilled near the top and sealed with silicon.

As for blocking the speakers with dunnage (sailor speak for assorted sailing crap stored in the cabin) I suppose that's possible, even likely. PocketShip #1 has some neat speakers mounted on bulkhead 7 that jut a bit into the cabin. They're of course perfectly placed and aren't blocked by anything. But when I was on PS #1 over the summer and laid down, I came really close to kicking the speakers. That would've been bad, and made me think there must be a better place to put them. Structurally, bulkhead 8 bears weight so removing a bit of it is a risk. With the boxes epoxy'd in back, I think it'll replace most of the structure from the cut out. I'm not sure if I want to continue the massacre of bulkhead 8 and install deck plates. It'd be nice to install them so I have access to the laz without exiting the cabin, but I'm not sure I want to take down bulkhead 8 anymore than I have already.  Ahh... who am I kidding...

Odds and End(ings) - Centerboard sheave and inspection ports

The third trip to the Big Box store finally yielded the prize. It was a quest like finding the rare white rhino: a bolt that would fit the sheave pendant that also came with a fitted acorn nut. And of course, stainless steel they must be. Zinc, chrome, and chrome plated weren't going to work. It was a quest I've been on for the better part of two months. Finally, the quest came to an end and I'm the proud owner of an installed sheave pendant!

View of pendant sheave installed with new hole, too. Too cold to epoxy this yet.

Pretty much all of Big Box's nut sizes. Gave up trying to be precise, so I bought.. a few.

Deck plate and pendant installed. The white-white contrasts nicely with the Choice Cream.

Nice little acorn nut. This is sealed in silicon.

Of course, nothing's quite that easy. I began the evening "simply" going to install the deck plates on either side of the centerboard trunk, the deck plates that are used to push down the centerboard in case it gets jammed, which kinda happens a lot, and unfortunately, sometimes happens somewhat permanently. I knew I'd have to trim the top part as the deck plate bumps up against the cleat. I didn't know I'd have trim the entire circumference around as it protruded into the centerboard trunk itself a good 1/4". With both of them installed, I'd lose 1/2" of clearance for the centerboard. Sure enough, when I tested the opening with the 2/3 done centerboard, it wouldn't fit.

Halfway through sanding this down. It stuck out much more at first. The writing is "CTBD Port" for "centerboard trunk port side" -- seems like ages ago that I put this on!

For the protrusion, I debated looking for "low profile" deck plates but resigned myself to just sanding the darn things down, and that I did. I turned my random orbital into a stationary sander. Three discs of 60 grit later, 12 #8 1/2" stainless screws, and a few dabs of silicon, and I've got pretty good fitting deck plates. But that wasn't until I also had to sand out the opening itself as the 6" deck plates seemed to be 6 1/8". That was frustrating. Some of that is due to the epoxy and paint that gummed it up a bit, but I swear the holes in the centerboard trunk were a little small. I left these a little proud (in other words, still protruding maybe 1/16" into the centerboard trunk) but there should be plenty of clearance now for the centerboard itself.

Bulkhead 7 doubles as a workbench to clamp the sander.

It's nice getting stuff out of boxes and onto the boat. I special ordered the sheave from the Marine store back in April and bought the deck plates in the summer. You can see where I thought I'd be in the build. It's a minor miracle I didn't lose them with all the box moving I've done over the last couple months, but there they are, installed on my boat. I have to repaint some spots where I scuffed the finish but it was worth it.

I also drilled out the hole where the pendant enters the footwell. I had to buy a 5/8" drill bit for this and frankly overpaid for the privilege, but I must say the Irwin bit I got is a very, very sweet bit. Highly recommended as it chomped through the trunk blocking straight and true. It's pretty cool to see this little feat of engineering come together: the pendant runs from a cleat on the footwell, into this hole, across the pendant sheave, and through a hole in the centerboard to raise and lower it. Simple but effective. Like most holes on the boat, this will be completely filled with epoxy, then redrilled slightly smaller so the wood is never exposed to water. The trick here is to ensure that the second drilling is exactly in line with the first. It does no good if the angles are off and part of the wood is protected and part of it isn't.

View down the hole to the pendant sheave.

Finally, the speaker boxes are done. I should say speaker corners. I decided against boxes because I didn't want this sticking too far into the cabin, plus wanted to direct the sound to meet in the middle. I had to return the original 6.5" Boss Marine speakers for a set of 6.5" Pyles. The Pyles were a little more money but were "low profile" with a 2.5" mounting depth. The Boss speakers wouldn't fit into the corners I created for them, but the Pyle ones do. They're grey, not white, but it won't be too bad. They supposedly sound better than the Boss ones but I haven't heard them so the jury's out on that.

View of speaker 'boxes' from above.

I've decided to let go of my wiring obsession in the forward locker. Yes, I could build runners and hide them all but there are going to be a lot of wires back here and to hide them would just not be efficient. Perhaps some day when all is said and done and I have free time (ha!) I'll rework the wiring, but I'm comfortable with that decision. And really, unless someone sticks his head through bulkhead 2 and strains, it's really hard to see anything back there, anyway.

I'm pleased with the way this section turned out, but I'm going to wait until I get a break in the weather (looks like tomorrow might be 55 degrees) to do a final pass with some thickened epoxy to shape the fillets. It's totally about aesthetics and I'm in no rush to get these done until I like the way they look. Only then will I paint this part, which might be next year.

One thing I noticed while working with my cell phone running Pandora is how the forward locker seems to amplify sound. The phone was sitting on the xylophone/battery box holder, maybe 3/4 volume, and it was so loud I had to turn it down. Granted, I'm in an enclosed space in my garage, but just a few feet away sit two 200 watt marine speakers coupled with another set of 100 watters that will go in the rear of the boat. That boat's gonna be jumpin'.

Snowbound No More

Hard to believe in mid-November that it's warmer here than Atlanta. I'd know, because I've spent the better part of the last two weeks in Georgia (and for good measure, a day in Reno). Why isn't really important.. what is important is that I'm happy to report that the garage is a comfy 75 degrees with the heater as the outside temp hit nearly 50 degrees here. That's convertible down and shorts weather. We're expected to be into the low 50's until Wednesday, then the floor will drop out from under us like a gallows. That means I have until Wednesday to get whatever epoxy down until next season.

As a reminder, I'm in Minnesota, yes, that one, the Great White North and the butt of many, many Fargo jokes, usually from people living in New York who think they live in some tropical oasis. In fact, when I was in Reno, one guy went on for a few moments about how cold Minnesota was, and I let him go for a bit. When he was done, I reminded him that it was warmer there than it was here (it was 37 degrees in Reno at the time). Some people need to look at their thermometers before dissing other weather patterns. And for the record, I'd much, MUCH rather live in Minnesota than Reno.

With that out of the way, I spent the better part of the afternoon destepping the mast from the Macgregor. Technically, it was already destepped. Removing it is more like it: jib, mast, boom, chainplates, and all. I'm taking the hull and trailer about an hour south of me to a town called Hastings. She'll sit on some guy's lawn until spring for $25 a month. Since I had to take the sails off for storage, and I'd like to rewire the mast for a mastlight and redo some of the running rigging, I stuffed everything in the garage next door. To my surprise, they barely fit. I thought there'd be plenty of room, which makes me think the boat probably wouldn't have fit in there.

The sail sat in my living room for a bit as it dried out. With fair warning about rodents from fellow PocketShip builder Chris, I'll have this stored with a few cats I'll recruit from the neighborhood. That's what I think he meant by keeping rodents away, I think.

Living room a loft as I spread out the Macgregor sail. The electric outboard sits above.

Once everything was stored, and the interior of the Macgregor cleaned for transit, I set to re-paint PocketShip's cabin. My original vision for the cabin color was an eggshell white, an offwhite that wouldn't be glaring, but still bright enough so the cozy cabin wouldn't feel like a cave. I thought I found that in "Snowbound," a cool white (meaning a slightly blue tint) that looked great in the showroom but blinding in the garage. I knew I was in trouble when my wife saw the finished paint job and asked if I actually painted, since it wasn't much different from the primer. Admittedly, it was a few levels of white higher than I wanted, but another gallon of paint would cost $50 and Snowbound, though bright, went on great. So I firmly resisted the color change and all the work that would have to go with it, such as taking out the installed conduit and bilge pump. I wasn't going to repaint, no sir..

But then I realized I'd painted over the spot where the pendant sheave needs to go on the centerboard trunk, meaning I'd have to sand the paint off to find it. When I did that, I noticed that the original kit-drilled hole was too small, so I drilled a slightly bigger hole for the bolt I'm installing so I could epoxy that back over and have a nice protective ring of epoxy around the bolt. (Note to new builders: I'd recommend expanding that hole size another 1/8" or so to fit the sheave bolt. Fill it with epoxy as normal.) That means I repainted the entire cabin because I had an unpainted spot about the size of a postage stamp. But it would be Snowbound no more!

The offending pendant sheave hole which caused the whole thing to get a facelift.

This time, I knew better how to pick the color. With Snowbound, I erred on the side of bright. For this, I erred on the side of dark. I settled on "Choice Cream" and as it went on, I knew instantly I made the right choice. Whereas before, the white was so blinding I felt like I was back in the office in Minnesota, this looks like I'm swimming in butter. I'll probably hate it after a year but for now, it's a lot better than it was before. And since the original paint basically acted like a primer, I didn't have to do any prep except for a little sanding here and there.

Overhead view of the first coat of the "cream". Much softer than before. The original color is along the top of bulkhead 2, which I didn't repaint as I shouldn't have painted it the first time..

The bilge pump outlet (right) and electrical conduit signed, sealed, and delivered on bulkhead 8. The wire is a RAM3 (VHF radio extension) that will run from the starboard locker to the storage locker in the cabin. Sealed with epoxy.

Finished dashboard with trim. I left this Snowbound so as not to risk painting the trim. Figure it'll stand out nicely.

I put on the first coat of cream and just finished the second coat. Snowbound the color will likely wind up in the cockpit, though I'm a little nervous about it being too bright underway, so I'll test it come spring. I'd hoped to be further along, but I've given up on a timetable. These extra days are bonus. They're certainly warm enough to work; the weather will cooperate through mid-week. And with the garage in the 70's, who knows how far I'll get before I really need to shut down for the season.