365 Ketch - Hull 141

[Jordan]

Wow! I really can't explain it, but for some reason those last two comments, and the corresponding research I did, has shocked me. Not in a bad way, but I did just look at the ratings of the plug-in devices I have, and what the actual energy needs would be, just for the limited things I mentioned. There are so many more.

I've fallen into a trap. A common one I would think. In order to do what I was thinking, I would need an honestly stupid setup. Like mega yeah level stupid. I honestly hadn't actually gotten to the point of thinking about an inverter. My only thought was that this charger cannot charger li-ion batteries. And then I stupidly went for the biggest capacity I could think of.

I almost feel like being in a marina is a disservice. I'm finding myself trying to translate my current life on shore power to being at anchor. But I think the reality is that I need to simplify. It's not realistic to run an AC from an inverter while also running the things I mentioned. I have a two battery setup right now. AGM, maybe 100ah, and probably less useable considering the 50% discharge rate. I do know I'm upgrading to lithium, but my power use needs to change. Just my media (TV, movies, ebooks, audiobooks) in it's current setup would require 456W. That's just the hard drives! Not even the computer to run it (420W) included. That was a hell of a wake up call, and I haven't even included the work stuff!

I need to revisit how this is going to look. How my life is going to look. Besides miscellaneous articles, most of what I know is from a select group of YouTube channels, and the cruisers compendium from Nigel Calder. The electronics stuff is pretty out of date in that book, and I understood it all. I didn't internalize it. He doesn't even mention lithium ion. I think I dismissed it.

I'm not there yet, but I think I'm getting there. @SVJourney, I will check my library for that book, and I'll hit you up if I don't have it. It sounds familiar, but I'm not sure.

I owe you both some rum.

I'm going to expand on this tomorrow, when I'm a touch more sooner and can post from the laptop. But thank you so much. I'm so low sodium! I'll get salty, but not yet.

[Jordan]

Going sailing on Thursday! Not in our boat, but still, that's going to be nice. Weather when I checked was calling for 17kt sustained with intermittent guest up to 29kt. Should be awesome. It's a birthday day cruise (yeah, I don't know why that was a gift...I have a boat!), but I'll ask the captain how hard we can push it. Maybe. First time going sailing since I've bought this beautiful ketch.

We spent almost a week picking out a new faucet for the galley. The current setup winds up wasting a lot of water, just due to how close to the edge of the sink is when washing dishes. The new faucet, that I think will be awesome (pictures soon), was delivered today. To our mailbox. 10 miles away. We haven't even picked it up, and she's now wanting to know if there hot water heater works. It seemed a bit premature to me. Enjoy the new awesomeness once it's installed, and go from there! So now I'm looking at how to use this water heater.

I'll post more tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I need to fill that tank in the starboard cockpit locker, and then run the engine. We shall see what happens next.

[Jordan]

I'll make a separate thread with more details, but this worked out really well I think.

[S/V AMITY]

*Just* fits.  Bet it was interesting getting it installed.

[SVJourney]

GAH!!  Open cans of Friskies out in the galley!   

[S/V AMITY]

Cat on board!

[Jordan]

Lol. The wet food is a new thing for our old ass cat, who is deaf and mostly toothless. We used to just grind his food up, mix it with some water, and he was good. But over the past 3 months, he started getting super-picky. And we're really not wanting him to starve, so the better half makes multiple trips to the store every week to try different kinds of cat food. And even then, we have to mix that with water. The other cat has been getting so fat eating Jynx's soft food. So we feed him by hand now.

I'm working on the write up for the faucet install, and I'll post it in the right section. However, since we discussed the cats, here is a little sad video of him trying to get on the settee. He makes it most of the time, but is just so weak (not sure about the permissions, so let me know if it doesn't work). But since he's deaf, we do get to have a little fun with him.

It's a constant battle, though. If he's not meowing for food super loudly at 3am, he's doing stuff like this:

[Jordan]

Well, we got the fiddle rails and the grab rail off of the section where the icebox is. Pulled off all the laminate, got all the screws out, and pulled up about half of it. Not sure if it has a lip that goes under those cupboards on the port side behind where the stove would be, but I'm afraid of breaking stuff on accident (no issues breaking it on purpose). Better half just took off to pick up an oscillating tool. She was trying to use the chisel to cut through the wood (and that actually worked in a few other places), but with the how high up that little office fridge sits, plus the lack of clearance above, she did not have good control of the hammer and after a couple of almost tragedies, I insisted we get the right tool for the job.

I poked around before, but didn't find anyone who redesigned the icebox or anything.

[RomainDaut]

Hi there!
I am brand new here and also brand new live onboard a Pilgrim365 ketch.
I am looking at doing the same thing with the cool box and would love to know more about your project.
What exactly are you trying to do here? Fit a system like a technautic cool blue inside (Very Expensive) or change the whole thing??

My wife and baby girl are joking me in a couple of weeks so all advices regarding a real fridge/cooling system are very welcom!!
Cheers!
R.D

[Dale Tanski]

The one thing I did besides improve the insulation was to install a vacuum insulated lid.  It came from a company that did DIY refrigeration systems.  It is similar to a thermos design in that the vacuum has a very high insulation rating for the lids thickness and it has a flange frame and excellent gaskets.  The lid never sweats, it is excellent.
Dale

[Jordan]

What exactly are you trying to do here? Fit a system like a technautic cool blue inside (Very Expensive) or change the whole thing??

At its most basic, I ripped out the icebox in order to have a place to put a 12v refrigeration system. When we bought her, it was just an office fridge sitting where the stove would be. It sits too high, really makes the galley feel smaller, doesn't work that great (takes days to make a tiny tray of ice), and it was just plain annoying. So I got a Whynter 12v fridge. I'm going to be putting that fridge on a new platform where the icebox was (I'll get some pictures in a bit). At that point, I can get rid of the office fridge, and install a gimballed stovetop and convection oven. Essentially, this is part of the complicated process of getting her prepped to be able to live at anchor and go off-grid cruising, as opposed to sailing from marina to marina, which is kind of how she's rigged now.

The one thing I did besides improve the insulation was to install a vacuum insulated lid.  It came from a company that did DIY refrigeration systems.  It is similar to a thermos design in that the vacuum has a very high insulation rating for the lids thickness and it has a flange frame and excellent gaskets.  The lid never sweats, it is excellent.
Dale

I'll say this, as I was researching all of these possibilities, I went down quite the rabbit hole. The Vacuum Insulation Panel technology damn near made me go the route of a cooling plate and some new insulation in the existing icebox. There is so much space. That's been the trickiest part, actually. How to do this and not waste any storage space. Who knows what I'll do next. One thing that I'm very quickly learning is that if I try to assume what our cruising life will look like right now, I'll be wrong.

[Dale Tanski]

For a guy who touts living on the hook and off of the grid, you are a taking a strange approach. First off, the existing ice box (called that for a reason) is huge by design to store a large quantity of ice.  Mass storage of ice, know as thermal storage, can provide  temperatures suitable for refrigeration without outside mechanical refrigeration for days depending how often you disturb the box.  The drain in the bottom is not there for spilled wine.
The top loaded box is another design specifically to enhance the systems ability to hold the cold when you open the lid. Cold air acts like water when you open a conventional refrigerator door flowing to the floor when the door is opened.  A top access prevents this from happening. Your "new" unit will dump every time it is reopened and will require valuable power to replace the cold.
You mentioned ice. Ice is one of the most expensive commodities you will manufacture aboard.  The thermal mass concept is based on the phase change of the liquid water into solid ice.  To make this happen, one has to remove a huge amount of thermal energy to freeze the water. I often comment when receiving a soft drink filled to the rim with ice at a fast food place.  They do this of course as they are focused on minimizing the cost of the syrup. If they only knew the cost required to manufacture the ice they would be better off minimizing the ice and replacing it with liquids as the drink would cost them less.
You now have a new highest energy draw to contend with known as 12 volt refrigeration.  Perhaps you should consider replacing your anchor rode with a shore power cord.
Dale

[Jordan]

For a guy who touts living on the hook and off of the grid, you are a taking a strange approach.

It's an approach by a guy who doesn't have much experience, and am learning as I go. Hence why I'm documenting my thought process and am open to feedback. I am aware of the power of ice boxes, and we did use it as one for a couple of weeks. A lot of food wasted as we learned, and even once we kind of got the hang of it, we just couldn't quite figure out a way to make the shift in lifestyle pleasant. It could be that it's our own weak spot, or whatever, or it could be the fact that she has been a marina boat for the last 3 years (everything that we cook with is stuff that we've gotten since we've been on her). Maybe I'm not doing things in the best way, but each step is directly linked back to disconnecting the shore power.

And I don't know if I messed up the links or whatever, but the fridge I have is top opening, so I'm not sure what that paragraph was about.

As far as ice goes (specifically the desire to make some), I imagine that is going to shift over time as well. I can confirm that this fridge freezer will freeze a 32oz cup of water into a block within less than 12 hours. Which is neat, but once I wire up the electrical, that's when I'll start playing with the power consumption bit. Better than current state anyway.

[Jordan]

Okay. I have to admit that I took Dale's comment poorly.

I honestly spent some time coming up with "sick burns" against potential comments he'd make. But what I realized is that it wasn't personal (hopefully...if it was, shoot me a PM ).

My google-fu fails me when it comes to memes and the like, but I'm pretty sure there is a chart of knowledge or something that breaks down the parts. What you know you know, what you know you don't know, etc. I'm spending a lot of time in the things I don't know I don't know section. And that bugs me a bit.

But here I am (I'm trying to get the better half to join). I really don't know. I couldn't get the engine started, nobody at the marina could help, so I paid for it. And I honestly feel okay about that. This guy seems familiar with the engine, and his troubleshooting was exactly what I did, and then he went further. Long story short, currently our injector pump is getting rebuilt.

So as far as the engine goes, I've outsourced it for now. Once it starts, I'm going to take over learning about it. As I'm sure anyone who has been cruising for a while would expect (I think), my priorities keep changing. I know I was surprised. There is a saying I heard once.

• Keep the rig up.
• Keep the keel & rudder on.
• Keep the water on the outside..
• Everything else is negotiable.

I try to keep that in mind, but I really suck at it. So much more I want to do. But that's what I am doing. The rig, the rudder, the keel, and go from there. But I couldn't get the engine to work. Currently, we're stuck. I could get a big ass paddle (what's the word for that? a skegging paddle?), but this isn't just me. We intend to cruise. To use the wind to push us from place to place, and leave this madness behind. So the motor is getting to the point where she can start, and I'll take over from there.

So we're in sailing mode. We moved to the headsail. A roller furler is installed, but it doesn't spin. It's not the drum at the bottom. It'll twist as much as it can without the top foil/extrusion moving. And now, with my aforementioned desire to overcomplicate things, definitely think the headstay hasn't been replaced in 43 years. But I'm going up the mast soon, and I'll poke around. I think I have the original, and I hope it'll work. I've got 2 masts, a forestay, and only a single sail to use. Any good resources about roller furlers?

[Dale Tanski]

Your headsail furler issue could be several things.

1) What is the make of your furler?  If it is a CDI and you hoisted your headsail using the boats jib halyard, that is the problem.  A CDI furler uses its own internal halyard for hoisting that rides internally in its foil section.  If you use the normal jib halyard on the boat, it just wraps around the headstay at the top getting tighter and tighter until it stops the rotation.

2) If it is any other make furler, it still could be the jib halyard.  Look up and see if the jib halyard is getting caught on the upper bearing assembly.  If it is, it wraps around just like with the CDI and stops the upper portion from rotating when it gets tight.  To fix this situation you can install a halyard pull back bracket. Schaefer makes a nice simple one.  It is designed to hold the jib halyard against the mast to provide clearance between the halyard and the upper bearing assembly allowing it to rotate freely.

3) Although rare, it could be a broken strand of your headstay that is getting caught on the inside of your foil extrusion keeping it from rotating. If this is the case the headstay with furler will have to be taken down and the headstay wire replaced.  This is often easier said than done as the sections of furler will have to be taken apart as the connectors for the foil are the bearings that ride around the headstay wire.  These connectors will not slide over the lower swedged wire fitting and must be removed to do so.  Depending on make, disassembly can often be all but impossible.  Many of the Sheafer furlers used pop rivets to fasten the connectors to the foils and although you can drill out the heads of the rivets, you can not remove the rivet body because it will not push in due to the headstay being in the way.  Many other manufactures used set screws.  These are often "frozen" into the aluminum foil sections and are all but impossible to remove or drill out.  We find Harken furlers to be the most serviceable, with many of the original Mark 1's still going strong at over 30 years old, however, replacement parts are no longer available for them.

Whatever you do, do not exert extreme rotational force on the furler assembly in an attempt to free it up.  We had a customer that attempted to winch on the furler line and when that didn't work attached it to his electric windlass for more power.  The windlass did indeed spin the furler assembly.  The final result was that he twisted the headstay clean off at the upper swedged eye and the severed headstay and furler landed on his neighbors boat.  Good thing it was a keel step mast or he could have lost the rig over the side as well.  The damages were close to $5k.

Dale Tansk
Obersheimers
Maruska
Hull #40