On Board with Mark Corke

Minn Kota

 

This is my Minn Kota riptide 40 electric outboard. In standard configuration the shaft between the top and bottom sections is too long for use on many boats. The clamp is adjustable and sure, you can raise and lower the outboard  to adjust the height or rather depth that the prop sits in the water but then for most dinghies and other small craft the handle is up too high. Unlike a conventional outboard where the engine is at the top and connects via bevel gears on the lower unit to the prop on electric outboards the motor connects directly to the prop with the motor encased in a waterproof submersible housing. The engine is heavy as it contains a lot of copper and the control head at the top is simply a rheostat control for forward and reverse, all very simple. Anyway the point is that by removing a few screws from the control head I was able to cut some 13 inches off the shaft  which both makes the top to bottom of the outboard more compact and also allows it to fit in a cockpit locker on the mother ship more readily. The shaft is in fact no more than a thick walled plastic conduit pipe which carries the cables from the speed controller to the engine and is easy to cut with a hacksaw. I am not sure what Minn Kota would say about the changes but the motor has worked flawlessly for the past 6 years since I got it.

Incidentally all the focus these days seems to be on the Torqueedo electric outboard undoubtedly a good motor but frankly I like the look of the Minn Kota better and instead of having to buy the very expensive special snap on batteries as you do with the Torqueedo you can use a 12 volt marine deep cycle battery which are far cheaper and available almost anywhere.

Top tip - getting rid of pencil marks

 

Here is a tip that you might not know about. If you are setting out work with a pencil and you make a mistake or other wise need to remove an errant pencil mark from a wood surface use alcohol. It takes pencil marks off in a jiffy, the alcohol evaporates almost right away and it will not damage the workpiece  at all. Erasers work fine some of the time but they leave a black mark often which you still have to get rid of, sanding with a piece of abrasive paper often scratches the surface and is hard work, alcohol simply rubs the mark away.

Go Bars

 

Lest you think I have gone bonkers Go Bars have nothing to do with topless dancers but everything to do with holding things in place. Sometimes there really is no way to effectively hold some work down while the glue sets up using conventional clamps. That's when you have to use flexible battens off the ceiling as I am doing here. I had to make a repair to some teak decking which needed to be stuck down with epoxy but there was just no way to hold it overnight as the epoxy set up using other methods. In fact go bars are often used when making a traditional small craft upside down. There is so much twist in the garboard planks that struts from the ceiling are about the only way to impart enough twist in the planks to make them lie flat against the molds.

Go bars are the answer. If you want a better shot of some up market fancy ones then click here.

Bosch 125 water heater

 

One of the great things about surveying boats is that you get to see some neat installations and get to go on boats that you would otherwise never visit. I recently spent some time on a PDQ 32 sailing catamaran and was very impressed by the layout of the boat. I had seen these boats many time before but this was my first time actually on one. The main sitting area which is U shaped is sited around a large table and takes up essentially the whole covered bridge deck area. But it is only when you step down into the hulls that you realise just how much space there is in this boat. Both hulls have a large double aft, forward of this in the starboard hull is a fantastic chart table and navigational area that I just loved. Forward of the chart area is a voluminous shower and heads compartment which is very sensibly finished off in white gel coat so that everything is very easy to clean and keep sanitary. The port hull has the same double berth aft but forward of this is the very large and secure galley which is superb. The space which is occupied by the head in the starboard cabin is sealed off from the rest of the boat in the port hull and contains the gas bottle stowage and tons of space for fenders, spare anchors and anything else you might need for a couple of weeks away from the dock.  One of the standard fitments in the galley was this Bosch W125 instantaneous water heater which was very unobtrusive and highly efficient. What Ilike about these heaters is that they only supply water as needed and providing you don't run out of water from the main tank will keep hot water flowing for as long as the faucet is open.  I remember we had one of these heaters on a boat when I did an Atlantic crossing with some friends, we replenished the water tanks from a water maker, we had plenty of propane so we were able to take hot showers every three days which was pure luxury. While the calorifier style water heaters that have an electric element in them are  great they only heat up on average 6 gallons of water when the generator or engine is running or you are plugged into shore power. I know that there are concerns over the safety of propane but none than would be the case if you already use it for cooking so providing you take reasonable precautions and the system is correctly installed and plumbed in then I think that this Bosch heater is a very cost effective alternative to producing hot water.

 

Sodden balsa core

  

Balsa is an almost perfect core material providing it is not allowed to get wet. Once water gets in it will travel through the core soaking up more and more water. In freezing temperatures the ice expands forces the deck apart even more and allows more water to enter thus the problem gets worse and worse.  There was some water laying on this deck this morning when I looked at the boat and if you look carefully you can see bubbles coming up which means that water is getting in. To fix this now the whole deck will have to be cut open and new core installed at an estimated cost of probably 50K.  It is quite probable that when problems started there was just some slight water intrusion through a couple of deck fittings a few years ago. Had the owner addressed them back then it would have a lot cheaper and could have been fixed for a couple of hundred dollars but now it is a major project and we are almost at the point where the 50 foot boat is almost not worth saving.

Collapsible can

 
We have been having some very warm weather up here in the north east recently which makes a change from the cold we had to endure over the very long winter but just look at this can that I foolishly left near the open door of the workshop and therefore in the bright sun. The can looks like I had crushed it on purpose ready to take to the recycling center with the rest of the trash but in fact that is not the case, it did this by itself. I am not sure why this happens but atmosphric pressure has collapsed the can which actually now has a split in it. I know it always says to open cans of paint stripper carefully to allow the pressure to equalize but I would love to know the scientific reason, if anyone can shed some light on this phenomenon then I would love to hear it.

Joke of the day

Did you hear the one about the man who fell into the upholstery machine? He is now fully recovered.

A more serious post to follow later today.

Cockpit drains

A few people have asked for a shot or two of the drain end of the cockpit after I completed the Beckson hatch install so here they are. I should add that the drains are at the forward end of the cockpit which is slightly lower than the aft end when the boat is in the water so any water collecting in the cockpit will automatically run to this, the lowest point and then down the drain holes.

 

The black bits are dead flies and dirt that has collected, if I had had a little more time I would have cleaned this out before I shot the pictures!

 

As ever click the pictures to make them larger.