On Board with Mark Corke

PYI Mini Floor anchors

  I wrote some time back about PYI anchors and indeed installed some on my own boat to hold the cabin sole in position so was excited to learn that my good friends at PYI have come out with a new product called the mini anchor which is aimed primarily at the OEM market. The basic principles are the same as the original product but instead of having the bayonet style latch the smaller anchors screw together and need to be undone with a screw driver rather then using a quarter dollar coin as it is possible to do with the larger versions.

 

As I was unfamiliar with the new anchors I thought it best to have a trial run so that next time when I want to use them I have the confidence to install them without fear of messing things up. You don't need a lot of tools but you do need to be careful in your marking out or the parts won't line up and the results could be disappointing this could be especially frustrating if you are using them on expensive teak and holly sole plywood.

 

The anchor consists of three parts The screw part that is held in place in the sole or other panel and actually screws into the bottom half, that,s the larger of the two bits that you can see in the picture and finally the flat locking nut that you only need if you attach the female part to something like an aluminum floor member. Lastly the other bit is the tool that you need to screw the female part into the boat. As this was a trial run I was able to do this at the work bench and therefore use a pillar drill. A hand held electric or rechargeable drill work just as well but be sure to keep in perpendicular to the surface.

 

The next step is to mark out where you want the anchors to be placed. This is definitely one of those time that you should check twice and drill once. Aim not only for a neat appearance but try to ensure that you will not be placing the anchors too close to an edge or worse still be drilling into a cable or pipe hidden from view. This was just a trial for me so I did not have any of those worries, but be neat. Mark the drilling centers with a crisp pencil mark, if installing into a pre finished cabin sole then I would have stuck a piece of masking tape down and made a mark on that.

 

The male part of the anchor is retained within a sunk cup and this needs to be a good fit as the anchor is simply a push fit. A 9/16^th bit is exactly the right size I found. A Forster bit would have been better but I did not have one of the of the correct size so I want ahead and used a standard twist bit which I made sure was sharp. I used some tape to mark the depth that I needed which is the depth of the cut and no more, refer tot he drawing and you will see how this insets into the cabin sole.

 

This shows the completed counterbore for the cup.

 

Next using a 10mm bit I drilled a clearance hole for the screw part the remainder of the way through the panel. Note that I am using a ½ inch ply here which is ideal, thinner ply stock could be more of a problem as the cup will be very close to the underside surface of the panel.

 

Here is the completed hole as I insert the male part of the anchor into place. The 9/16^th hole is snug fit and required the use of a few hammer taps to seat the anchor correctly flush with the surface. A scarp bit of wood between the anchor and hammer will protect the chrome finish.

 

How it should look when it is correctly installed.

 

I used the same 10mm drill to bore for the female part of the anchor. I was only drilling into softwood which has some 'give' when screwing in the anchor if boring into something tough like teak then a 10.5 mm drill would be a better bet. Make sure that you drill deep enough so that the anchor won't 'bottom out' before it is fully screwed in.

 

 

Chucking the insertion tool into a cordless drill I drove the anchor into the wood.

 

The female part of the anchor in place. It is very snug in the wood but you could use a little dab of epoxy if you were ever worried about it coming out, but I did not think this necessary.

 

The two parts can then be fixed together using a small screwdriver.

 

The completed anchor which is very neat and rattle free. If I were doing this for proper on a sole a little piece of strategically placed hatch tape under the board may be a good idea to prevent any squeaks.

 

TIP

 

If after marking out the sole drilling through with a 1/16^th bit will mark both the sole itself and provide a guide for the where to drill into the supporting structure.

Neat idea

 

 

 Here is a neat idea indeed. Incorporated into the galley sole of just about every Beneteau is a handy little dustpan. If you spend anytime aboard you will know just how much sand, grit, hair and other detritus ends up on the cabin sole. A little plastic tray built in as shown above means not having to stow a separate dust pan only the brush. The access plate is lifted out, the junk swept in and then thrown over the side or into the waste bin. On some boats the tray also lifts out to give access to the galley seawater intake sea cocks. Simple and efficient, I only wish more boat manufacturers would come up with cheap but effective ideas such as this.

 

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.

Beckson hatch upgrade

 

 
The original sole looking aft.

 

When I built Mallard my gaff rigged cutter I was never quite sure how to finish off the sole of the cockpit. On the one hand the cockpit needed to be water tight but on the other hand I also needed to have access for essential maintenance to the stuffing box and primary fuel filter. The other problem was that the cockpit sole was very close to the water line so rigging up the drains so that they would be self draining also became something of a headache, on a larger boat with more free-board the sole is higher and the water can run through drains and exit the boat above the waterline. This was not possible on Mallard so in the end I connected both drains to an inch and quarter sea cock in the bottom of the boat. This worked well enough but it meant that the sea cock had to remain open even when I was not on the boat and this made me nervous not least because if the clamps let go or the sea cock failed water would flood in and the boat would sink. I thought about the problem for several years not quite sure what to do. Finally I came up with the solution that you see in the following pictures, the old sole was completely removed and a now marine plywood sole installed. Two Beckson watertight hatches were fitted to allow continued access to the area under the cockpit and the drains were routed to a self contained sump pump which keeps the cockpit dry and means that the large sea cock can be dispensed with allow me to sleep easier at night.

 Of course every boat will be different and if the hatches are installed in a cored fiberglass deck then I would recommend scooping out some of the core after the cut out has been made and filling with a thicken epoxy to prevent water from migrating into the core material.

 One final point and that is to carefully think through the install before you go cutting into anything; will the hatch interfere with anything above and below decks, will it weaken the boat and do I have the necessary skill set and tools to enable me to complete the installation in professional manner.

 

Here's how I went about it in words and pictures.

 

 

Step one was to remove the old drains, which were big, mostly because they incorporate a non return ball valve to prevent water from sloshing back up into the cockpit.

 

The next step was probably the most time consuming of the whole project for me, it was certainly the messiest. Using a Fein multimaster I cut out the existing sole but left the bearers in place as I would need these later to support the new sole.

 

Once the old sole was out of the way I was able to accurately measure for the new half inch marine plywood that would make up the new section. I then cut this out with a circular saw with a fine tooth blade but I could have used a jigsaw. To allow a little room for the epoxy and also to make sure that the ply would not get jammed in I allowed an eighth of an inch clearance all the way around.

 

Self centering bits

I have been installing a couple of Beckson hatches when I have had some spare time during the last few days as part of the upgrade to the cockpit on Mallard. A full story will be with you in a day or two as I want to walk you through the project from start to finish. But in the mean time I wanted to show this short video. It shows me using some self centering bits which are great for this type of work as the bit, as the name suggests finds the center of a countersunk hole. I apologise for the rather poor quality of the this video as I had very little room in the boat to set up the tripod, but I think you'll get the idea.

Broadband radar

 

Simrad have today announced their latest broadband radar offering. Called the 3G it is a true broadband radar which is sure to be a hit with many cruisers who are looking for an affordable easy to read radar that can integrate with other electronics. The screen shot above shows the 3G on the left with the older BR24 on the right, which in itself was very good. You can click the picture to make it bigger but even here you can see that the 3G  has better detail than the older unit and best of all it is also cheaper and is planned to sell for $1700 when it starts shipping in June. I have had the chance to play with some broadband radars this past year and although it is hard to tell here they truly are remarkable, all the more so when you think that only a few years ago radars used huge amounts of power, had a limited range, took at least 10 minutes to warm up before they would transmit, only displayed in monochrome and cost a fortune. Now with these new sets they are becoming available at a price point that makes them attractive to almost everyone and I am seriously thinking of installing one on my new 22 foot center console that I am building. Drawing only 19 watts when transmitting and 2 watts when on standby with an instant power up this new unit is sure to be a big hit with a ton of boaters.

Louis Chemi, COO of Navico Americas had this to say. “We upgraded our award-winning Broadband Radar technology – which already offers best-in-class safety, convenience and short-range capability – and expanded its performance features for even more powerful on-the-water awareness. When released, Broadband 3G will be the most revolutionary radar system available, and we’re offering it at an affordable price point to make it accessible for all boaters.”

  

Above is an image of the radar overlay on a Simrad chart plotter, the red bits are the echos and as you can see they conform perfectly to the outline of the coastline and the other picture is of the radome itself which is very compact and could easily be mounted on a sailboat mast or on a tee top and hardly be noticed.

 

 

Shower pump redux

 

For many years the standard practice for getting rid of grey waste from a shower was to let the water drain into the bilge where it would be picked up by the bilge pump and thus pumped over the side. This works but is far from ideal not least because it is prone to smell and the hair and dirt that is typically dumped into the bilge is want to block up bilge pumps strainers and make them less effective at their primary role which is sucking up bilge water. A galley or heads sink is usually easier to configure because it is often above the waterline, a drain can be led straight from the plug hole to a skin fitting on the top sides of the boat thus no detritus gets into the bilge. But because the shower drain is lower this means that in all but very rare cases the water has to be pumped over the side. Instead of the water into the bilge method the much better course of action is to let the shower drain into a small sump with a integral pump where it can then be pumped up and out through a skin fitting above the waterline in a similar fashion to the drain from the sink mentioned above.

It was only when I was thinking about pumps for the book that I am writing on boat surveying that I came across this pump and drain combo shown above. Called the Gulley IC pump it is a cleaver device that does away with the sump and instead has a pump (the yellow and black thing) connected both electrically and mechanically via a hose to the drain connector (the white thing) which fits into the base of the shower where the more conventional drain would normally be; the two parts can be up to 10 feet away from each other. What makes the whole system cleaver is that a sensor in the drain notes the presence of water and automatically turns on the self priming pump thus sucking the water from the shower. When the water stops it turns off the pump. The whole thing is automatic so there is no switch to turn on and off so guests aboard are not able to leave a switch on, run a pump dry and burn up the pump or an impeller as can be the case with other systems. Apparently is has a soft start and stop function and as it could be mounted some distance from the shower I think that it should be nice and quiet in operation.

 

Shower pump, not

 

 

 

I have been spending some time, when I have any spare, ripping out the cockpit sole on Mallard. It has always leaked and water found its way below decks and into the engine compartment bilge. Apart from the way it leaks water into the boat the cockpit drains have always caused me a some concern. Because Mallard does not have a ton of free board the sole is only few inches above the waterline which means that on a larger boat whereas the water from the drains at the forward end of the cockpit would be able to drain through some suitable skin fittings above the water line they cannot on Mallard. In fact both inch diameter drains used to connect to a sea-cock below the water line. The dilemma with this was that on the one hand when I left the boat I wanted to close all the sea-cocks below the waterline but if I did that it would negate the usefulness of the drains and the cockpit would fill with water when it rained and thence into the engine compartment as described above. 

In an effort to provide drainage from the cockpit, do away with the potential for catastrophe by a failed hose and open sea-cock below the waterline and come up with a solution when the water can be ejected above the waterline I am reconfiguring the drains and utilising a shower sump pump. The water will now run from the cockpit into the Johnson shower pump where it will be ejected over the side. In truth I do not get much water in the cockpit especially when the cover is on the boat so the pump will not have much work to do but I do know that I shall sleep a little easier at night especially when I am away from the boat.

I have been keeping a photo record at the work proceeds and hopefully if it all get finished at the weekend I should be able to get you a soup to nuts blow by blow account of the project from start to finish.

Maine Boat Builders show #2

 

A few weeks back I put up a blog post bemoaning the fact that no one seemed to make a folding Pullman type sink suitable for use on a boat with limited space. Within 24 hours I had an email from Sean Tracy at the Shipmate Stove Company telling me that they would be coming out with such a product in the very near future and here it is. Sean was keen to point out that this is an early version.  Prices have yet to be confirmed and Sean says they may be bringing out a stainless steel version which would suit the interior  of some boats and likely to be a little cheaper. The sink is a work of art and something that I would be proud to have on my boat. The faucet is a very neat piece of engineering, made by hand by Nate who works with Sean. It incorporates a Moen filter to keep the water sweet with replacements easy obtainable from the local home center for just a few bucks when the time comes to replace it.

Here is shot of the stove closed up with a total depth of close to 8 inches. I think that with a flange soldered around the outside it would be possible for the sink to be inset providing that there was enough room behind the bulkhead which would make it even less obtrusive when folded.

Circular radio

 
Years ago I worked in a boat yard back in England and we were refitting a famous yacht for a single handed race around the world. Part of this upgrade included replacing all the electronic navigation aids and communications equipment. What we found however was that by the time all the new stuff was installed we had a spare hole in the cockpit where an old VMG meter once resided. The original place was to put a blanking plate over the hole but the owner instead told us to install any guage  to fill up the vacant space, the only thing that we could find was a altimeter which of course always read sea level. But what would have been better would have been one of these radios had they been available back in the seventies. Sold by Prospec Electronics with a retail price of just under $120 one of these would have fitted the spare hole perfectly. There are other circular units of course made by the likes of the Fusion but these tend to be remote control units for a power head mounted else where such as in the cabin. The MIL-PRV15 shown is stand alone unit which requires a 3 inch diameter hole and depth requirement of just over an inch and a half not including the cables.

 
As you can see from this picture the unit is very compact and although it can fit into smaller spaces the plethora of cabling necessary means that allowance must be allowed for these but in many panels this will not be a problem as it is the surface area that is at a premium not the depth. I have not tried out one of these units yet but hope to in the near future. Apparently if I am reading the blurb correctly you can connect up an ipod but this would have to be mounted elsewhere. It also says that it has a power output of 2x40 watts which should be ample for most applications.