Monthly Archives: Sunday May 29th, 2011

Today we put the new waterhoses for drinking water, fresh water and salt water underneath the saloon floor. We also installed new water faucets in the galley and connected the new head to the saltwater inlet. There are a few pieces missing but the water installation is 90% complete (not counting the watermaker, that’s another project saved for later).

The first picture shows the top of the batteries with the 300A fuse right on top of it. That’s to get sure nothing bad happens, should the wires somehow break and shortcut. – In the end, all the batteries are in one big metal box. As you can see in the last two pics. – Actually you can’t because all the lead is inside the tank and covered with my wooden ‘boxes’ that hold the batteries in place. Now the only todo left is to connect everything together…

Tomorrow I’ll be in the office to get my tax files in order and sort out other boring paper stuff….

As I said, yesterday Wolfgang and me were removing the water tank. To cut it short: We succeeded !! Here is the water tank that was hidden under the saloon bench. We cut it open to see where it is bolted to the ship. The pictures were taken after about 2-3 hours of work:

We also had to cut the inlets and remove the rest of the saloon bench to get access to all sections where the tank was fixed to the hull. After about 7 hours of work the tank was removed. Yay !!

…and one hour later, the saloon looked like this:

This week I have help from Wolfgang and the two of us have managed to strip all water hoses from the Rancho Relaxo:

And in the morning while I was with the tax accountant, Wolfgang managed to remove the old potty and replace it with the new Jabsco. He also removed the faucet in the bathroom and put the new Whale pump-faucet in the galley. This one will pump the drinking water from the little holding tank. The big old galley-faucet was also removed but as I forgot to order the replacement, I’ll have to go shopping tomorrow. – But we’ll need 30m of new water hoses anyway. In the meantime we’ve managed to once again make a big mess on board – but there’s no other way. Tomorrow when we’ll try to remove the smaller of the two water tanks the chaos will be even bigger ! (Yeah, and I’ll post pictures – be sure of that. ;-)

The second week is gone…. A short week thanks to the visit in Austria and that stupid crash. But still I managed to finish a few things. The old chart plotter was ‘exchanged’ for a Raymarin via Ebay and last week I already did all the cabeling (what a mess !). Now it’s mounted and running. Looks actually quite good there – under the sprayhood. Now the only thing missing is the connection to the radar. But that is still waiting for the cable. Also missing is the Tridata which will be a  VDO (veeeery nice !). The sensors are already in place and so are all the cables. When everything is working, it will be interconnected via the AMAZING NMEA/Seatalk/RS232 converter which will deliver all data also to my board PC. – I’ll post pics as soon as that’s finished.

What else… Well the cabeling in the engine room is pretty much finished. The only things missing are the alternator and the charger for the wind generator which both will happen next week. In the meantime I activated the battery and tank display. The big red key is for the 2kW inverter – so it doesn’t empty our batteries when it’s idling…

Speaking of batteries: The old Diesel-tank is now storing energy in the form of batteries. Hehehe. Yeah. THAT’s a statement ! Four pieces of 100Ah AGM-batteries will end up in the tank. Which is perfect for the weight (deep down) and the tank ensures that the batteries are in a watertight box. – How convenient !

Also new: the two 100W – solar panels are active. I’m very happy with the way they are mounted but I’m nervous about the first locks. Hopefully I will not ruin them… Ah, and as you can see, Gui put the ship’s name on the sides. I think it looks quite good !

Also I brought a car load of new stuff to the ship. Next week the main focus will be on the water installation. I’ll replace all faucets and the electric pump will be replaced by a foot pump. The smaller of the two water tanks has to make room for the watermaker. But I don’t think, I’ll install it next week. This is probably something for underway.