A Sea Hood - Not a Deliquent Item

One of the first things we added to Poetry's deck was a turtle hatch or in modern parlance, a sea hood.   This structure covers the sliding companionway hatch and prevents water, green or otherwise, from leaking into the cabin via the companionway hatch.  Another way to look at it, the sea hood is a garage for the companionway hatch.

Poetry's stout and secure teak turtle hatch or sea hood

On Poetry, I outdid myself and made the structure out of teak.  Roughly $800, in 1996 dollars, later we had a very nice looking and almost iron clad structure.  However, it was a real pain to keep good looking.  I mounted a canted dash onto the dodger was attached and to help direct water down onto the side decks.  It was solidly bedded and securely through-bolted to the cabin top.  It worked and continues to work after almost 20 years.

Harmony will need a new dodger, as well as a bimini.  So, before I have Sperry Sails construct the dodger, I need to consider what to do about a sea hood.  Harmony did not have one, but I had seen some nice ones on both Westsail 32's and Westsail 42's.

Harmony's companionway hatch is large and inviting to a boarding sea

However, I did not want to make it out of teak.  Firstly, the cost of such a thing would be huge, and we already have enough teak on deck to keep us busy varnishing in perpetuity!

After lengthy consideration, I decided to make the sea hood out of merranti plywood sandwiched between epoxy and glass.  This way I can have a stout structure, but build in some ease in maintenance.  I will attached a canted teak dash on its aft end in order to attached the dodger and direct boarded water off the cabin top.

The trick to this is making the sides and front mimic the angular proportions of the cabin top.  Hopefully, this will allow the sea hood to blend in and look like it is a natural part of the structure.  Beyond that the angular sides will help deflect spray and add to the structural integrity.

Canted merranti front and sides with temporary support struts (black items are shims to help maintain the proper angle for the mold)

So, I needed to fashion not just a mold, but a mold in which the main panels are the actual sides.  It was relatively easy to measure the angles of the sloped cabin sides and front.  Once the camber of deck was scribed, it was a simple task of adjusting either the sabre saw or table saw to that angle.  The front and sides were joined with temporary struts to keep the angles true and to provide an attachment for the top.


Laminated sheets of 1/4 inch merranti plywood forming the top of the sea hood

The top was constructed by laminating two sheets of 1/4 inch merranti plywood over the top.  Because of the temporary struts having been planed to the deck camber angle, the sheets of merranti took on the same camber as the deck.  The sea hood was to be attached to the deck through a 1/4 inch fiberglass sill that would be formed during the glassing of the merranti sandwich.

By screwing and bedding the sea hood with this lip, I could remove it to refinish the companionway hatch whenever necessary.  The bedding would prevent any water intrusion and, more importantly, prevent the sea hood from being ripped off by a huge boarding sea.
The construction of the sea hood has started, but will be completed over several weeks of work.  A lot of time has been spent in the early stages to ensure the lip camber and height of the sea hood fits the deck properly.

As I continue to work on this item, I will provide updates.  However, I do need to have this completed by late Spring or early Summer in order to have Sperry design a proper dodger.  So, this sea hood will not be a delinquent item, for sure.

Fair Winds and Following Seas!

Refrigeration - This is Cool

While we are working towards a goal of being as self-sufficient or "off the grid" as possible, we are not willing to deny ourselves some modern efficiencies.  While boat refrigeration has been available for a long time, in some applications having none may have been a much cooler idea!

On Poetry, our 1965 Pearson Vanguard, we attempted to benefit from refrigeration.  We had used blocks of ice and were less than enthused by the results.  Since we had remodeled the outward look of the galley, we didn't want to gut the whole thing to rebuild the icebox.  While having a better insulated box is KEY to the refrigeration thing, we felt that by rebuilding the box from the outside in would give us a box the size of a thimble.  We insulated the inside and installed a Grunert unit.  While it kept the box cool (read NOT cold), it ran 24 hours a day and never cycled.  The fault was the box, not the Grunert.

On Harmony, we had the perfect opportunity to rebuild the ice box area from scratch.  We had done all of the research about how to build a well insulated box.  However, we hadn't decided which unit to install for chilling the box.  There are many good companies, but we had to first choose whether to use an evaporate with a separate compressor or an engine driven cold plate.

OK, to set the stage, Harmony will have 2 cold boxes:  one will be a refrigerator, and the other will be a freezer.  However, we want to provide ourselves with an additional option of being able to use only one box while cruising for a long weekend or a week.  This will prevent us from having to fire up both boxes every time we sail and having to corral a separate cooler sliding around the sole.  So the refrigerator box will also be able to provide a small freezer compartment.

Now, our broader objective is to live on the boat sustainably without having to run the diesel to charge the batteries every day:  an ideal situation will find us using solar and wind to replenish the amps we use in a 24 hour period.  A vital necessity is to provide refrigeration with the lowest amperage draw as possible or the lowest need for engine hours as possible.

Since we only want to run the engine for propulsion in an ideal situation, we decided that an engine driven cold plate would not work for us.  Beyond the required engine hours to freeze the cold plate, the holding plate system would not work for us when we did short cruises over the weekend or for a week or so.

So, we narrowed our choice down to an evaporator plate with a separate compressor.  We would need two, one for the refrigerator and one for the freezer.  As I mentioned before there are many quality companies that provide this type of system:  Adler-Barbour, Sea Frost, Technautics, and Frigoboat, to name a few.  We needed an efficient compressor that came with a small footprint to enable us to mount it in a convenient enclosed space near the galley.

That narrowed the choice even further, actually down to two:  Sea Frost and Frigoboat.  We went to the 2012 Newport Boat Show to do our final evaluations and talk to the companies to get their perspective.  As so often happens at the boat shows, decisions are often finalized by those who are willing to actually discuss the subject with us.  I can still not fathom why vendors will not entertain a serious discussion with someone who is literally waving money in front of them!

We casually went to the Frigoboat booth, and a very pleasant person quickly gave the show spiel, but then did something unexpected.  She directed us to another booth where she said that we could get our more specific questions answered.  OK, nothing ventured nothing gained!  We journeyed over to the Great Water Marine Systems Booth and met Kathy Groh:  remember the hot water heater person!

Kathy was very helpful, as she listened to our prospective design ideas.  She offered her own perspectives and gave us a couple of options.  In a later discussion or what I can label as a design meeting, we finalized our choice.  We will use the Frigoboat keel cooler models for both boxes.
The refrigerator box will house a small bin shaped evaporator that will handle the chilling duties, but will also provide a small freezer for short cruises.  We will only have to fire this box up during our short cruises. 
The freezer box will house an evaporator panel and give us frozen food storage for the longer cruises.  The two compressors will fit perfectly under the salon berth just forward of the where the two boxes will be.
With between 3 to 4 inches of foam insulation, the reefer box will draw less than 1.0 amp an hour, while the freezer will less than 1.4 amps per hour.  As a combined system, the hourly amperage draw will be between 2.0 and 2.5.  Compared to what we have experienced before, this is miserly.  On top of that the compressors will be relatively quiet in operation.

Now, this is cool!  Even with giving ourselves the luxury of refrigeration, we will still be able to maintain a relatively small power usage footprint.  This should go a long way toward allowing the combined solar and wind power sources to supply the charging capacity we need in a 24 hour period.  More on this when we get near to building the boxes and installing the units!

Fair Winds and Following Seas!

Boat Heaters - A Hot Topic

One of the challenges we have faced during our cruising adventures is that our vessels have not had a good source for heat when the temperatures get colder.  Hence, we have always opted to end our sailing season in early Fall.  While the crisp fall air is lovely, being comfortable sleeping in 40 degree temperatures certainly turns pleasure into an ordeal.  Heating clay flower pots on a stovetop is not exactly efficient, effective, or safe!

Beth and I sail with our adorable Bichon, Annabelle.  While Beth and I can don wool caps and wrap ourselves in a warm sleeping bags, little Annabelle isn't a sleeping bag diva.  Beyond our concern for Annabelle, we don't really enjoy on-board winter expedition camping.

Of course, it's not just the cold temps in the Fall that can be a challenge.  There are many a damp and raw day during our general sailing season that having a reliable and safe heating source is a great benefit.  Sailing the coast of Maine in the summer can be made more comfortable with a nice dry and warm cabin.  Moreover, being a "snowbird" and cruising down the ICW or the Atlantic coast often requires a warm cabin.  Even if we were to contemplate living aboard in a marina, we would need a better heat source than a 1500 watt AC baseboard unit.

So, what to do?  There are several options available:  diesel, propane, solid fuel, alcohol, and electric.  Consistent with our objectives for cruising Harmony, we want to be as environmental responsible as possible, as simply effective as possible, and safe as possible.  Given those guidelines, we can narrow down our choices to either diesel or propane because we will be carrying those fuels on-board, they are the most efficient, and offer the least impact to the environment in which we sail. 

Our installation is complicated by the fact that Harmony has two cabin areas to heat:  the salon/dinette area and the aft cabin in which we sleep.  We will need either 2 heaters or a very good system for circulating air between the fore and aft sections of the boat.  Additional challenges exist for locating the exhaust chimneys, as on-deck hardware may interfere with the placement of a suitable "Charley Noble".
On the diesel side of the ledger, heaters can be divided into forced hot air blowers and small stove-like burners.  Forced hot air furnaces, notably Espar and Webasto, supply heated air into the various compartments of the boat via ductwork run through and under the berths.  They are generally expensive at $5,000 plus installed and finicky about clean fuel.  However, they generally can heat and dry out a boat very well.  Diesel stove-like burners, like the Dickinson heaters, are stationary radiant heat sources in cabins.  They are relatively inexpensive at $1,000 installed and provide a significant amount of btu's.
Propane heaters are generally wall mounted units that radiate heat, but produce less btu's than a diesel unit.  Propane units can be a closed system using an air supply from out side of the boat or an open flame unit which uses inside cabin oxygen.  The latter offers more risk from oxygen depletion and fire.  Propane gas has it own safety risk by being heavier than air, but this can be minimized by installing gas leak detectors.  However, a propane heater will use propane quite quickly:  from a low setting at 1 pound over 7 hours to 1 pound over 3+ hours at high.  Propane heaters are relatively inexpensive at $1,000 installed.
Since we will have both diesel and propane on-board we have choices.  Due to the expense and required space of a diesel hot air furnace system, we have decided against either an Espar or Webasto heater.  We like the ease of installation and convenience of a closed propane system like the Dickenson P9000 or P12000 units.  However, we are concerned that we'll be filling propane tanks all the time between heating and cooking.  We like the heat output and fuel efficiency of the diesel cabin heaters, but are concerned with where to put the chimneys and how to effectively heat both cabin areas.

We have consulted the trusty Westsail Owners Association and the recommendations run the gamut of choices we listed above.  As soon as we feel we have narrowed our choice, we waver and need to tack.  Fortunately, we don't have to make a decision now.  However, we will need to make a decision at some point.

The biggest issue right now is the location of the chimney, particularly in the salon.  Our staysail track runs right over the best area for a chimney for either the propane or diesel unit.  We are considering replacing our staysail boom with a roller furler and that change could eliminate the port/starboard staysail track.  If so, we would have a clear cabin top for the chimney.

So, this topic remains on the burner.  We are satisfied that whatever choice we make we'll be warm and the least impactful to our cruising world.  Our preference is for the diesel cabin heaters because of the fuel simplicity, heat output, and overall efficiency. I guess its time to put another log on the fire, so to speak!

Fair Winds and Following Seas!