First off, we have a new site: gypsykramer.com. Same great, scintillating content, now with no more pesky ads. The old wordpress address will still work, should you choose.
We’ve been working on getting things shipshape, so to speak. The watermaker is installed and successfully makes water! We did a test run in the Columbia and it came out clear and clean. No small task, given how much silt runs down the river. Here’s what it looks like with everything in place. We have easy access to the sink for test or sample water and runoff. Everything is accessible and we still have storage room in the quarterberth.
The final installation for the watermaker utilizing space in the quarterberth.All the wiring for the instruments comes in over the sink in the galley. The cover for the instrument wiring. The wires in the upper left are for the backup anchor windlass switch. It will have a small Blue Seas panel to its right that will run the engine fan blower, engine room lights and deck light. We had a piece of mirrored plexi left over from the head mirrors, so that got hung on the cover as well. We will need to round the edges and corners of the box as Nina discovered the cover can be a head hazard when rummaging in the pantry.Also getting covered is the engine. Nina stuffed down the starboard locker screwing in supports for the panels. The more stuff we add the smaller the space gets. Lucky for Bill, he really doesn’t fit in there anymore. We glued on lead lined foam insulation on the engine side of the panels. With all the panels in place, the engine noise is significantly dampened. Every good backside needs some direction. After rebuilding the Monitor windvane, it still fit on the boat and looks like some beautiful boat bling that will actually work.Here it is without the model.Steering lines run from the Monitor to the tiller. When we were in the shop, one of the design features in the new cockpit comings was a set of holes to run the windvane lines through with blocks leading the lines on the outside of the cockpit. There is too much curve on the coming for this to work without serious chafing and the alignment to the tiller was all wrong so Bill added a block on each side to run them through inside the cockpit. To minimize the places to trip over lines, we’ll add another pair behind the openings in the cockpit sides.New bling on the other end of the boat. It’s a 45-pound Mantus and besides looking serious it fits on the bow roller better than the old Delta. We do need to come up with a more sophisticated tie down system, but this one will work for now.With all the new bling, we needed an accessory bag as well. Custom design for holding dinghy chocks and lines. The dinghy plug even fits in it. And then we hide it all away in a locker.
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