Light and Air- 2 very useful things to have

Palm trees, cause sometimes refit photos are just too boring

It took us a few weeks to finally decide on the interior lighting. Actually, it took Mark a few weeks. His engineer's left brain kicked in on him and he began to over think the various options available. He spent hours checking out the lighting on friend's boats and pouring over technical specifications weighing power consumption against luminosity and output and considering the aesthetics of the fixtures.

LED lights are a popular choice but Mark just thinks the technology is not quite there yet. (Here's a link to an article by Nigel Calder if you really want to know some of the issues, how far the technology has come and how far it has to go.) We don't know a single person who has had them on their boat without some issues, usually a failure and since these lights aren't exactly cheap and aren't in ready stock in many places we were hesitant to use LED for the interior lighting. I just want to turn on a light when needed and have it work and not be a blindingly blue white color. We are putting LED nav lights on Ceol Mor but that is because there really isn't any other power efficient option at this time.

So we began to look into other options. Halogen and incandescent lighting, along with not being terribly power efficient produces a lot of heat. When you are living your life in a wee box, a small amount of heat can quickly make things unbearable. Traditional fluorescent lighting has drawbacks as well and we did not want to be revisiting this topic again in 2 years. We want to to be done with this.

After seeing the CCF lights on our friend Tim's boat and looking at the technical data, Mark became convinced that what we need is cold cathode fluorescent lighting for the general lighting and reading lamps. Easy peasy, right? WRONG.

Our order-except one fan which was out for testing and 9
linear CCF lights which have yet to arrive.

After 4 emails and one or two phone calls to Taylor Made to ensure that all of the lights we needed were available, we put in our order ( 7 chrome Futura reading lamps, 4 bicolor linear lights and 9 linear lights) and waited.  Instead of our order, what we got was an email letting us know that the bicolor CCF lights were no longer available. Even though we had assurances from Taylor that the were, turns out the were kidding. They aren't available. Apparently Taylor Made is phasing out its CCF lighting. We would have to instead go with 4 bicolor LED lights which were not only NOT CCF but were round. Round lamps interspersed with linear lights. This would be fine with me, but Mark has issues with things not matching and being exact. Its an engineer thing, you wouldn't understand.

After agonizing over whether to change all the lights to matching LEDs or just let it go, Mark decided to let it go. So we have dome lights in the head, galley and chart table which do not match the other general lighting and that is ok. (but if you want to wind him up, come aboard and point it out ;) )
I am so proud of him.*sniff* He has come so far from the man I first met with the white house-white walls, white floors, white furniture etc. Done sometimes is as good as perfect.

Now its on to fans. We live in the subtropics and have endured 100+ Fahrenheit days in the summer. A boat can get stupid hot. Since we are planning to spend time in the even hotter tropics, fans are something a bit more important than just a nicety. Steve on Siempre Sabado is in Baja, Mexico which is really stupid hot so when he sang the praises of the small Caframo fans, I paid attention. I even went so far as to dutifully stand in front of the fan display at West Marine seeing which model produced a stiff breeze and was impressed by the windage of the small and unobtrusive looking Caframos. These things are great. So when Mark asked me what my preference for fans was I told him.

When our shipment arrived I was surprised at how enormous the box was. When we opened it, I was greeted not by boxes full of the small but mighty Caframos but by seemingly huge Caframo Sirocco fans. 9 of em. The lack of a cage on the smaller Caframos apparently bugged Mark's sense of aesthetics and he thought that these much larger fans were an even better choice. I know from my trials at West Marine that these were in fact good fans but man oh man are they big. HUGE. I suppose the good news is that if we ever encounter no wind we can just open the hatches, use the gimbal feature to point the fans at the sail and begin to sail with the gale force winds generated in our saloon. I also no longer need to worry about the decor in the boat, our decor theme is now fans.

We have quite a bit of installing to do in the next week or so and we are still awaiting the arrival of our linear lights. I'll post photos of the installed lights and fans as soon as we've completed the installation.

Playing Sit and Spin

While we are still toying with the deck layout (more on that later) Operation Make Ceol Mor A Home continues. We installed yet more task lighting into the cabinets. We are using good old fashioned, unflattering fluorescent lighting because what we require is a rugged fixture and abundant light when we are digging through a cabinet or locker. I'm sure Mark knows exactly what the amp draw is but since these lights will only ever be used momentarily and not for a constant light source it shouldn't matter that much. They are fluorescent- low amp draw in exchange for making your face look green. Everything is a trade off. The galley cabinet work lights are now installed and its just a matter of tidying up the wiring and replacing the teak cabinet facing.

We took the boat out for a little chug on Saturday. I like to joke that if something happened to Mark, I could absolutely sail the boat well enough on my own to get to my desired location. I just can't dock the thing and so would be forced to sail in circles in the harbor until docking help arrived. I'm working on it. We headed out to the bay- where there is a lot of room for screw ups to work on my docking technique.

We had a nice breeze going, enough so that everyone seemed to be out on the bay with all their canvas up enjoying the day. Not us. Under my command Ceol Mor was playing sit and spin. I'm getting used to pivoting on the keel so basically it looked like I was doing doughnuts in a parking lot. I am sure all the sailors zipping by thought "what is that idiot doing?". Never mind. It will not be the last time I look like an idiot to be sure. In the end, I got a good feel for pivoting and understanding prop walk and prop wash . I'm still not the greatest at backing the boat and can only do so for about 50 feet before I screw that up. Its ok, we've got time. Someday I hope to be able to back the boat into our slip as elegantly and smoothly as Mark. Scratch that. Someday I hope to be able to dock without my stomach in my throat from fear of hitting someone else's boat. Boat owners everywhere should sigh with relief at my unwillingness to dock until I am absolutely sure I'm not going to bash into someone else's boat.

I should probably mention that while I am an outstanding car driver- as in a really great, safe, tireless long distance driver, I am crap at parallel parking. I think perhaps I am just 'parking challenged' and everyone should offer me understanding. Everyone lauds Danica Patrick and Ellen MacArthur but have you even seen either one of them park? I rest my case. So long as I can dock without damaging anything we will consider it a win.

Up, down, up down, once more for good measure

One of the issues we've had is water collecting in the bilge. This meant a trip up the mast for Mark to suss out the reason since we've checked out all the possible deck leaks. Yup, there are 2 mounting holes at the top of the mast that are open. So down Mark came to purchase the necessary stuff to close it up. Up he went again to install the plugs, down again once he realized he needed a different size. Up once more for good measure with the proper sized plugs and now hopefully we've stopped the water ingress. We really appreciate our ugly mast steps just now. they might not be pretty but they certainly made this job a whole lot easier than it would have been without them.

While he was up the mast, Mark did a bit of investigation to determine why our steaming light comes on when we power up the anchor light. Seems we have a short circuit in the wiring. The question is- is it at the fixture or deep within the mast? We are hoping its at the fixture and the installation of our LED tricolor will cure it. Of course, with our luck it will be the wiring which is toast. The good news is we have an unused wire for a strobe within the mast we can swap out for the wire currently in use. The bad news is this will still be a pain in the butt when we were hoping we just had to have a new tricolor mounting fabricated. We've got to get this sorted as we have a quickly approaching deadline...

While Mark slaved away at the top of the mast, Maura had her favorite cousin over for a sleepover. What do 12 year old girls want to do on perfectly warm, sunny Spring days? Join the madness that is the Kemah boardwalk in Spring. $20 for a ride the roller coaster and spinny rides until you puke wrist band makes for some seriously happy kids. They returned giggling and breathless and full of giddy exuberance. We have to put up with traffic, crowds and noise at the marina but sometimes having a mini amusement park right next to the boat is a pretty sweet deal. If we didn't have a tween it would be something less than awesome but since we do, it works.

While the big girls ran around the boardwalk, Kitty and I stopped by to check on the progress of the wiring. Kitty likes to answer her own questions. "Where Daddy? Daddy on he boat". Kitty looks forward to these little visits through out the day. I do worry about her coming up with some weird associations though.

Currently, her favorite video is the Backyardigans Pirate Adventure and she has used this to form her own association boat=pirate. While we were driving, Kitty piped up from her seat with important information for me- "Daddy on he boat. Daddy a pirate. Daddy say 'arrrgh'". I suppose if you are almost 2 it makes sense, pirates have boats and say 'argh'. Daddy is always on his boat so that must mean he is a pirate although he indulges in far more colorful terms while dealing with the boat than 'argh'. I should probably take this opportunity to tell her that pirates are actually the bad guys and explain the socio-economic and political reasons piracy exists but she is not yet 2 and its just too cute when she says "arrgh" so we will just  skip this opportunity to educate her. I'm sure there are saltier than thou types who will feel I am allowing her to glorify piracy but they can deride me as they please. I promise I won't buy her a little plastic AK 47, at least until she is 3. ;-)

Let There Be Light

There are times when my desire to just get going conflicts with Mark's desire to get going when the boat is just as he would like it.  Some times he comes up with improvements he would like to do that I argue are just a time sink. Then there are times when he finishes these project and I have to admit that the functionality we gain was well worth the extra time he spent. Never the less, there is a self imposed time limit so we have to pick and choose which projects will give the most functionality knowing we can not do all of them.

Wiring in engine compartment lights might seem like not a big deal unless you are having to sort out Old Perky in a space that previously would have made an excellent mushroom farm. Now instead of fumbling around with a flashlight or trying to find an out of the way area to hang a utility lamp we can  flip a switch and VOILA! Let there be light! This will make a huge difference in making engine trouble shooting and maintenance a bit less of a pain in the rump. Well it will still be a pain but it will be a well illuminated pain.

In other news, Salty Gene came aboard to inspect Mark's wiring. A former marine electrician, he has specific ideas of what constitutes proper wiring. He declared the new wiring on Ceol Mor as "first class". Mark was absolutely chuffed with this pronouncement. Its nice every once in a while to get a little validation.

So work continues. The autopilot computer is being relocated so that all the electrical components are in one area. We are finishing up the new plumbing plan and I'm coming up with my galley wish list. Best of all, we are just days away from taking the boat out to check all of our work thus far and to actually shake out the sails I am so excited to leave the dock, if even for a few hours. That means we are back to an unfinished item on the list- learn how to sail the boat.

She's Electric...

...and by she I mean the boat. Progress is creeping forward, despite Mark's pal Tim's best efforts to distract him with beer. If there were a race to see who's boat will be finished first my money will be on our boat despite Tim having a year or so head start and a much shorter list. Actually, Tim providing a distraction from time to time is a good thing as sometimes Captain Perfecto needs to remember to have fun. You know what they say about all work and no play.

Mark has wired in the power control panel. Now we can select either the starting battery or the house bank, have a visual indicator to let us know if the bilge pumps are running and let us know when and what nav lights are on. This is so much better than the guessing game we had to play previously.

We now have one of the house battery banks wired in and ready to go. Previously we had one house battery. Not house battery BANK but ONE battery. Singular. For one lonely battery we sure did have a lot of wire spaghetti surrounding it. Not its nice and tidy and once the second bank is wired in we will have 630 amp hours. I certainly hope that is enough because there isn't anymore space to put batteries.

We are getting 2 starting batteries as well so hopefully we won't have to experience the "oh NO" moment we had on our last overnight when we realized the starting battery was nearly dead an d it was only by crossing everything and spitting that we got the engine to turn over. (and for all you saltier than Thou peeps who say you would have just sailed off the anchor I'd really like to see you do that with no wind and cargo ships, a cruise ship and tugs darting about a very narrow channel. You would have used your engine too though you might lie about it.)

Here's the power control panel in its lovely teak cabinet Mark made. It is now installed over the engine compartment behind the companion way steps.

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And just to remind you where we started...

I know wiring isn't the most exciting of projects but as this draws to a conclusion it means we can actually start sailing again and I'm fairly certain that the reason we bought a boat was to go sailing not to give Mark a never ending opportunity to"...'rebuild her. We have the technology. We can make her better than she was. Better...stronger...faster.” 

Just a few more wires....

Refit Creeping Forward....

One of the items missing from Ceol Mor has been a way to secure the house battery bank. Mark was poking around under the girls bunk and noticed a bit of wood rot from under the water heater. It was a small area of issue- very small but this is Mark we are talking about, Captain Perfecto.You know what that means, rip it all out and upgrade. We can make her stronger, faster...

Mark replaced the shot wood, then built and fiberglassed in the ribs to hold the house batteries. Perfectly sized for what ever size battery it is we are going with (hey, sometimes my eyes glaze over and I miss stuff), glassed and painted they await the installation of our new batteries.

 Now what happens if we go to sell the boat and the person interested in the boat wants a different type or size battery? Not to worry, Mark has assured me he plans on being buried on this boat so no worries about resale issues.

The plan is to do a bit of overnight sailing next month. I'm looking forward to it but as I look at the current state of the cabin I wonder how accurate that date is. No matter, we are getting pretty darned good at moving mountains...

Turning Point

Today has been a very good day. First and foremost, today is the first day this week where we have been able to go outside and not breathe in smoke from nearby wild fires. The fires are still burning but the firefighters seem to be getting the upper hand. My throat is no longer scratchy and sore from the smoke and my clothes no longer smell as if I work in a pit barbecue joint.

The really good news is that we have finally reached a much desired turning point in the refit. We are no longer repairing damage and rectifying previous neglect but are now really and truly starting the upgrades. HOORAY!

Mr. Fed Ex brought us our lovely new control panel. Here it is in all its loveliness. Mark spent hours ensuring all the elements would fit and carefully diagraming the dimensions. I can't wait to see it installed.

I'm a simple person and its the little things that make me happy. I am delighted that Mark took the time to get an actual silhouette of Ceol Mor on the panel. He even got the plumb transom drawn in. What will make the older girl happy though is the fact that the company included a little packet of Gummy Bears in the box. She might not be as tickled as Mark and I are by the panel itself but I guarantee she will think Front Panel Express is the best company ever. Smart marketing there FPE!

Electrical work continues...

It is hot. Stupid hot. Working on the boat just now is something a bit less than fun. I think our failure to move the boat to Maine during the summer months was a big mistake on our part. We are in the midst of a drought and with daily temperatures hitting 100+ Farenheit regularly, we are definitely earning our DIY in adverse conditions merit badge.

Mark continues to work on his electrical lay out. He's  moved some things around in order to prevent voltage loss- namely the charging inverter. He's moved it to the end of our quarter berth. We lose about 5-6 inches of foot space but since it will now be able to actually do its job since it no longer has 20 feet of cable running to and fro for no good reason when 3 feet would work nicely and since we aren't a tall family, it works.

During the hottest part of the day, Mark retired to the ac in the house to work on his control panel. Ceol Mor had no handly control panel with which to monitor various systems. This short coming is being recitified. The panel will be installed just behind the companionway steps and will have an engine and bettery selection switch, running hours meter, generator control, alarms for low battery alternator and bilge water level as well as indicators for the navlights, bilge pumps, generator control and charger monitoring. He's done an absolutely brilliant job on the rather time consuming task of ensuring everything fits and is easy to read. As soon as we get the panel ordered and installed, I'll post photos of it. From the diagram Mark created, its looks like it will be the business.

Meanwhile I try to keep up with the girls, manage our Dyneema Experience campaign (who knew that would turn into an almost full time job?), order parts, etc, etc. Maura is keen to master as many knots as possible. She some how managed to escape my all thumbs gene and is not only working on the basics, like bowlines and half hitches and reefing knots but is challenging herself to master trickier knots like the butterfly and the highwayman's. Kitty is busy doing baby stuff- climbing everything, putting on everyone's shoes and waving and saying "HI!" to people on the street below, or squirrels passing by or dogs...whatever/whomever happens to be handy.

I added a shot of me because a reader commented that photos of me are few and far between. That is because I am usually behind the lens. This is a late addition because I had to edit out the heat induced oil slick on my face. Before anyone gets all "oh, you retouched the photo of you because you are vain" I would like to point out that Heidi Klum gets retouched. Heidi Freaking Super Model Klum. If SHE has to be retouched what chance do we mere mortals have? And yeah, I own my vanity. Anyway, here is proof that I do in fact exist.

'Electrical Banana Is Bound To Be The Very Next Phase'

Five points to me for being able to use an obscure psychedelic era lyric from a Scottish singer as a title. The boat is somewhat banana shaped and we are definitely on a electrical phase so the title works. The photo above is what currently lies all over the salon floor of Ceol Mor- ripped out wiring.

With the major repairs finished, its time to move on to the woefully scattered wiring system. I use the term "system" very loosely because what we are actually confronted with might technically be wiring, but so far as Mark can tell there was no system in place. Wires were routed not to prevent loss of voltage or to protect from chafe or anything sensible like that, but to enable the boat yard workers to get to lunch quickly and to knock off work on Friday by 2pm.

I suppose its not entirely fair to castigate Ceol Mor alone for truthfully, any boat would have failed to meet Mark's specifications of what constitutes a "properly wired boat". See, Mark is not just an engineer (Boffin cred +1). He is an electrical engineer (Boffin cred +2). Not only an electrical engineer, but sub seaelectrical engineer (Boffin cred +3). He takes to schematics and transmission line equations like the proverbial duck to water. I tease him to bits about his OCD like precision but truthfully its really kind of great to see him in his element.

After he ripped out the old wiring, he spent a couple of days planning his attack. Above you see his first schematic for the new wiring at the rear of the boat. Each of the dashed subgroups will be getting its own schematic and each individual item a further schematic. Every wire will be properly sized, numbered and documented and all of this information will be handily recorded in the ships log which will make fault finding and wiring in new equipment as straight forward as possible.

I told Mark he should do a schematic of the wiring that came on the boat as a "before" point of reference. He replied that I must be joking because did I realize that not only was there no order to the wiring or the way in which equipment was added and wired in but the time it would take to do this would be a big, big waste of time. I told him that I would rework his present schematic to accurately illustrate what our starting point was. He didn't think I could do it, but I have. Seems he's not the only smarty pants in the family. Go me.