MiToS re-built/fit- versilcraft Mystery43

[vas]

hello all,

managed to do some work on the Hard Top so a report is well overdue.

To start with, the following two pics are the stbrd side of the h/t columns/pillars, corrected and refitted with a 3mm rubber flange.

and the following two are the port side done a couple of weeks ago:

Now, as part of this disruption (cables that had to be unrouted through the 48mm pipes) it was the right time to do a precautionary reinforcement of the superstructure in the area. Superstructure is 12mm marine ply, under the pillar flanges is the side window frames (extremely robust cold formed sections of at least 2.5mm SS. On top of the flanges is the joint between sides and f/b floor with decent reinforcement with iroko beams. So all that was beefed up with another 12mm marine ply (approx 100X1700mm) epoxied on the existing one going from the top iroko reinforcement all the way to the small cross beam that supports the side upholstery panel - you've not seen that yet in place as it was one of the first MASSIVE pieces of ply removed for the rebuilt and for the last 6yrs is in George's workshop...

Stbrd side was trickier as flanges and columns were in place so I had to carefully undo push the screws back, match, test fit, drill the hole for the radar, wind and anchor nav light, thread the cables through, epoxy and bolt the lot in place. All that without making a mess to lacquered furniture and other things around... Happy to report that all went v.well:

loose tie wraps just in case a new wire has to go through:

Next step and the day Nikos had the port side for corrections to the flanges, I did that side on a blank sheet so to speak, nothing to mess with, just getting the shape right and epoxying. Much easier so once the columns were back in place it was an easy job to complete, bolt, level and finish it:

working alone meant I had to devise various (silly) methods to keep the nut in place while bolting from outside, front flanges were fine as with the window slide back I could reach with my hand from the outside, rear though no chance unless you had 1.5m long arms (at least...):

Initial placement of the h/t flanges was slightly off, and wasn't sloping to aft to empty rainwater. Actually, it was ever so slightly slopping to the bow (where the gutter is blocked...). Turns out that normal boat movement does empty the gutters anyway, but I lowered the aft flanges placement by 10mm and got the gutters level.

Furthermore, following this reinforcement, it was clear that the ceiling slats wouldn't fit and they ALL needed 10-30mm shortening (on EACH side!), nice... Remember that slats are pushed up and slide to stbrd in order to "hook up" with the thin strips of ply bolted on the ceiling beams.
Was easier than I thought, finished it all in an evening. Now all slats are in place and there's enough space for cables, conduits, lights, you name it:

I have mentioned fitting two iroko side skirts to the h/t, well this was attempt at getting the first one in place and balancing taper as well as fore-aft and up-down placement. Looked fine at the time, George made an exact copy for the stbrd side and they are both test fitted now (not on the following pics though). Doesn't look too bad tbh, wasn't sure on the fore-aft placement, adding the radar on yesterday, proved that they are indeed to far aft, so got to alter placement and move them forward by at least 80mm. We shall see, not in a hurry, got to make sure I like it first
The one part of the h/t that I've only sketched v.roughly are the shading slats on the front over the wheel and dash which are again going to alter the balance of the thing. So need to be careful not to loose it.
I have mentioned programming for the NASA wind instrument I don't think it's visible on any pics up to now, so that's were it's sitting now, works a treat, may actually lift it by 15mm or so with new support plate under the central section of the h/t:

This is the solid iroko beam on which the radar ss plate (and the radar on top of it) sits/bolts. IT was funny as this piece was the left overs of the beam that George bought for the side skirts to the h/t. OK, I asked him to buy a piece 300-350mm longer so we use that, but turned out a massive piece and very solid. After a bit of carving (top of the central beam of the h/t is not flat but has a 3-4degree slope on each side) and a fair amount of work drilling 3mm & 5mm ss on the spot (and over your head with the hot grinds on your hair and arms, v.nice...)

Final pics for the day, beam and the 5mm ss plate in place:

waiting for Nikos to fabricate the anchor navlight pole and I'll report the final instalment of the radar placement.
Then I'll need to decide on the construction and fabrication of the shading slats as well as the upholstery for the "ceiling" of the h/t and placement of lights/speakers/sensors, et al up there.
I've gone overboard with wiring the h/t pretty sure half the cables will be "just in case" but not so keen on stripping half the boat for adding them at a later date...

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

Radar H/T bits all fabricated and test fit in place.
Test fit means that I'll remove all that lot again one of these days, finish up sanding the iroko plinth (up to 180grit atm) where the radar sits, oil it, cut a 3mm rubber flange between h/t and iroko and then iroko to ss radar base, bolt them all together for good, thread wires, fit radar connect and fire up again.
Not sure why I'll add the two rubber flanges (other than I have the rubber sitting in my office and no other idea to use it )

Only bit missing was the anchor light, Nikos said that the smallest ss pipe he can curve is 22mm, got me a 100mm long leftover and took it to the boat trying to figure out how I'm going to secure it under the radar. Garmin radar (24HD) has 4-5 grooves (not really functional, probably structural to give rigidity to the base) which would be perfect for the job only they turn out to be 12mm wide So hammered the small sample to death made it into an oval shaped and sure enough it fitted just fine. Had to cut 7-8mm off the one side to make it flush, no big deal:

One of the not so obvious things is that for every new fabrication done in MiToS I had to go through all the stages of idea formulation, developing sketches, testing builtability, visualising it in 2/3D sketches, followed by some type of mock, or if impossible sometimes just staring at a complex form/part trying to find ways of solving probs and making it happen. I'm pretty sure that some ppl think I have some mental issues looking at me standing still staring at something for half an hour at a time Very different to simply replacing or refurbishing something that has been there and either failed or by using it/living with it you decided you want to improve it somehow. In MiToS most items are built from scratch. That's often were the experience of the forum has been extremely helpful!
Just to give you an idea, the H/T started at least 2yrs ago, measured and did a 3D in AutoCAD of the relevant bits and I have a folder of all the sketches as well as the two dozen iterations of design in digital format before reaching a point I was happy with the design and went into discussing with Nikos for the fabrication, not quite a swift process, but not an easy one either... Then builtability and cost issues had me back in the drawing board for another couple of months (on two different occasions) and then the rush to finish it before the main vacations!

Enough with the theory, had a go at designing and making a mock for the anchor light, took a few goes (after half a dozen sketches...) and turns out the folding meter (don't know if there's a proper term for it in EN) was the perfect tool for getting the angles of the pipework right:

The ply mock that went to Nikos for fabrication:

and with the anchor light bolted on (a bit too high here, cut it later on):

Regarding the iroko plinth, bit of carving and half a dozen test fitting later, I was happy and it was ready for fitting:

and the lot in place. Actually I quite like the end result much more smooth and blends with the rest of the H/T. TBH the original one with the slanted 90dia tube was (designwise) plain vulgar imho. Next pics also show the side iroko strips covering the ss work. Turns out that the strips are too far aft in relation to the central support for the radar as well as the yet to be fitted front slats (sun shade). So now that I got the cheap pine wood for the test slats, I'll have to remove the side skirts again, redrill them and move them fwd (by around 100mm). Remember that once happy with the setup, I'll have to press another 13mm of iroko onto them and just bury the M6 nuts in between so that the outside is nice and clean/clear and I can bolt it with M6 ss allen headed bolts from the inside.

and with the 22mm ss anchor light pole in place. Was worried that if the bulb was ever burnt it would a real challenge getting it replaced, I'd need a ladder up there!
So instead I opted for a slide in/out design with two M6 bolts holding it in place (nuts welded in the flattened 22mm part of the pipe). So now, I can undo two bolts, pull it out (100mm) and turn it round 180degrees so that I can replace the bulb and all that just standing at the aft section of the f/b.

Slats next and I've already started thinking about what lights (and where!) I'm going to fit on the h/t and where I'm going to fit the speakers. Not so sure on HOW MANY different series/channels of dimmable lighting I'm going to need. As I've said I've overdone it in terms of wiring the h/t so I could have 3 or 5 or even more discreet channels, not so sure I'll need more than two (remember covered area is 2.2X2.4m). May have a third one under the f/b helm bench.
I do have a 1m long fully waterproof led strip and I'm thinking of using it along the center channel of the h/t (between the two panels) I'll try and wire it up temporarily this week and see how it looks. The one and only boat exhibition is on tomorrow to Monday so making up a list of things to look for or simply nice to have before I go down to Athens on Sunday...

FWIW, I've decided on the lining material which will be the weaved black I've used on the lower helm screen (cuts the sun lets you see through on the lower helm) which I think is going to be okay as it'll hide all the things happening behind, but will let the air through and keep the rear of the solar panels cool (which is a must if you want them to behave the perform). This means I have to find ways of setting up iroko framing for this material and mate it all up with the existing ss frame, not an easy task if you want to make it look good but not impossible either.

next installment should have the three years too late f/b helm bench ss support and h/t shading slats and lighting test.

cheers

V.

 

[Bouba]

Vas, I think the hard top looks very good. It sits up there very lightly, not at all overpowering, excellent designing

 

[rafiki_]

Great engineering thought processes Vas, creating a super solution. Always good to see a new MiToS post

 

[MapisM]

finish up sanding the iroko plinth (up to 180grit atm) where the radar sits, oil it...

Great job as always V, congrats! :encouragement:
Just one comment, did you consider varnishing the plinth, instead of oiling it?
I'm saying this because all the capping rails in my old lady were made of solid iroko, and every carpenter I spoke with always suggested me to keep them varnished regardless of aesthetic reasons, but just to protect them because they are much more prone to cracking than teak, if left raw.
According to the same folks, keeping them oiled is indeed one valid alternative, but only as long as you re-oil them as soon as they begin to dry out, which can mean rather frequently, in the hottest months.
Just saying as I heard it - no actual experience of oiling rather than varnishing iroko.

 

[vas]

Vas, I think the hard top looks very good. It sits up there very lightly, not at all overpowering, excellent designing

thanks, should look better once the black lining is in place (should make it look lighter)

Great engineering thought processes Vas, creating a super solution. Always good to see a new MiToS post

thanks P, another interesting solution is on the drawing board atm, will let you know soon!

Great job as always V, congrats! :encouragement:
Just one comment, did you consider varnishing the plinth, instead of oiling it?
I'm saying this because all the capping rails in my old lady were made of solid iroko, and every carpenter I spoke with always suggested me to keep them varnished regardless of aesthetic reasons, but just to protect them because they are much more prone to cracking than teak, if left raw.
According to the same folks, keeping them oiled is indeed one valid alternative, but only as long as you re-oil them as soon as they begin to dry out, which can mean rather frequently, in the hottest months.
Just saying as I heard it - no actual experience of oiling rather than varnishing iroko.

true my cappings need oiling trice a year if I want to be perfect (I'm not, hence only once at the beginning of the season...). TBH I consider them as in running in period as I've still to go over 220grit on them, they are still v.much live and interacting with the rest of the capping understructure. No cracking though (180-200mm wide by 25mm thick strips)
However, dealing with flaking varnish is not something I'm happy to deal with, so not sure I want to go this route. Thinking about, I do have some owatrol (sp?) that Alf suggested (iirc), so I could use that instead. Mind, only part of the plinth under direct sun is the slanted 110X60 section on the front of it. All the other is under the radar and it's 5mm thick ss support disk, so shouldn't really need that much of maintenance (I hope!)
Still haven't tried Epiphanes (sp?) considered the best varnish (by many even down here) but not seen it last more than a season of baking down here.

cheers

V.

 

[waynes world]

Vas.......dam i love your boat. That canopy looks spot on kida. Like the radar mount aswell all sits together great.

I will using this Le Tonkinois varnish on all my wood work inside and out. Sound s the dog danglies and have yet to read anything bad about it.

https://www.letonkinoisvarnish.co.uk/varMain.html

Keep up the good work, soon be finished....joking as they never are are they

 

[vas]

good evening all,

this post is going to be almost entirely about the f/b bench ss support
Serious, for the last 3 yrs I've being sitting on this nice solid iroko bench secured on the one side by the box that has the gas cylinder and on the other by the bucket that has the leftover elastic tile glue I used for the heads tiling. Really didn't look good, and was sloping badly as the bucket was lower than the stbrd side support and I resorted to adding pieces of leftover timber to heighten it and then the bucket crumbled!
Furthermore the box is rather tall and has (stupidly) no crossbracing so it does flex a bit and on a beam sea even with one person sitting you move about a lot, more than it's pleasant tbh.
So brief was to built something that will support the load of three-four ppl sitting and will add rigidity to the whole thing.
Note, I purposely didn't create a "box" seat with storage under it, didn't like it, wanted the lightness of a plain slab up there.
Still have to do some sort of movable/rotating backrest, got some plans and details from Bart but haven't decided yet-took me three years to do the support, I guess another 3-4 for the backrest...

So, after a few months of sketching, I ended up again with a wooden model with the various leftovers as sketches proved difficult to assess and was worried.
That was ofcourse after using the meter to get the dims and slopes right

plan is to have a generous base, but not too big as it will start interfering with toes and you don't really want that!

...as the whole thing sits between two frames of the f/b ply flooring and I want the forces to distribute among them.

And then the built process started. Nikos wasn't at all keen at coming on board and doing all the cutting and spot welding there, so we agreed that he does bit by bit, spotwelding them, I take them back to MiToS test fitting, doing the angle matching and cutting and he does the next weld and back and forth like that. Didn't have other options tbh, took me 5-6 visits to his workshop to complete. Gave me enough time to formulate and get the details down for the next project, possibly next week I'll be able to report on that as well.

note the uneven antislip on the floor here, was meant to be a temp solution now it's becoming permanent, have to redo it maybe this awlgrip (sp?):

so here's the final item spotwelded just before fully welding and polishing by Nikos:

before you comment on this, yes the iroko seat slab will be removed, sanded again and varnished (most likely) before the summer, not now though!

and yesterday it came back ready for fitting, quite happy with it:

re varnishing vs oiling the plinth for the radar, I thought about it again (plus the fact that I'm NOT taking it down for reoiling/varnishing/whatever) I decided to have another go at varnishing (hell I had almost 4lt of Owatrol around...)

So six coats of varnish later (yada yada every 12h ffs, hot days I did two coats a day, lately just one!) I have it at home to fully dry either on the floor (we have underfloor heating, but not cold enough weather for it to do it's job) or by the fireplace (had one cold night lately, now temps up to 19C... with S winds and humid)
Today I wet sanded it with 600 grit (the only thing I had around...) and let it dry again.
Plan is to get another few coats and if I'm happy fit it in place for good next week.
Looked good by the fireplace. Honest, I only left it there for an hour and was turning it round regularly.

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

happy new year to all!

late as always, got a few things to report as I've not been v.active over the xmas period working mainly on things I could prepare at home and spending little time onboard.

So, all work is around electrics

First of all, I wanted to sort out all the cabling in the engine room around the batteries where all the thick cables are meeting up in a fine mess:

that's not that bad (but its the engine bank...):

these are bad:

and the whole thing reached the top once I tried mid summer to fit the shunt for the Victron battery monitor. I knew I had to do it:

So started with a reasonably sized el.box and tried to fit the basics in there:
3 fuses (windlass, inverter, passerelle)
1 isolation switch
1 relay to parallel the service with the engine bank to start the engines in emergency
Victron shunt

So box in situ, holes drilled all around for these things I_don't_know_how_you_call_them for the cables fitted.

All (well almost all, yes the windlass + is bloody black and I have to remove it and fit a red shrink on it!) cable ends were replaced (had a bag full of these KOSS things (sp?) and the big bugger special tool to clamp them, plus heatshrink tube in black and red (didn't like the red hue - it's horrid, but didn't have any options there...)

Only thing left to do is sort out the cabling at the right (there's a duct hidden behind there that needs refitting and cables carefully routed in there:

Batteries look almost neat (removed the 4 shot service batteries so now everything is on the engine bank):

Further, and still down below but in the lazarette, I'm almost done with the conversion of the watermaker from down the hatch job (x2) everytime I used it, to hopefully remote from the lower helm
This went massively overbudget I have to admit, so the simple wire to remote control the watermaker turned into 3phase inverter to soft start, then hm, motor wont work with softstart, swap motors with a 3phase one, route a fcking big 6core cable from the lazarette to the lower helm, fit a pushbutton and two indicators (on/off and safe water) and finish off the programming and testing of the soft start soft stop by slowly revving and upping the pressure on the membrane. Nice!
So 400euro later, I have everything more or less there with finetuning and programming to finish it off hopefully by the w/e.
Last step in the watermaker story will be fitting an extra membrane SW2540 before the summer.

motor shaft had to be turned down massively from 1inch to something like 14mm dia to fit on the pump, I wonder why when all such motors have 1inch shaft WP decided to built their pump with such a small inlet!

Mated to the pump using a custom made flange and all connected up properly. Even the holes for the motor fitted, well impressed!

160euro Transmotori motor to replace the 900USD Baldor one, got me scared tbh, but everyone vowed for them (and tbh I'm only going to be using it for 20-30h every season...)

Final project was to remotely operate the 1KW mobitronic inverter. Ended up removing the daughterboard that had the switch on, and wired a couple of cables that go all the way to the domotic system on the lower helm. So I can flick a switch to turn it on and off. I'm halfway through programming it so that when none is onboard for over 5-6h, the inverter turns off and on again on next visit.

Currently working on fuel consumption measurement, will report on that soon I hope with a solution much cheaper than Maretron (for NMEA2000 ppl) and fitting lots and lots of cables to the f/b and upper helm. It's amazing I've 4 bloody big tubes, (48mm OD) almost filled with all sorts of cables and I still need to get a few more through!
Hoping that by the end of the month I'll have tidied up the salon with all the panels all over the place and I'll start finishing off salon side panels and under dash cabinets.

There's also this aftdeck canvas project which I'm not that happy still and need to devote a post on it sometime once I get some more sketches and design work done!

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Happy New Year to you Vas. Always good to see a MiToS post, and some of your super, yet eminently practical engineering. Thank you!

 

[vas]

thanks P,

few more things to report...

Following the interoperability issues I had between the Garmin 4008 plotter on lower helm and the 751 on the f/b (if you started the a/p from one you couldn't stop or alter it from the other, radar wasn't shared, same with sonar) I decided to find a s/h (always!) older series plotter to match the lower helm one. Came across a 5008 (same as the 4008 but without the keys - touch screen) and tried to install it. That was fun. For starters I had to remove the massive panel (the only I've not reupholstered!) which has a zillion small holes for the flags plus two larger ones for docs/var bits. This was blocking access to the f/b helm area in order to add a few more cables to it
Ended up adding an extra NMEA2K cable (just in case, actually planning on an extra display up there to show engine stats!) two new composite signal cables for video cameras one for sure will be in the e/r, second not sure not keen on dismantling all the cabins to route a cable to the bow for an anchor cam, nor MiToS is large enough for it, retrieving is ok from the f/b and with the anchor counter working I'm quite happy.
Problem with the installation was that although the 5008 is only an inch larger than the 751, it's a hell lot larger and the hole too! Further, it's bulkier and bloody thing wouldn't fit, so lots of butchering needed.
Eventually fitted ok, interoperability is perfect, all working fine, don't even need a sd card on it, everything works with one card at the lower helm.

Since it can be chilly and windy, I decided to work on sorting out lower helm cabling and generally interior. MANY small jobs to do, problem is that each small one maybe 5-6h to sort (obviously making a big mess by removing panels once more, routing new cables, tracing lost cables, etc...)

One of these jobs way overdue is replacing the 12 old school fuses on the original el.panel with autohoweveryoucallthem thingies I bought off farnel (I think, loosing track!) Wasn't absolutely sure what I need, so I bought an assortment and after the struggle of drilling out the holes to 16mm (I think they were around 11mm or so) I started fitting them (after turning on all consumptions on each fuse and measuring a couple of times with my amp clamp thing). Now that's assuming what's wired on each is what it says it is and that PO hasn't added an large loads on any of them without me noticing. I'm pretty confident that things are okayish, but even so, as I'm using fairly tight fuses for the loads I'm measuring, if one starts tripping, I can investigate further and find what's going on, if it's OK, I can just replace the fuse with a larger one, no big deal.

old fuses were soldered to the (+) bus supply line, now I've prepared short stubs which I'm going to solder on tomorrow:

fuse besel is slightly larger than on the originals and the glue on the labels is fading, so time for a decent clean and new doublesided strip to keep them in place (and align them properly...):

Another (seemingly) simple one was to fit the new shunt I bought (on this thread: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...ter-showing-Victron-charger-amps-to-batteries ) so that I can get the 5th gauge on the old el.panel to do something and be helpful. So couple of hours routing cable from battery area to lower helm and another hour to fit the bleeding shunt inside the nicely organized el.box in the e/r (not so nicely organised anymore...) I'm happy to report it worked perfectly!

A more difficult task was the remote for the watermaker. Found the old a/p control cable (or something like that anyway) conveniently placed on the lazarette on the one end and the lower helm on the other, so decided to reuse it. BIG mistake! So an hour later having carefully soldered all bleeding cables to the socket on the watermaker controller I tried jumpering the right pairs to start and stop the thing. Nada! bit of head scratching and jumpering them in pairs and checking on the lazarette end with the multimeter, it was obvious the cable was scrap, some cables were completely fcked, some others were sorted with others, a real mess! Another hour later, new 5 core cable through, socket resoldered, plugged, working fine! Just need the programming of the BMS to do and fit a push button with a led indicator in order to know when it's working and when it's producing water.

Closing the post with a few pics of how the salon, galley and lower helm look now, I find it mildly amusing:

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Looks like a lot of water consumed while working e systems Vas. Must be a lot warmer in Volos than here in the UK? I’m waiting for the ambient to creep over 10c to apply the coppercoat. ‘King freezing here atm!

 

[MapisM]

Vas, if and when an award for the most technologically advanced boat in relationship to her age will be established, MiToS is the winner ante litteram, hands down! :encouragement:

 

[rafiki_]

Vas, if and when an award for the most technologically advanced boat in relationship to her age will be established, MiToS is the winner ante litteram, hands down! :encouragement:

+ lots

 

[vas]

Looks like a lot of water consumed while working e systems Vas. Must be a lot warmer in Volos than here in the UK? I’m waiting for the ambient to creep over 10c to apply the coppercoat. ‘King freezing here atm!

I like to tease you lot and admittedly I have so many opportunities that's difficult to avoid doing it, so tempting...
Yes, I'm afraid last week was 15-18C midday with brilliant sunshine. Starts a bit low though 5-8C, cannot complain as I usually go there after lunch (or skipping lunch).
Practically haven't had "proper" winter this time, doubt will have...
They did promise some rain by the w/e, slightly overcast today. Cannot complain!

Bottles of water are coming with the freddo espresso I'm having from the local cafe by the pontoon everytime I work after lunch

Vas, if and when an award for the most technologically advanced boat in relationship to her age will be established, MiToS is the winner ante litteram, hands down! :encouragement:

Probably, I wouldn't complain, but don't forget it's great fun getting the brain exercised (as well as the body)
a few more projects to keep me busy though. One of them is going to be fun: now that I've sorted the remote start/stop of the watermaker (and all that through the domotic system) I want to make sure that the watermaker and genny (!) will stop when the tanks are full a few more lines of code, but need to either install an extra pressure based water level sensor or find a way to get the two CAN based bus systems on MiToS talk to each other (domotic <-> NMEA2000) that's going to be tricky, I'll leave it for retirement (in 13yrs...)
And I'll have to dismantle and analyse the mase control panel as it is rather old school and need to bypass a microswitch to turn it off at will.

Next project is aft deck retracting frame and subsequently canvas for it. First sketches are with the fabricator for evaluation and discussion.

Project after that is sorting out dinghy and stabs, but will come back to that in a month or so.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Good luck with all this Vas. When does your season start? We have had a proper winter this year, much cooler than for 5 or 6 years. So we are looking forward to the ambient creeping up to 10c. I’m hoping that we can get the CC on late Feb, early March, so we can get her back into the water, ready for Easter, End March.

 

[vas]

late as always...

P, season starts when you go swimming, simple. So for most ppl it's June. Kids are at school till mid June, uni exams end of June. So say, for this year, mid June is target date for relaunch, mind MiToS is still in the water, wasnt out last winter at all but will be on the hard for a couple of months this spring.

First, all HRO watermaker conversion is complete, Inverter works fine soft starts and stops the 3phase motor and pump, pressure lifts slowly to 780psi within 40-45secs, perfect.
All that thanks to Trevor (superheat6k), thanks T!
Remote start stop implemented, BMS programmed, I now even have proper indication of what the watermaker does from the helm (and I can even start and stop it via text message although this seems a tad ott...)
Pic next shows all the bits in place at the lazarette:

Will add an extra pressure vessel SW3025 to up the production to around 90-100lph. That should do me fine. ATM waiting for the existing membrane product water chemical tests to establish where I stand. Mind test water was produced from within Volos port, not the cleanest place to be...

I also bought a IPa_lot IR camera for the engine room. Routed a coax and a 2wire power cable to the aft section of the e/r just above the laz to e/r door to fit it. Obviously have to run power to it only when one of the two plotters is on (not much of a consumption issue, but pointless nevertheless) so had to dig out the NMEA0183 cable for the plotter isolate the orange signal cable that Garmin use and input it to a relay (just in case) so that I wont be loading the plotter circuit for that. Current is there, all should work fine except for the fact that the bloody camera has a smart OSD menu which doesn't work with the plotter so brought it home to hook it up to TV, select composite (I guess!) mode out of CVBS, A(nalogue?) T (dunno) and C(omposite). Then need to test that it actually keeps the settings between power cycles else I'm buggered.

In the salon area, all upholstery is back in place following the bolting down of the ss f/b seating support and the only thing missing are the side panels. These are awkward shaped and v.long. Test fitted looks good, needs some spacers to leave enough room to operate the rolltops I've used (crap idea don't do it!)

The big hole is for the speaker, the three smaller ones for the led converted lights.
Now, I'd ideally like to have a means to view in large screen what the kids shoot with phones/cameras/gopro thing/etc. Occasionaly watch a movie or something as well.
Trying to find a way to hide a decent sized tv proved mission impossible, I could JUST hide a 22-24inch tv behind the wide part of this panel but tbh going through all this hassle for 24inch (MAX) is pointless. Sliding up from the cabinetry opposite the sofa is not an option (fridge tucked under it...)
So currently toying with the idea of getting a powerful (and cheap!) led projector 15X20cm max in size tuck it in a cove on the panel above the sofa, shooting to a canvas opposite above the cabinet. Bypassing the fact that behind the screen is a window and it's highly unlikely it's going to get dark enough for a proper projection during a day, I still think it's the easiest way to have a decent sized screen. Issue arising if I go down this route is that even for decent stereo sound I need to add an extra speaker on the side panel aft towards the salon door to the aft deck. Not a big deal other than being able to "reuse" the right stereo speaker as LEFT for the projector. There it starts getting silly. Still thinking about it.

The other difficult (not technically but aesthetically and functionally) project is the aft deck cover. Based on another thread and some pics posted by MapisM and ideas by others, I decided to add a U shaped (in plan) ss tubing that will move back and forth to cover the needs of enclosing the whole of the aft deck in the winter for storage, vs shading the aft deck in the summer. In both cases the side pieces will work in exactly the same way, start from the superstructure protrusion, wrap around (over) the U shaped tube and then down the sides to be secured OUTSIDE the iroko capping. This way I have the necessary space to sit on the side "steps" I've done (my favourite spot for sitting and chatting) with your head not banging on the canvas. Regarding the rear section, when on the "close" position, you'll be able to sit on the aft bench no problems, but on the "open" position, you'll have decent access to the ladder to the swim platform and reasonable shade from the sun. Canvas is going to be a pig to design, but I've got the right person for the job.
Initially I designed a sliding (one tube inside the other), discussed it with Nikos the ss fabricator, he didn't like it (on good grounds, flexing, salt rubbing and matting the tubes, etc).
Eventually decided to a 150-160deg rotating arms bringing it from the one rest position to the other:

In order to visualise that I've fitted a temp construction. Doesn't look bad in terms of placement, still struggling on getting the access to the bow right with this system

Next installment when I have some news on the aft deck or other projects.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Thanks for the update Vas. I understand this is all personal choice etc, but we actually don't spend much time watching TV on board. When we do, our 22" screen is adequate, with a built-in DVD gives us options. We have a chargeable Bose Sounddock which we use for music, running iPad/phone/pod as required. So we can take this up to the fly, or the cockpit. We tend not to crank the vol too high with respect to neighbours, and sometimes wish others were as considerate! Sound quality is OK for us. I had planned to plumb in a full Bose 321, but the Sub is too large, and the vol unnecessary on board. So, my question, Is this worth the trip?
Is your canvas extension going to make MiToS look like Prince Charles? Oversized ears?

 

[vas]

Thanks for the update Vas. I understand this is all personal choice etc, but we actually don't spend much time watching TV on board. When we do, our 22" screen is adequate, with a built-in DVD gives us options. We have a chargeable Bose Sounddock which we use for music, running iPad/phone/pod as required. So we can take this up to the fly, or the cockpit. We tend not to crank the vol too high with respect to neighbours, and sometimes wish others were as considerate! Sound quality is OK for us. I had planned to plumb in a full Bose 321, but the Sub is too large, and the vol unnecessary on board. So, my question, Is this worth the trip?
Is your canvas extension going to make MiToS look like Prince Charles? Oversized ears?

neither do we P.,
over the last month, TV at home has been on for something like once a week for couple of hours. I've also thought of the soundpod type of thing, we shall see. Got a couple of extra black speakers, might as well fit them in the stbrd panel, just in case...

Re your Prince comment, hope NOT! Hence thinking and sketching this canvas frame for a few months now and still not decided... It's tricky designwise and definitely don't want to make a mess of it.
Cannot go too high up as rainwater must fall from the f/b and not create pools up there, there has to be a gutter on each side and cannot be at the seam with the zipper as it's going to leak, etc etc...
We shall see

V.

 

[vas]

hello all,

well, following some tidying up and preparing for a couple of months on the hard, I sorted out the interior so a few pics of how the (almost) finished boat looks like follow:

Stbrd cabin:

Port cabin:

bow cabin:

lower helm:

salon:

more on the magazine I think soon!
Apologies, not good at making beds, especially the bow cabin one is a pain...


so now that I got your attention, two issues, one smallish, one big!

Small issue first, got the two iroko cappings for the h/t sides, was properly sandwitched and epoxied by George after fitting some special M6 nuts, trimmed, matched left right and spent the last month at the garage being regularly (as in when I remembered...) varnished. I got 4-5 coats (both sides) wet sanded it a bit, and got another 3 coats (iirc). I'm stopping at it's now being silly and anyway don't think it's going to last long anyway Tomorrow I'm fitting studs so that I can get it in place and bolt it on.
They look like that (unlacquered):

lacquered/fitted pics soon.

Q: do I just bolt the lacquered iroko straight on the stainless steel sides of the hard top, or do I get something in between?
I'd rather have some sort of elastic spacer, maybe M6 rubber washers (2-3mm thick) making sure I get some distance between the iroko and the ss. I do understand that it's going to be a nice place to gather a bit of dirt, but it will help keeping things balanced and in a dynamic stability so to speak.

What are the views of the panel?

Big issue now, tomorrow a big pallet (rather two crates) arrive in Volos from SilverDee. Main content is the old Vosper stabs from his 52ft semi displacement mobo. Plan is to fit them on MiToS, use the old (read ancient) control panel which I believe is slightly analogue, try it and then during the next few (or not so few) months figure it out and redo the control in s/w.
Main thing is deciding if the stabs are going to be placed on the aft end of the cabin space in front of the fuel tanks, or behind them at the front end of the e/r.
I'd obviously rather have everything on the e/r for various reasons, but I could do it on the cabin area:
Port is fine, just remove the outer bed and getting everything there, stbrd is not going to affect the cabin as it's on a space behind, problem being it's where the aircon lives and it has to be lifted 300mm at least to give space for the mechanism.
Needless to say that hull and frames will be reinforced it the area both internally (layers of ply epoxied) and externally (cloth and epoxy).

Following pic shows the two candidate spots for the stabs. I have read all the discussions made in JFM Match built threads as well as Bart's engineering Q thread http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?350520-Stabilizers-for-Blue-Angel-engineering-question but it's still not clear if I'm going to have problems if fitting them in the e/r. Keep in mind that most of the time I'm just doing 7-8kn, 10% or less is at planning speeds...
Worried that the e/r spot is too far aft and they're going to work as rudders messing the tracking.

WLL is close to 11m, and the two proposed spots are approximately 80cm apart (maybe less).

looking forward to your views!

cheers

V

PS. MiToS will be on the hard tomorrow or the day after till the end of May, so have enough time to sort them out (I hope)