Sunday 30 December 2012

Toilet blockage breakthrough

It's been a while since I clambered aboard Ciao Bella for anything other than a quick check. To be honest I'd come up against a mental block while fitting the loo... I've just broken through that block :-)
When I fitted the seacocks I had planned to have the tails pointing straight up, as this is how I'd seen others fitted.
When I realised how much radius I'd need on the sanitation pipe I decided that I wanted the tails to come of at 90 degrees. I picked up a pair of elbows but the outlet one was too close to the side of the compartment for it to thread on.
I didn't want to rush this and get it wrong again so I've been dickering about trying to come up with a plan. The easy out was to loosen the skin fitting, assemble the tail and elbow onto the ball valve and the re bed the skin fitting. This would have meant being able to put it together without attacking the woodwork in the boat but had the downside of not being able to disassemble while afloat.
Tonight I have taken the bull by the horns and hacked, ground, filled & chiseled the woodwork to allow the elbow to spin on. The outlet hose will now route over the top of the inlet hose and the action of the handles is not impeded. I feel like a weight has been lifted, I plan to get up early tomorrow and spend the whole day working on her.

The picture show the modifications to the cupboard sides to accommodate the elbow and with the seacocks loosely assembled to show how the pipe will fit and clearance for the handles.



Sunday 9 December 2012

More holes.

After a period of inactivity, I thought I'd better get on with something.
I am mid way through fitting the seacocks for the head. First I made a couple of backing pads out of marine ply offcuts. Then bit the bullet and drilled through the hull. I have positioned the intake forward of the outlet.. Not sure if the is any hard and fast rules here but I didn't fancy sucking up what had just been discharged.
I shortened the thread on the skin fittings to give the hose as much room to bend as possible.
Assembly was straight forward. I glooped the joints in sikaflex and assembled. I shall leave the final tightening until tomorrow to let the sikaflex go off and then trim off the excess.




Monday 3 December 2012

Buying frenzy

The last few weeks have seen some purchases for Ciao Bella... the pot of money is disappearing quicker than the Liberal party's principles.  There has been a lot of eBay activity and not all of it successful.
First were the seacocks,  Bought off Preloved, an absolute bargain at £50 for the pair with skin fitting and tails.  Seller had bought new to fit loo but decided against it.
My new cooker in it's old home.
Next was the Loo itself... I followed and bid on several Jabsco compacts, however they all seemed to go for far too much money, considering a new one was only £98... So a new one is what I got.
Then came the cooker.. That was a stroke of luck.  I was speaking to Rog and he mentioned he'd bought a new cooker for his Hurley 24/70.. I knew he had an Origo 3000 so we came to an agreement over that... Sweet :o) The only down side with the Origo is that it doesn't fit in the Galley... which is a tad annoying.

Now the big one, the Main Sail. There is lots of choice here, in the end I decided to buy from Swift Sails, a combination of price and recommendation. I nearly bought locally, more expensive but sometimes it's more convenient. Anyway, that would have involved me raising the mast to take measurements... I couldn't be doing with it. Roger, Nick Vass and Swift had already done the measuring up side on Big Easy so I know their plan fits. As soon as Jamie from Swift gets back from Thailand I'll get the order placed.


My final spend has been on a spinnaker.   I've chased a few of these on eBay, some go cheap, some not so. I finally got one off eBay from a Vivacity for £67.  Hopefully it will fit without having to take to Jan's for a trim :)
The one thing I've found with all these purchases is that the spend doesn't stop there... The Toilet and seacocks needed another £60 worth of pipe and fittings, the cooker with need gimbals and pan  holders.. another £120; the main sail will deserve a nice cover and the spinnaker will need miles of Guys, sheets, halyard, uphaul, downhaul, pulleys, cleats, shackles and even a turtle.. apparently.
What I could really do with, and I don't seem to be able to find it on eBay, is time, lots of it.. oh, and some reasonable weather.