This Post From My Accidental Man Cave!

So mostly this blog is about the rescue and restoration of a wonderful 50 year old boat.  Sometimes though, side projects creep in and because I think they are interesting, fun, or compelling, they end up on the blog too.  Earlier this week I was working at the dining room table with a Dremel tool, slipped and gouged the table.  That got me to thinking.  "If I continue to use the dining room table as a work table, I am going to destroy it.  How can I not do that?"  The solution was to build a work table for the apartment.  I also wanted to do it on the cheap (under $61, which I did).  I have been watching youtube.com videos on people doing interesting things with what is generally regarded as junk.  That was when I stumbled upon people making things out of pallets.  Bingo, cheap hardwood!  Plus, because it is already distressed from being used as a shipping pallet, I do not have to worry about not wanting to beat it up now that I have a finished project.  Here is where the accidental Man Cave comes in.  I wanted a bar height work table, as I generally prefer to stand when working on projects.  Since I made a wrong measurement on the leg length, the table edned up a bit taller than I wanted.  When I slid it into place, it fit over a chair we were going to get rid of.  When I was working on putting hooks on the inside of the table, I sat in the chair, and realized that I had a space under the table that was usable as sitting space.

 I got the opportunity to cut into the head liner on the boat to see if the mast support beam is ok or not.  Unfortunately the beam is encased in fiberglass, so I cannot tell what condition it is in.  The upside is that now that it is open, I can see once the rig is up whether the beam flexes or not.  I also found out that one of the the mast step bolts misses the support beam.  Sometimes I really wonder what they are thinking when building production boats....

 I also got the opportunity to clean up the wiring on the back of the fuse panel.  I will be adding a 12v auxiliary port to the panel soon.  There may be a battery gauge going in soon as well.

I have also had the opportunity spruce up the front of the panel as well.  It is a nice teak framing that will be epoxied and through bolted to the frame.

Wire me up!

What better to do with a winter Sunday afternoon than to wire up some breaker panels?  While this project is not entirely finished, it is much farther along after this morning's couch session!  One of the things that made this project take a while is that all of the connections have to be shrink wrapped to prevent corrosion.  The connectors I got are specifically for marine applications.  They not only are shrink wrap, but they also have a heat activated glue that seals the connections when the shrink wrap is sealed.

After sealing the wires, I had to connect the wires for the two breaker panels to a common point.  This makes hooking up the batteries easier.  It also allows for more expansion of the electrical system should I, or someone else down the road, want to add more features/tech gadgets.  By putting the whole setup on a hinged door, access to the whole system is easier as well.  This should make for a much more user friendly system.

Something else I am working on is a main sheet recovery system for the boat.  I am a pretty big guy at 6 foot tall and about 215 lbs.  While I am a competent sailor, accidents happen.  I am very much hoping to teach my girlfriend to sail this summer, and to be able to continue to go sailing together well into the future.  The recovery system idea is based on the idea that I knock myself out and go in the water.  There is no way that Jenny could pull me out of the water on her own.  With the main sheet block and tackle system set up at 6:1 ratio, hauling my ass out of the water would not be too difficult.  To accomplish this, I have a bronze quick release on the bottom of the block that could be released to allow the boom to be swung over the side and lowered to clip onto my PFD or have a sling already attached.  With the cam cleat attached to the block system, hauling on the line from deck will automatically feed the line through the cam cleat, and prevent me (or whatever is being hauled on deck) from falling back into the water if the hauler looses their grip on the line.  While I still have a few kinks to work out of the system, this is the first step towards that end goal.

Done Taking a Break(er)!

Now that the craziness of the holiday season is over, I have more time to get back to the boat.  I have started on the wiring.  I have been doing a lot of research, and now am in the process of actually doing.  The breaker panels have been set up to cover all of the functions that I thin the boat needs to have, or I want to have.  It took me some looking to figure out which functions have to get wired up together, but I think its ready to go.  I am looking forward to getting this all in the boat and out of the dining room.

 As you can see, the wiring is already a mess, and I have not even added my wiring to it yet.  I have a bus to add so that I can connect the power from the batteries to the two independent breaker panels.  Also, should I want to add other non-switched features, it give me the ability to add on without adding more hardware to the panel set up I have going currently.




I know some of you have been chomping at the bit for more updates, and they will come soon.  Hopefully fast and furious!

More Construction!!!

So I spent a fair amount of my week of my week off from work thinking about my project and looking through electronics like Navigation lights, VHF radios, depth sounders, knot meters, etc.  The trend in the nautical world is to network everything together and rely on that networked system for all of your information for navigation.  I think this is silly, and would rather keep everything as simple as possible.  When people only rely on the GPS rather than using their eyes, it can lead to running their boats aground, or worse, run them to their death.  Things like solar flares and sun spots can throw off the GPS as much as several hundred feet.  When you are used to making a passage within several hundred feet of an offshore obstacle, with your GPS telling you that you are in one place, when the reality is you are not where you GPS is showing.  With that as a possibility, I would rather rely on dead reckoning, piloting, and navigation skills.


Since I feel the need to have a chart table, as well as retain the original 4 bunks in the boat, I have come up with a convertible chart table idea that is finally moving into the building faze.  I am also working on relocating the fuse panels to a location where they are accessible, rather than at the front of the boat where they were from the original owner/manufacturer.

The fuse panel will be hinged so that when electrical gadgets want to be added or removed, it will be easy to access them.  Also, there will be bookshelves going in next to the fuse panel to hold all of my nautical information.  This refit has made the bunk narrower, but it will make a great sea bunk because it is narrow.  The catch 22 of that is this: when you are at sea, probably going to have the chart table up for navigation, rendering the bunk useless for sleeping (unless you are a small child).

Originally I was going to raise the bunk 9 inches to the level of a proper seat for the chart table, but realized that going to that extreme of customization would make the boat less appealing for resale.  Instead I decided to make a box to sit on, but my sister made a great recommendation for the seat.  I am going to make a fold away seat that is mounted under the fuse panels.  I think it is a better solution to the seating problem, as it just folds up out of the way, rather than having to stow a box somewhere.

It feels good to be moving along.  The next major project is rebuilding the mast support, but I do not have any information on what the beam is made from, nor the best way to get it out and replace it with another one.  What makes it tricky is the one piece headliner that was obviously put in before the deck and mast support were put on.  If anyone  has information regarding this problem, I would greatly appreciate the help!

This is a HUGE step in the right direction!

Reconstruction has begun in earnest.  As you saw in previous posts, I ripped the old, rotten bunk out of the boat.  This week I have been working on rebuilding it with the new convertible chart table modification.
Originally I was going to raise the bunk about 6 inches to give a good seating position for the chart table, but after doing measurements realized that I needed to raise it 9 inches.  No, I didn't look at my notes upside-down!  I then realized that this boat is probably not going to be the last boat that I own, and more importantly, even though it could be a seriously capable offshore cruiser, most of the boating population will never lose sight of land.  Therefore it makes many of the major upgrades for offshore cruising unnecessary or even useless to the casual sailor.  Even though upgrading the boat to offshore capability puts the boat on a much higher level of safety, I would never see the pay back.  It makes more money sense to leave the boat as close to stock as I can.  Obviously I am making a few changes, but I think that even for the casual cruiser they are positives!

Because I am trying to leave the boat as close to original as I can, I had to come up with another idea for the bunk.  The bunk is going to remain at the original height.  With the chart table up, it will put it at about neck level for me, and I am 6'1" tall.  Therefore I need a box to sit on.  I think that I can build one that will fit under the convertible bunk so that when not in use, it is storage.  Then when you want to use the chart table, lift it up into position, and pull the box out and put it on the bunk.  It seems like a really simple fix to a not so easy to explain idea.


I am so excited to be building rather than ripping out old, rotten wood, or removing old, dubious quality installations done by the previous owner.  There is such a contrast in the plywood (Russian, 5 ply Birch) that the bunk is being built out of when compared to the rest of the boat that has aged somewhat poorly.  Like with most thing, a coat of paint is going to go a long way to make things look better in the cabin, but it is still really surprising to see the contrast.


I ended up going with the Russian Birch plywood because I needed something that was as close to on par with marine grade plywood, but didn't want to pay something close to $100 per sheet.  The other consideration was that the bunk is not a structural piece of the boat, like the main bulkhead was.  Therefore I think I can get away with a slightly lesser quality ply to get the job done.  Plus, it is going to be painted with oil based paint and in the cabin, so it should not have water issues.

 Since I desire storage under the bunk, rather than just wasting the space, I had to put in a top loading hatch.  It was cut from the bunk.  Once the hatch piece was out, I went on the glue and screw in tabs for the hatch to sit on.  This means that the hatch will be supported around its entire perimeter, which makes the hatch able to support the weight of a sleeping person, as well as make the bunk more structurally sound overall.  The hatch was oversized, as it makes loading and unloading much easier.  It also allows bigger items to go under the bunk.  In the true fashion of this build, I am going to try to reuse the old bunk hatch covers for the floor area under the bunk.  It I think will add some interest, and maybe even a little storage for small things underneath.  We will see if this actually pans out, but it is the idea of the moment.

All in all, I am very happy to be back to working on the boat, and pleased with the progress I am making.  This coming week should provide me ample time to get things done, as I am on vacation from work all week.  I am looking forward to more building!

A Chat with Geoff Trott about the "AirHead" Composting Toilet!

I had the opportunity to sit down with Geoff Trott, the general manager of Eos Design LLC , manufacturer of  “Air Head” Composting Toilets.  I was not really sure what to expect when interviewing someone for the first time, let alone someone who makes something that I know so little about.  First, here is a summary of the “Air Head”, but more information can be found at www.airheadtoilet.com .  The “Air Head” is a composting toilet for boats.  While traditional marine heads (toilets) flush in some manner or another (auto vs. manual pump) and have holding tanks for all of the waste, the Airhead is a single unit that fits where your traditional marine head would go and skips the extra holding tanks.  This is important, especially on a boat as small as mine, because those holding tanks take up a lot of room.  The compact design makes it good for RV’s and Tiny Homes (tinyhouseblog.com) with limited space or septic hookup.  The space consideration was something that helped to lead Geoff to develop the Airhead.
Geoff is a really interesting guy to talk to.  While this was an interview, it felt a lot more like two old friends catching up after 10 years on their current projects, even though this was the first time I met Geoff.  Geoff has been sailing since he was 16.  He did some J24 racing when he was living in Connecticut, and has had the dream of living on a boat for years.  Geoff is an engineer by training.  When he left college, he wanted to help people, so went into corporate pharmaceuticals.  After working for a while and having all the trappings of a corporate job, he realized that his life was missing something.  This led him to leave the corporate world and buy a boat to live on.  His first boat was a Wauquiez Centurion 32.  This might seem like an insignificant detail, but this boat led Geoff to develop the Airhead.  When he bought the boat, it did not have a head or holding tanks.  The reason for the lack of holding tanks was because it was a European designed boat and overboard discharge even into the 90’s was the norm.  The US was actually ahead of the curve on no-discharge rules.  To comply with US regulations, Geoff bought a porta-potty to use.  He would empty it about once a week, but found that it was difficult, messy, and the marinas were disinclined to let him empty the porta-potty in their bathrooms.  He also couldn’t pump out the porta-potty at the pump-out station because it was not designed for it.  With all of this frustration, Geoff started to think about different options.  If he put in a 10 gallon holding tank with a traditional marine head, he would get 10 flushes and then have to pump out the tank.  This was highly impractical.  Then his thoughts turned to composting toilets.
Conventional wisdom in the 90’s for composting toilets was that you needed a large mass of biomass to compost.  Therefore conventional composting toilets were quite large, too large for most boats.  Additionally conventional  composting toilets also created strong odors at the vent exit.  This is where Geoff’s innovation came in.  Composting toilets generally do not separate solids from liquids.  When thinking about this, he thought about how animal poo does not smell once it dries out.  If he could figure out a way to dry the solids, maybe he could get rid of the smell.  He decided the easiest way to go about it was to just separate the liquids and solids when going into the toilet.  In all of the research he did, it didn’t seem like it was going to work.  Not to be deterred from his project, he made a prototype and started to use it to see if the proof of concept worked.  Once he figured out that he needed a constant airflow through the solid’s tank, the smell of the composting toilet was pretty much all gone,  This turned out to be a great solution to his boat with no real space for the traditional marine head.

When I asked Geoff if he made the head only as a space saving device, or, if it had an environmental component as well, he told me that it was both considerations.  He had been interested in environmentally conscious technologies such as composting toilets and alternative energy, such as wind and solar.  This interest developed from a love of the outdoors and concern about where the world is going.  “I made a personal observation from 20 years of revisiting  a pristine wilderness (Lake Colden, Adirondacks), and seeing the change due to  human impact in this remote place.  For even in these preserves with only foot traffic from people who generally care about the environment, the local ecosystem seemed to be stressed.  Imagine human impact at a larger scale and how that might effect our world”.   He believes in “carry in carry out” hiking and camping and sees waste disposal as something that needs to be addressed on a larger scale.  As a surfer, he takes issues with cities dumping sewage overflow straight into the ocean.  This not only affects him as a surfer, but it also contaminates beaches near the out flows, as well as shellfish that get harvested nearby.  This certainly does not seem to affect the people who swim at the East End Beach in Portland.  If, by using an “Air head”, it takes waste out of circulation, the removal of waste is a win in Geoff’s book.  It also complies with no discharge rules in US waters.  This is a plus to beach goers, surfers, marine wildlife, and pleasure boaters.
One of the other components of environmentalism that is present in this product is that it is made in the USA.  This means there is less transport involved in getting the parts for final assembly, meaning that the toilet has a smaller carbon foot print.  Also, by being made in the US, the quality control is better, and it creates jobs here in the States.  This does get reflected in the price, but it appears that you get what you pay for.  A competitor’s product ( Natures Head, which is an obvious copy of the “Air Head”), had  seams between parts that did not meet, and had design flaws because it made opening and emptying nearly impossible in confined spaces. In general it is a not so well thought out head.  For $125 less, it does not look like the money saved is worth the hassle.*

         I also talked about Geoff’s 40’ Pilothouse sloop project.  The boat is a Radovich designed boat with a fiberglass hull and wood deck.  It was built and sailed primarily in California, but was then trucked to Lake Champlain.  With the exception of the deck and deck support structure, the boat is in quite good shape.   The deck was pretty much a total loss.  It was plywood with teak screwed into it.  The joinery between the teak pieces and the fact that it had been screwed directly into the plywood made the plywood sub flooring fail from the infiltration of water.  This then led to leaking into the cabin and ruining bulkheads.  The support beams were another story all together.  They had been laminated pieces, but instead of being laminated vertically, they had been laminated horizontally.  This gave them little strength, which meant that when stepped on they flexed downward underfoot.  If that was not bad enough, when the boat had been wired, they drilled holes in the cross beams to allow the wiring to be run fore and aft, thus creating weak spots in the already weak frames.  On top of all of this, some of the supports were eaten away by termites.  This is quite the project he has for himself, but judging by his eye for quality control on his Airheads, the sloop is going to be gorgeous when finished.
Before I went to do this interview, I asked friends on Facebook what they would want to ask someone who makes composting toilets.  The best question I got in response was this: If it is a composting toilet, what does your dog drink?  Geoff laughed when I asked him, and thought about it.  He recalled that he had a dog when he was in the development and testing phase, and that the dog did not even seem to notice the Airhead, so never developed the bad habit of drinking from the toilet.
All in all, it was a great experience to go and chat with Geoff about his product, project, and life aboard boats.  I want to thank Geoff for taking the time to show me the shop, interview him, and write about him during his peak busy season.  I certainly hope to run into him this summer when I am out on Casco Bay.

*This all based on evaluating one unit of theirs that I have seen and is my opinion.

Note: This interview was conducted and written in the summer.  My apologies for taking so long to get it out to all of you hungry readers!  


If you want more information, please check out the Airhead website!

To destroy or not to destroy, that is the question.

It is more simultaneous destruction and reconstruction than destroy or not to destroy.  The port bunk in the main cabin is out, and the shelf behind the head is built and installed.  It used to be a salt water sink, but I saw no use for it there, as there is the galley sink that you can almost reach while sitting on the head.  The space looked more suited for storage than a second sink.  Plus, I am going to be installing a salt water pump for the galley sink.  The port icebox also came out while I was in deconstruction mode, as the drain from the icebox fell apart in my hand when I tried to take the drain hose off.  It also means that I can try to better insulate the box while it is apart.