Déjà vu...

Finishing up the sanitary plumbing... yes we've been at it for months... ref: April Post: Sanitary Plumbing: what does it take?

The typical plumber position :-)

 

Dreaming....one day all this hard work will pay off...

Hard to reach places and weird positions

 

Before

After 5 coats of Interlux Perfection Plus: See the davits.

What are friends for?

Free labor !

Marta is scrubbing that grill...

Pedro came a few times to give a hand too!

Thru Hull Works

Installing the new thru-hulls.  We added flanged ball valve adapter bases to the fittings which have parallel threads while the ball valve and the elbows have tapered threads... you cannot mix them up... hence the flanged adapters that screws on the fittings.

 sequence: flanged adapter base, elbow, ball valve. 

More about thru-hulls, brass, bronze...

Our brown water gets discharged from the head overboard via a hose, ball valve, an elbow, and finally a thru-hull fitting.  Our 2004 boat part manual states that these 4 elbows are brass.  After 9 years, this is the state of our bronze thru-hull fitting in contact with the brass in salt water:

A straight connection without the brass elbow: ball valve screwed onto a thru-hull fitting - all bronze:

 

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.  If bronze and brass are interconnected and are then immersed in salt water (an electrolyte), a galvanic cell is created that results in the dissolution of the zinc (dezinfincation), leaving a soft, porous, weaker structure.  It deceptively retains its shape but is actually devoid of its original soundness.  It was very easy to break our corroded fitting.  Not so easy with the straight fitting.

Bronze is a noble metal with a range of potential for galvanic corrosion much more acceptable than brass.

A lot of those fittings are also available in marelon which is compound made of reinforced polymer and additives.  Unfortunately their product does not fit in our case size wise.  Too bad. Seems the way of the future.

Wooden Davits Care

After applying 6 coats of the Interlux Perfection Plus,  a clear two-part polyurethane high gloss finish for wood and epoxy providing supposedly superior UV protection and prolonged resistance to chemicals and abrasion. It came highly recommended by Practical Sailor.  Let's see.

Here is the final result:

Before

Before

My preferred stripping/sanding method (after trying a few with this project) is a heat gun and small scraper.

Super productive day

Of the 10 leaking valves, Avi figured out some damage control in 7 of them! So now we are only changing 3... what a relief... but taking them out what something else:

Steve of course, here with all his tools gives us a hand & an advice or 2.

nothin's workin'... let's cut that sucker...

 

fiberglass/balsa/fiberglass layers... hull is a bit over 1-1/4 inch thick.

From the inside

Marking the anchor chain

To know how much chain we let out according to depth and weather condition:

Laying out the chain...over $225 ft of it.

 We marked the chain with electric ties.  Get the pattern?  Even when the colors will wear off, we should be able to tell the marks.

Set Back... the first serious one so far...

We are going to stay put and dry in Pasadena for a while longer:  10 of our thru-hull valves are leaking... out of 12 for the sanitary plumbing... we still have to check on the intake valves and the other thru-hulls (engine / generator / a/c).... not promising... we therefore have to replace them which entails removing & replacing the thru-hull fittings/skins; the bronze 90deg elbows; the ball valves, and the hose adapters.

Below-the-water (BTW) line thru-hulls

BTW thru-hull fittings, 90deg elbows, valves, and adapters (1.5"and 3/4")

Prop Care...

Alright... tired of spending money on pricey stuff, I decided to try a very inexpensive product at $5.58 and see next season whether or not it was a good call.  I have the feeling that this might be one of the only job on a boat where the "after" looks worse than the "before"... but no one will see.

Before: nice bronze

"Before" looked better than "after"