I had always thought heat pumps were the perfect answer for heating/cooling on a boat, but never considered one due to their cost. When I saw a two-year old one on craigslist for less than 1/4 the retail cost, I jumped without hesitation.
(An aside to those who do not know how a heat pump works: A heat pump is almost exactly like an air conditioner, but with the addition of solenoid valves which allow reversal of the freon flow. Did you ever notice that a running window air conditioner blows hot air outside? That is the heat which was removed from the cooler inside. If you were to physically turn the unit around in the window, it would become a heater. The solenoid valves allow this reversal of function without having to physically move the unit. And yes, the heat pump is also an air conditioner. One more thing: on a marine heat pump, the heat source/sink is not the outside air, but is instead the water. In Puget Sound, the water temperature ranges from about 55 degrees in the summer to about 48 degrees in the winter, so it is perfect for this.)
Here on the boat, we live on 30 amps. That is, the total amount of power available to us is a little less than what you can get from 2 household circuits. This requires us to be conscious of our electrical usage. With the current price of diesel, it is cheaper to heat the boat with electricity than using diesel in our diesel heater. To do this, we have used 3 space heaters (forward cabin, main saloon, aft head), each set on a 500 watt setting. Thus we were heating with 15 amps, leaving another 15 amps to run the water heater, refrigerator, espresso machine, […]
In the last post I had gotten the shaft coupling separated from the transmission. Since then I had disconnected everything from the engine and had it pulled out yesterday. It was pretty exhilarating to get it out and begin the engine room project.
The following was done to prepare for the engine pull: -Remove refrigerator compressor and its mount -Disconnect all hoses – water feed, fuel feed, fuel return, exhaust -Disconnect wiring harnesses, starter battery wire, grounding wires -Remove alternator (want to replace it, and it gave some extra room to get to wiring and mounts) -Disconnect coolant water expansion tank and hose -Remove belt -Remove air silencer/intake (needs to be replaced, flimsy and always falls off anyways) -Separate shaft coupings -Remove engine room side insulation (for a little more room to work with) -Remove motor mount nuts. The rear motor mount nuts were so rusted and frozen, I needed to use a combo of drilling through them and a dremel cutoff wheel to get them off. They were easily the biggest pain of this whole process. -Disconnect the transmission control wire -Disconnect throttle control wire -Disconnect tachometer wire Picture time! #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ Engine and Engine room before anything was removed: Engine and Engine room before anything was removed: Engine and Engine room before anything was removed: Removing the coolant water expansion tank hose: Removing the coolant water expansion tank hose: Side panel insulation before removal. In poor shape Side panel insulation before removal. In poor shape Front stbd mount. This one was easy Front port mount. Needed to remove the fuel tank hoses to get to it. Post alternator removal as well.
Mostly disassembled
Mostly disassembled
Mostly disassembled
Engine room
Things that have come off
View from above after removing companionway stairs
Up comes the engine!
Will it fit!?
Will it fit!?
Piece of cake
Beautiful!
Beautiful!
Beautiful!
Engine room post removal. Cleaning this place up is one of the big reasons I wanted it out of there.
Notice the piece of motor mount lying there. The aft, port mount rusted in half!
The Abyss (aka, the bilge). Cant wait to clean that out
The shaft
Packing nut with loose flax packing. This is what allowed water to spray all over the engine room. Can’t blame it for failing after seeing the poor condition of the mounts.
Engine all cosy on the ground, ready for work.
Engine all cosy on the ground, ready for work.
Engine all cosy on the ground, ready for work.
Engine all cosy on the ground, ready for work.
Cant wait to clean and paint the beast.
Now the work begins!
visit http://erickswanderlustblog.blogspot.com/ to see more stories about Eric and Windsong
The people of Fiji are in general amazingly friendly and the customs folks were as well. Unfortunately while I was clearing out, it came up that Bodhran was at Vuda Point marina 12km down the road and not in front of the customs dock. The rule is that you need to be anchored in a specific spot off the dock for customs to clear you out, but they usually don’t leave the building to check if you’re there. I’d never heard of any boat actually being inspected before departure. They were very friendly and polite, but they wouldn’t clear us out with the boat in Vuda Point. Tiffany and I had taken a cab in to Lautoka to get our final provisioning done, clear customs and get off before noon so we could clear Nuvula Pass and get out of Fiji’s reef system before dark. Now we had to go back to Bodhran, motor 2 hours up to Lautoka and then deal with customs. There was a chance that we’d still be able to make the pass before dark, but alas when we reached the darkened customs office, the power was out and they couldn’t print off the form we needed. We waited for an hour or more before the power came back on, but then needed the immigration officer to return to stamp our passports. Finally everything was in order and we were all ready to go when they decided to inspect Bodhran. No big deal, but normally you do that with incoming vessels and there was no way the 3 of us would fit into my little skiff. So Tiffany stayed on shore while I skiffed the official out into a 15 knot headwind trying my best not to soak both of us. The inspection lasted all […]
When I wrote last it was May, a wet and rainy sort of may here in oregon and across the Pacific Northwest. Wet and rainy it was, but mild. As the spring turned into summer Jon finished the fabrication of the deck iron mounting ring, a beautiful laminated teak ring. It was mounted and finally Amatheia was tarp free. As the summer progressed so did the progress on the cabin interior. It was slow work, real slow.
Colin came up, on his way to Duke University where he was accepted for a graduate program. As it turned out he had to leave before the launch on August 31st, and so we’ll wait for his first visit home to show him her paces. But Colin stayed for over a month, and life was good with he and Jon painstakingly fitting each piece of teak trim, each gump and batten. It’s a slow process, and they took it in stride, cutting and then sanding to fit each and every piece. Each day Amatheia looked prettier and prettier inside, with the work progressing in very slow segments. David worked a bit as well, finishing the cabin handrails and installing some of the trim in the v berth area. The handrails proved to be a breathtaking experience. There was quite a curve fore and aft in two directions, one following the curve of the cabin sides horizontally and another (much larger) curve vertically. But after much slow jacking the rails were fit, and they are beautiful.
The diesel was hooked to water and fuel and started […]
Mitch has kindly given permission to pull a few of the stories of their journeys off their old blog and this was one I thought everyone would find interesting. I know I would love the opportunity to visit Cuba by boat.. maybe one day soon they will lift the ban. So here it is. I believe this is from the late 90’s
Sunshine, palm trees, Latin music, communism….communism? Yep, communism. Although to an American visitor to Cuba, the role of communism is significantly played down. We sailed to Cuba with the Havana Cup Regatta. The regatta included almost 200 boats and was granted ‘fully hosted traveller’ status by Marina Hemingway. This meant that we did not have to pay marina or customs fees and therefore did not violate the U.S. embargo laws regarding spending money in Cuba.
On May 25th, my wife and I cleared into Marina Hemingway in Havana aboard our 32′ sailboat Hetty Brace. We spent the next three days looking, learning, and meeting some of the nicest people found anywhere.
We left Tampa Bay on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Havana early Sunday morning. Although we could see the lights of the city 15 miles out, the pervasive smell of the refineries sounded an even louder signal of impending civilisation. After 3 days at sea, the smell of land becomes more acute – and the smell of Havana could not be ignored.
At 12 miles off the coast of Cuba (the beginning of Cuban territorial waters), we called into Marina Hemingway to announce our arrival. We were welcomed to Cuba […]
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