Not all projects have to be huge to be worthwhile

If you have been following Mike and Rebecca's blog, you will know that they have moved aboard s/v One Love, a Leopard 4600 catamaran, which they are getting ready for charter service.  This is one of the small, but important, projects that getting the boat ready required:

Not all projects have to be huge. Take for example the new switches that we added for One Love’s shower sump pumps. Some readers may not realize the difference between a household shower and one on a boat. Whereas, in a house, the water simply drains away via gravity, in most cases on a boat the grey water from the shower needs to be pumped overboard (or into a tank) by an electric pump. It just so happens that the shower sump pumps on this Leopard were activated by a pushbutton momentary-on switch. This means that, while standing in the shower, you would need to push and hold the button to make the pump run. As the evacuation process can take over a minute, a period of time which seems exponentially longer when one is standing naked and dripping wet, I knew that there would be no way a guest would ever do it properly. 

Old switch, push and hold to turn on.

  Sourcing new switches was as easy as making a trip to Island Water World. In order to cover the large hole left by the other switches, I did have to use large stainless steel fender washers. Unfortunately, they only had three switches in stock so I was only able to fix the showers in the guest cabins, not our own. We have been using the other showers though and I can say that the new pull-on, push-off switch is a huge improvement over the originally installed ones.

New switch, pull to turn on, push back in to turn off.

 

• Time required to complete the change: approximately 20 minutes each.
• Cost: less than $20.00 each.