The Ergonomics of Living on a Boat, Spice and Tea Racks

Over on s/v Valkier, Scott has a couple of projects going - one to add Reflectix insulation to the cabin top and sides, and this one, to add galley stowage:

We have been living aboard for a year now.  It has highlighted some of the drastic downfalls of boats and storage.  The Downeaster 38 has a huge amount of storage space, however it isn’t particularly of a shape or size to make efficient use of.  We are gradually rebuilding all the storage compartments etc into better shapes to hold particular goods both efficiently and securely.  One such project that I just finished day before yesterday was tea and spice racks.

I like to drink hot teas and being me go a bit overboard on the acquisition and storage of lots of different loose leaf teas.  I have about 40 plastic containers with O ring seals with tea’s in them.  At the house it was no big deal, I had a cupboard that they all neatly stacked in.  On the boat there is no cupboard the right size and being that it moves they would fall over anyways and end up in a big jumble.  In real life I found that a big jumble just due to the shape and size of the storage areas available was how things stayed.

I also like to cook and tend to have about a dozen spices, oils and other condiments that I use on a daily to weekly basis, with another 20 or so that I use weekly to monthly.  Again, can we say jumble.  I could never find what I wanted.

This state of affairs both in the teas and the spices tended to leave me a bit grumpy and irritated at having daily usability issues.  If something is bad enough that it is affecting my outlook on life then it needs to be fixed.  What to do though?  I really didn’t like the cabinets as a solution as small stuff gets hidden behind other stuff, it all falls down and slides around and; well lets just say jumble.  We had a little spice rack shelf over the stove/under the window.  It just wasn’t the right size and the capacity was about 10 small spice bottles.  I finally took it out and moved it because it just cluttered the area up to little return and made it harder to get into and see into the cabinets behind the stove.  Setting stuff on the counter tops is obviously not a solution.  We had some big plastic O ring sealing containers that we could put the spices in and store under the settees, but, again not an efficient solution.  I hate having to dig under the settee for stuff.

Finally I noticed these two big empty areas on the rear cabin bulkheads just over the fridge and behind the chart table.  They were covered in vinyl headliner which we had already made plans to pull down and replace with a wood panel.  What if we installed the wood panel and screwed some shelves designed for the tea containers and spices there. But there is a problem.  The spaces are not square and the cabin side there leans forward at about a 10 degree angle.  If you put shelves there then anything on them would want to slide right off  the front of them without a fiddle board or some other positive method of retaining them.  At an angle like that even a little bounce would probably bounce stuff over the fiddle board as well.  Then all those spices bottles would clink clink clink as the boat rolls and moves on the ocean.  Not to be stopped in my desire to make that space work, I came up with a design with no fiddle board, but with individual bungee loops for each container that holds it against the back of the shelf.  The boat could turn upside down and nothing would fall out and with each container and bottle individually held securely, there would never be any noise from bottles or containers clinking against each other.

We ended  spice rack on portside in the galley that could hold 36 spice containers and various bottles.  On starboard a more vertically oriented set of shelves could hold approx 50 of the plastic containers holding tea or spices.

Here are some pictures of the build process.  It took a few days to finish due to the multistage process involved.

Starboard aft cabin face with wood lathing being glued
into place. Panel and shelves will be screwed to this.

As you can see above I epoxied 1/4 inch thick oak lathes to the perimeter of the space the wood panel and shelves are going to be mounted on.  I had some oak scrap sitting around and ripped it on a table saw into quarter inch thick lengths.  I then treated all the lath with penetrating epoxy to permanently protect it from water damage, mold, mildew etc..  After that cured I cut four lengths per side for port and starboard and epoxied them in place as show above.  I used a Raka two part Fast cure epoxy for all the epoxy usage in this project other than the penetrating epoxy which was cpes or rot doctor epoxy.  To make a bog of the epoxy to glue the wood lathe strips down I just mix in some sawdust to get it to a peanut butter consistency.

Starboard wood panel in place

Here is the starboard panel screwed into place to test the fit and to mark all the mounting holes that will need to be drilled.  I held the shelve units against the panel and traced both sides of all the perimeter boards and shelves onto the panel.  Then went back in and drilled my holes in the panel from the front side while it was temporarily mounted.  Once all holes had been drilled both for attaching the panel to the lath strips and for the shelves to the panel, I took the panel down and ran a couple screws into the shelves from behind the panel to get the shelve aligned with the marks I had made.  I then used the holes in the back of the panel to guide a countersink drill to pre-drill all holes into the shelving.

The panel is made out of a high quality luan/underlayment from Lowes at about 20 dollars a sheet.  I have used this in other projects and it is very resistant to warpage or de-lamination due to sun, water etc.  The template to cut out the panels was made with paper that I taped up and cut out to the shape of the bulkhead.  I cut the panels out with one of the Harbour Freight multifunction tools that cut by vibration.  Both panels were treated front and back with Penetrating epoxy to give permanent protection against water damage, mold, rot, etc.  Once the penetrating epoxy cured (about two days) I then painted the exposed surface with a clear two part epoxy to give it a clear gloss.  I had not painted it at this point shown here.

Portside Wood panel in place.

The same procedure was used on the Starboard panel

Spice rack.
Made of a luan panel with a teak shelf screwed to it.

Here you get to see the starboard panel and shelf unit just before it is mounted to the bulkhead.  The Shelves were made of some 5/8 inch thick teak boards I purchased from a friend for 35 dollars.  I Cut them the depth I needed and then ripped the 5/8 inch board down to just over 1/4 inch thick boards.  I used #6 stainless wood screws countersunk into the shelves to screw them together.  The port side shelves had some exposed screws and I used #8 bronze 3/4 inch screws there.  I just thought  the bronze would look better than the stainless.  The shelf units are attached to the back panel with #6 3/4 inch long stainless screws run from the backside into the edge on shelf frame and shelves.  I used a lot of screws and it is very securely attached.

At this point I figured out the spacing of the holes I would need to drill to weave the bungee in and out of the back of the unit so that I had loops to hold the tea containers and the spice bottles and other  containers.  There are 48 holes drill just in the left hand side of these shelves.  I tried something different at my wife’s suggestion on the right hand side where you just see four vertical runs of bungee.  It is working so far but we will have to see how it does under way bouncing around.  The left hand side there will be no problem with, but it was much much more labor intensive to do.  Between the port and starboard shelves I used in excess of 60 ft of bungee cord.  I routed and or sanded the outer facing edges of all the shelves and gave a good sanding to the shelves and frame.  I have not treated the teak with anything yet but will probably use some tung oil on them before long.

Starboard side with reflectix taped into place and
headliner held up at bottom ready to be screwed
down under the wood panel.

One of the goals of this project was to upgrade the insulation.  The old headliner was vinyl with an air gap between it  in the overhead and on the sides of the hull some 1/4 inch thick foam.  It actually worked quite well for what it was.  We decided to use 1/4 inch thick Reflectix insulation. I cut it to the exact inside dimensions of the lath strips and then taped it down inside that area all around the perimeter so that it is sealed air tight.  I just used a high grade duct tape to do this with.   I then pulled up the headliner that we didn’t cut out and taped it up so that when we screw the panel down, it will secure the headliner between the panel and the bottom piece of lath.

Empty Tea Rack on starboard. Bungies showing.

Here is the finished unit mounted in place.

Starboard side tea rack.

Tea containers in place. You can see the gloss of the epoxy coat on the panel behind the tea containers.

Portside with reflectix insulation taped into place
and vinyl headliner pulled up so that when the shelf
unit and panel are screwed down it will go through
the vinyl headliner and hold it in place at the bottom.

Portside reflectix in place.

Empty spice rack.
You can see how the bungie cords are woven in and out
of the back panel.

Portside spice rack and panel mounted.  Again you can see how the bungees are woven through the back panel.  I did it differently on each panel.   Starboard on the tea shelf the bungee holes are side by side. Because of the design of the containers I had room to do that and it holds them more securely.  However on portside for the spice rack the bungee holes are one above the other.  Most of the spice bottles are straight up and down in design and it took up less space between them to run the bungee back and forth through the back panel this way.

Spice rack installed

Here you can see the spice rack with bottles, jars and containers of spices in place.  This shelf has a depth of 2.5 inches.  I sized it according to the largest diameter container that I commonly would have on it.  The starboard side tea rack is 4 1/4 inches in depth to match the containers I use for storing tea.  If you click on the image and look at the full size image, you will see the screws and washers I used to attach the panel to the wood lath strips behind it.  I again used #6 3/4 inch stainless screws and matching stainless finishing washers to give a nice appearance to the exposed screws.

Finished Racks with Tea containers on starboard and spice racks on port.

Just to give you an idea of how the finished shelves with stuff on them looks.  As you can tell we haven’t finished replacing the headliner in the overhead just in front of the shelves so please pardon that part of it.  Soon there will be drop down bins  built into those areas both port and starboard for more spice storage and misc other things.

We were worried how theses shelves would look and function, but I was determined to try it out as we really didn’t have a better solution we could think of.  I wasn’t sure how they would look with shelves leaning forward and angle down at the outsides as they follow the incline of the back cabin face and deck camber.  However once they were up the give a nice symmetrical appearance, that I at least like.  They are a bit busy with all the containers of tea and spices exposed.  However I already have in mind another project to put some doors made out of dry erase white board material over them.  This would lighten the area back up and also give us a place to create shopping lists, or note down navigation details until they can be transferred to the log book.  All in all I am very please with this project.  My total cost was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 dollars for both sides for the materials and I have about 15 hours of labor in it spanning a few weeks between ripping out the old headliner, templating, cutting and treating all the materials used and then installing it all.

Fischer Panda Cooling System Modification

Do you have a Fischer Panda generator? Depending on its age, the following improvement by Paul of s/v Solace will be verrry interesting to you...

Fischer Panda (FP) Generators are now cooled by fresh water and the sea water only passes through the heat exchanger and then out via the exhaust hose. BUT it didn't use to be that way. My  FP is around a 2001 model, 5.5KVA. In my FP the cooling is done with sea water, which first goes around the generator casing and then to the heat exchanger, before exiting via the usual exhaust method. The fresh water gets circulated around the engine and through the heat exchanger to get cooled from the seawater that has picked up a little heat from the generator casing.

You can see the heat exchanger situated underneath the generator in the picture below. I consider that poor design and changed my heat exchanger location which you can read about here and also here

To change my cooling system, I figured it was only a case of changing a few hoses over and I could have both my generator casing AND my engine cooled by fresh water and use the raw water only for cooling through the heat exchanger. Read below how I did it...

FP blurb about their water cooling.

First I removed the freshwater hose that went from the engine to the heat exchanger. You can see the fresh water hose coming from the pump (above generator belt) to a metal tube which then does a small bend and goes down and sits just behind the Johnson raw water pump. The removed hose is sitting in front of the pulley.

Next I removed the hose from the raw water pump which goes straight down to a pipe that dives under the motor to the generator casing.

The idea is to swap these two over. Fresh water will now go to the generator casing, and raw water to the heat exchanger.

In the picture to the right, you will now notice, the pipe that sat under the raw water pump has been moved to the right a little and hooked up with the fresh water pipe coming down from the fresh water pump. (pump not seen). I had to cut about two inches (50mm) off the pipe so that a hose will connect.

I had this 20mm pipe (in picture to the left) made for this change over.

In the picture to the right, you can just make out the curved pipe as it is now attached to the raw water pump and the pipe continues to the heat exchanger underneath the pulley.

Now, at the heat exchanger. the pipe that use to be fresh water is now raw water and should be connected to the raw water input at the heat exchanger.... AND the raw water input hose at the heat exchanger is now fresh water. Just swap the two over.

So, lets follow the path of the fresh water first.

From the fresh water pump, it goes down beside the crank pulley and dives under the motor to the generator casing. From the generator casing, the fresh water goes to the heat exchanger to be cooled and then returned to the engine at the header tank. From the header tank, it gets circulated around the engine and repeats the cycle.

Now the raw water.... It leaves the raw water pump and goes straight to the heat exchanger; picks up the heat and then exits via the exhaust. Just like the new FP's.

Finale hookup with generator belt back on.

BUT, that's not the end of it. You might imagine that the generator casing may have some internal salt deposits. So, I first ran the engine up with fresh water to temperature and then after cooling down some, drained that water  away. I then did another run up using a product called "Salt-X". I mixed with water as per directions and repeated the draining of the fluid after cooling down some. This Salt-X is a produce for removing salt deposits in outboard engines and should be available in most marine Chandler stores. Finally, I did another fresh water run up and emptied that too, before using a ethylene glycol "antifreeze/antiboil" product. I'll change that in about 9 months time as well; to make sure all salts that remained have left the cooling system.

We also have a fresh water flush system for both our engine and Genset. As we get ready to shut them down for a while, we open a valve to our fresh water tank and close the sea cock. We let the engine run for a minute or two and this then flushes out the seawater from the heat exchanger. Thus prolonging the life of the heat exchanger. Then, after shuting down the motor, it is important to close that fresh water valve; otherwise, the next time you open the sea cock, it can back pressure to the fresh water and ruin your tank supply. It usually only happens once. :-D

All up, it took about 2 hours and a ten dollar item to complete. Antifreeze and Salt-X were extra costs; but you should replace you antifreeze once a year anyway. It's mostly for the anti corrosion properties that we use it.The engine actually runs slightly cooler, and with a trip up to the tropics soon, will be beneficial.

Small Clothes Drying

Paul on s/v Solace has an easy answer for drying small clothing items - made from items you probably already have on board:

Some years ago, we were in the Pacific islands and my wife bought at a market, a round plastic hanger with multiple clothes pegs hanging off it. She used this to hang her underwear and socks from, both outside and inside the boat. Well, eventually the plastic thing broke and she lamented the loss of her "never, never holder". She says, "underwear should never be seen hanging off life lines or even a clothes line".

So I set about one evening to duplicate what she had before. I used two garden irrigation "T's and some reinforced hose to make the basic shape. I drilled through the plastic hose and placed short sections of about 3mm line through; held from slipping through, with just an overhand knot on top. Next I drilled the pegs and did a similar knot to hold the pegs. Finally I made a bridle in the middle cross piece and placed a cheap small carabiner at the center of the bridle by which to hang the contraption.

About 1 hour to make and less than $10

Brushed again

Have any brushed stainless on your boat? On Eolian, our stove is brushed stainless.  This finish is produced in the factory by sanding the metal surface.  

The thing is, stainless is hard, but not so hard that use, and more importantly cleaning attempts, can scratch it, ruining that beautiful, uniform appearance.

On our stove, between the two burners you see here, a typical dishwashing sponge with a scratchy side was used to remove some baked on food.  Sadly, it left a clearly visible remnant of the effort:  an area where the scratches ran up-and-down rather than side-to-side.

Since the finish is originally created by sanding, I thought it might be repaired in the same fashion.  But what grit should I use?  Originally I tried 400, but it was too fine, producing an almost polished finish.  So I backed down to 320:  perfect.  I know the photography doesn't really show it, but the cleaning 'fingerprint' is gone, completely.

NOTE:  When sanding, you must be careful to always move the sand paper in the same direction that the original "brushing" went.

Of course, if the scratches are deeper than the ones that 320 grit makes, then it will take a long time to sand down past them.

I did the actual sanding with a 3M sanding sponge that I now have dedicated to the purpose, but I suppose that any sandpaper would work.

(BTW, I used the sanding sponge to renew a stainless head sink too.  It worked just as well there.  In this case, the brushing was circular, around the inside of the sink, rather than linear.)

Recycling continues

Out on s/v Janna, an old sail is not a disposal problem, it is a resource! See what Petr and Jana have done with it...

When I was a small kid back in the communist Czech and Slovak Socialistic Republic, a friend of mine introduced me to this marvelous new gadget – a digital watch.  The Vietnamese throw them into the garbage when the battery is dead, said my friend. Yes, that marvel was battery operated.   I’ve never seen battery operated watch. Why wouldn’t the Vietnamese replace the battery instead of tossing the whole watch I didn’t understand.  My friend just shook his head and pointed out to me again that the fact that these can be found in garbage cans is what I should be concentrating on.

Surely I did peek to garbage cans for a while then before emptying the content of our household bin.  Yes, there were no plastic bags used then.  All went to the bin, we would fold an old newspaper on the bottom, and the bin would have to be cleaned from time to time, because it would start to smell quite badly.  I guess we were quite ecological back then, regardless of the fact that people didn’t know much about being ecological.

But the times they are a-changin’ and we buy and discard on a daily basis.  Those who take a screw driver and disassemble are breaking warranties and are being labeled as handyman or in more contemporary lingo as hackers.

I digress, however.  We try to remain faithful to our promise to the mother Earth and create as little garbage as possible. Thus, knife in one hand scissors in the other, I started butchering one of our old mainsails.  You see, right now we have three mainsails on board.  A very old one, then the one that was rigged when we bought the boat and now the new one, we just bought in Hong Kong.  The time for the other too has come, holes here and there and patches, chafed all around, grommets corroded, leech lines, stuck to the fabric.

I stretched that large piece of shred and started to plot my attack.  We need leecloths, helmsman awning, weathercloths, and couple of bags for lines, bag for cloth pins, there’s never enough bags on a boat.  So far we’ve been using plastic bags (sic), because there’s such an abundance of those things and especially in Taiwan, most things are usually packages at least twice.  Receiving piles of plastic bags seems unavoidable, but it’s time for us to say no.  Not to mention that some of the plastic bags are so noisy.

So after a few hours effort, we got new leecloths, bottom firmly screwed to our berths and the top hanged on the cabin handholds and a massive eye through bolted to a bulkhead.  We can stretch nice helmsmen awning, called “the square” over our cockpit.  Our 100m mooring lines are now stowed properly in their own bags, line flaked inside so that it can be let out quickly without snags.  And we have a new bag for a mainsheet in the cockpit (the photo of which will remain unpublished, because it’s a recycled cover from an outboard and it does not look particularly nice – but it works…).

In the conclusion I can say only this: Long live our fabulous Singer machine!

Boat Shopping 101, Part 1: Making the Case for the Wrong Boat

Over at Dock Six, Brian has a bit of advice that I think every potential boat buyer should read. I think it is important enough that I include it here, even tho it is not a project. Read on:

     "Another season passes by you..."
                          -Big Country

....  and you are one more season lost, another season spent dock-walking, fender kicking, online ad surfing,  ladder climbing, grinning, nodding, and doing everything but the very thing you need to be doing:

Pulling the trigger on buying a boat.


    If you're still standing on the dirt wishing you were feet-wet, and this condition has persisted more than 26 weeks, do not consult a physician.

   You're simply doing it wrong.

   Those of you who are thinking about buying a boat, a bigger boat, a different boat?

   Quit looking for the right boat.
   
   Find the boat, right now.

   See, here's the deal:

   There IS no "right boat."

   There is, however, a right TIME.

   Now.

   Look, you can spend the rest of your dirt-bound life thinking, wishing, planning, hoping, dreaming, conniving, scheming, fantasizing, about loosening the ties that bind...

   And all of that strategizing still leaves you on the dirt.
 
   Gazing longingly out to sea.
 

   Which is wrong.  Way wrong.


   I'll let you in on a secret:

   Most of us are sailing on the wrong. Damn. Boat.

   That's cool.


   We're sailing.

   *Cue the music*

   Right now.


   Why is "sailing right now" so important, my friends?

   Because no one knows what tomorrow may bring,

   There is a proverb which, in Yiddish, is written:

         דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט

   Loosely translated, "Man plans, God laughs."

   What has worked for me and for other Docksters may work for you...
... Or  may not,

   ....  and I accept no liability, nor any congratulations, nor any damn thing, incurred along the way.

  But, having said that,
  We are on the water, and you are on the dirt.
  How's that working out for you?   

   Friends of the Dock (henceforth known, anonymously, as FODs) are looking for a boat. 

   9 months ago they were looking seriously at a Bayfield 25.

     They asked me for my advice.

     I offered it:  

      (Come on, you think I am gonna keep my piehole shut?) 

       A Bayfield 25  is a good, solid, capable, full-keeled, well-equipped, comfortable, small cruising boat.  Under $10 K.
  

      Want a cheap, solid $ 4 figure cruiser? 

      The Bayfield 25 is a good bet.

      A boat that would be the queen of Dock Six.

      If it suits them, they should buy it.  

      Others offered the same advice.

      It was the first boat they crawled aboard; conventional wisdom says no one should ever buy the first boat they inspect.

      So, they didn't.


      It sold.

      No problem. 

      It's fall.  Other boats will come along before spring.


      Then, I screwed up.

      I suggested they attend the Toronto Boat Show .

      The FODs climbed all over the big shiny new boats on display.

      They talked to brokers. 
     
      Some good brokers. 
        
      Brokers I trust.  

      Brokers from whom I would buy a boat.

      Brokers who happily and patiently  listened to their needs and wants, and decided that the boat in which they were originally interested, a Bayfield 25, was...

      Too small, too slow, too spartan, too under-equipped.

      
      The Boat Show consensus was, and the shoppers involved agreed, that they needed a newer, more equipped,  big body, big dollar boat...

      ... like walk-through transom Catalina over 30 feet LOA, starting over $80 000.00

     10-15 times as much as the Bayfield 25 that was in their budget and their dreams last season.

      Those brokers who recommended expanding their budget and getting a bigger, plusher, newer, better equipped, more expensive boat aren't wrong...

      If their customer can comfortably write a mid- five- figure cheque for the purchase price...
  

      ....And if the broker and the customer are 100% sure of the customer's needs....

      ...  And if an example  of that "right" boat is available on the market.


      If not?

      Another season lost. 

   
      I argue that the perfect boat for you, (for anybody, for that matter,) is smaller, older, cheaper, slower and uglier than you think it is.

     

      See these folks?

      Marco  and Dee are less than $3K into their boat.

      Is it perfect?
  
      No.

      Is it their "ideal" boat?

      No.

      Are they out on the water, grinning?  

      Hell, yeah.

      Meanwhile,  waaayy too many other would-be sailors are burning off another season searching for the "right " boat.

      Those of you stupid enough to still be reading, here's what I want you to do:

      Figure out how much you can comfortably write a cheque for, today, right now. 

     Find a boat in 80% of that price range.

     Buy it.

     Now.



     Next post I will explain why.

     Stay tuned.