Self reliance

Jason and Christina on s/v hello world have a project here that everyone is going to want to try:  Manufacturing an essential boating fluid right on board!  Read on...

We like the places that are more wild and remote. Places that don't have internet connections, mechanics or Qwiki-marts. Those are the places that are more interesting to us. This means we have to learn to be self-reliant. We have to troubleshoot our own problems and carry with us what we need. To that end, we consulted the ultimate in self-reliant sailors - Ken and Susan on s/v Bint al Khamseen, recently back from a two-year tour of the Pacific Ocean including Mexico, the south Pacific islands, New Zealand and a 40-day passage back to North America.

Along with fashioning an AIS receiver from a bear tracking device and hand-crafting a new rudder for their self-steering gear while anchored in an atoll in the middle of the frickin' ocean, they happen to brew incredibly good beer. Not good as in: "wow, that's really good for home brew". More like: "holy crap, that's better than beer any beer I can buy".

Having experience with Canada's sky-high liquor prices, mediocre beer and lack of civilization from which to buy said beer, we decided brewing our own was a better option. Before we left Seattle, we invited Ken and Susan over to teach us their brewing witchcraft. With their gracious permission, we're re-posting their boat-friendly, hop-a-liscious beer recipe.


Ken transferring the wort into the fermenter.

Making Beer Aboard Sailboats

Once you’ve got all of your ingredients, it’s a matter of making the wort, letting that ferment for 3-5 days, then bottling and letting it sit for another 2 weeks. Then drink up!

Shopping list (for a 1.5-2 gallon batch)

3 lb amber dry malt
1.5 oz hops (pelletized)
½ package Nottingham or Ale yeast
¼ cup corn sugar
2.5 gallon collapsible water jug
funnel
vapor trap
One step cleaner
Growlers or plastic jugs (that can hold pressure) for bottling and caps

Making wort

In a large pot, bring 1/2 gallon of water to a boil for a few minutes (kill off any microbes). We use our pressure cooker without pressurizing it.
Add 3 lbs. dry malt to simmering water
We use amber malt for a Manny’s knock off
Use light malt for a pilsner beer
Use dark malt for a more chewy beer (porter…)
If you use liquid malt, need 20% more than dry and less water
Stir while malt dissolves (don't scorch the bottom!)
Add 1oz of hops
Many varieties of hops...for a basic IPA use anything that starts with a C (Cascadia is a great one)...try different types for different types of beer
Use pelletized hops (non-pelletized versions make a total mess)
Simmer until hops are dissolved, turn off heat and add another ½ oz hops (for a good, hoppy aroma – skip if you don’t want it too hoppy)
Allow the wort to cool
You can do this quickly by submerging most of the pot in an ice bath or sea water

Decontaminate fermenting container

We use one step food grade cleaner – it’s a white powder that isn’t harmful if some is leftover
Mix one step cleaner with water and clean the heck out of the 2.5 gallon jug, funnel, vaport trap, nozzle, etc – anything that the beer will come in contact with while transferring or fermenting

Fermenting

In a 2.5 gallon jug, add ½ gallon of water
Add in the wort (get all of the hops!)
Add in another ½ gallon of water
Make sure this watered down wort mixture is at room temp (about 80F) before adding yeast
Add ½ of a 0.3oz pack of brewing yeast
We use Nottingham or an ale yeast
Different yeasts will change the flavor, so play around with them
Give the container a good shake to mix in yeast and oxygenate the wort, then burp out most of the leftover air
Add vapor trap and ensure air can escape
Leave the mixture to ferment until it stops bubbling (3-5 days depending on your temp – shorter in warm areas)

Bottling

This amount of beer fits nicely into 3 ½ gallon growlers
Can also use old soda containers – anything that was built to take pressure (so don’t use water bottles because they’ll explode under the pressure)
Clean your bottles, funnel, etc with the TSP solution mentioned above
Mix a solution of ¼ cup corn sugar with ¾ cup sterile water (sterilize by boiling then allow to cool a bit)
Add this sugar solution directly to the fermenter and mix around a bit for equal distribution
Pour into bottles (leave an inch of head in each bottle)
We use a funnel and strainer to try to get rid of some of the sludge
Allow to sit in bottles for 2 weeks – then refrigerate and enjoy!

Boob tube

Jason on s/v hello world does another superb fiberglass fabrication job:

Christy and I haven't owned a TV since we've been together. That isn't really the hardship that it sounds like. We watch Netflix. We have DVD's. We have digital movies, etc. We haven't extracted ourselves from visual pop culture, we just view it through a computer and more recently an iPad.

Now all that has changed. Mostly because I'm tired of staring at a laptop screen only incrementally larger than a phone. We have a great space for a TV/monitor inside of the housing for our fold-up table where our bar currently resides. And if mounted on an articulating arm mount, we can use in a couple different configurations, and then tuck it neatly and safely inside behind the fold up table for when we're in a seaway.

We had two problems to contend with in this arrangement:

• I don't want to drill holes in our bulkhead to mount this TV. If this one craps out and we have to buy a new one, we will likely have to move the mount and drill more holes. Do not like.
• However, even more importantly, Christy did not want to lose her bar. We store bottles of booze in the space I want to mount the TV/monitor and by god - we are not going to diminish Hello World's booze carrying capacity.

In the end, we came up with a solution that makes everyone happy. No bottles of booze were harmed (or even re-located) in this project. No holes were drilled in the bulkhead. And I have a shiny big TV/monitor.


In order to solve the no-holes-in-the-bulkhead problem, I built a fiberglass mounting bracket to be hung from one of the shelves inside the table housing. I made the bracket out of high strength G10 fiberglass with loads of thickened epoxy and some extra layers of fiberglass to tie it all together. Even though the TV only weighs 8 pounds, when fully extended, it will put a fair amount of leverage on this piece.


Mounting the bracket.


The TV in place on the articulating arm.


The arm mounted off the bracket hung off the shelf.


Watching a little Arrested Development.


The TV turned sideways.

The older we get, the more we learn just how hard core we're not. I really love having this TV. Probably more than I should.

(Can't wait to see what kind of search term hits we get based on that blog post title.)

Smart plug

Over at s/v hello world, Jason gives a nod to a product that is pretty new to the market, and one which you may want to consider:

We have a few safety rules on Hello World. Somewhere in the top five is: DON'T LIGHT THE BOAT ON FIRE. We had a few incidents here and there (for the record, melting butter in a plastic dish on top of a burning diesel heater is not a great idea), but by and large, the biggest risk right now while we're in a marina full time is our shore power cable.

Our marina is full of stories of boats either lighting on fire or almost lighting on fire from shore power cables working loose and heating up from the electrical resistance in a loose connection. Standard twist-lock shore power outlets are notorious for this.

I finally got around to installing a Smart Plug. Smart Plugs replace the shore power outlet on the boat and boat connector plug on your shore power cable. They provide a much stronger physical connection between the outlet and cable than the ordinary twist-lock plugs. And they have a thermostat inside that will cut the power if the connection ever starts to heat up. [emphasis mine -Ed.]



No going back now.


Relieved to find clean copper wiring inside our shore power cable.


Half the plug installed.


After many F-bombs and a couple bloody knuckles, I finally got the old shore power outlet out of the boat.


Wired up the outlet.


Finished.


I did some forensic analysis after I was done. I found signs of overheating on the old shore power plug I cut off. There was some discoloration on the plastic and some melting. I have no idea how long before that would have manifested into smoke and fire and OH THE HUMANITY but I'm pretty relieved I headed off the problem before the boat caught fire.

Disclosure: I have a friend that works at Smart Plug. And yeah, I'd really like to see the company take off and for them to make cement trucks full of money. However, what I'd like more is for my boat to not catch fire. Whether I knew anyone at Smart Plug or no, I'd be all over recommending this product.

Seriously, if you have a boat, buy one of these things.

Putting a lid on it

With the construction of an insulated lid, Jason aboard
s/v hello world completes his freezer project.  I did not include the insulation of the freezer box itself here on Small Boat Projects, because I thought it was too big to be considered, well, Small.  Because Jason does everything right, even building just the lid is almost too big.  But boy, his fiberglass work is spectacular!  You gotta see it...

Our original fridge had two lids side by side. There was an air gap between the lids so there was never any reasonable way to seal the lids. The lids also were held open by those collapsible springs that always seem to collapse when my head or fingers were in the way. So we decided to build a new lid and ledge for the lid to sit on.

The original lid was covered in a laminate that matched the galley counter top. We stood no chance of finding a match for that laminate and were not going to re-laminate the entire galley. Instead, we decided to make the fridge lid out of a butcher block material. We found a eucalyptus butcher block counter top material from Wood Welded. It was not cheap but looks pretty cool and matches the teak interior well enough. We could only get the butcher block in 24"x36" sections - which cost $200 - so we made sure to use up the off cuts. I made a matching cutting block that drops into the sink.

The matching cutting board built from the off cuts from the fridge lid.

The R-value of hard wood is negligible so we had to insulate the underside of the lid. I used the same extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation that I insulated the fridge with. XPS (or blue board) foam cuts and shapes really well. I was able to shape a reasonably complex piece out of the foam. After getting the shape I wanted, I fiberglassed over the foam with 10 oz. cloth.

The blue board insulation cut down to the shape of the lid insulation. The piece of foam that's cut out is where the gas spring attaches to the lid insulation. I dropped some marine ply in there so the screws were going into wood, not foam.

After fiberglassing and fixing some sanding mistakes with thickened epoxy. Our fridge is composed of approximately 35% thickened epoxy.

We also had to build a new ledge for the lid to rest on. Our new lid was a different depth than the original and I had cut away the original lid ledge in the early days of this project. I built the lid ledge with the same process as the lid insulation. I added a few more layers of fiberglass on the lid ledge since it had to withstand the weight of the lid and whatever else I drop on it.

Assembling the foam to create the lid ledge.

Fiberglassing the lid ledge.

Dry fitting the ledge along with the freezer bin.

Both the lid insulation and lid ledge were finished the same way I finished the interior of our fridge box. I mixed West Systems epoxy along with a white pigment and coated the bejeezus out of both pieces. After the 10+ coats of epoxy cured, I faired the surface down and sanded it smooth. Then I wet sanded it with every grit of paper I could find between 400 and 1200 grit. Then hit the pieces with rubbing compound followed by 3M Glaze and a shot of carnuba wax.

Working on the epoxy finish.

The last piece of the lid puzzle was how to hold up this lid that weighs 20lbs without dropping it on my fingers or head. I installed a gas spring on the lid to give an assist in lifting the lid and keeping it open while I rummage through the bottom of the fridge for the just the right can of beer. Calculating the dimensions of the gas spring was a bit more complicated than I originally planned on. It involved trigonometry, Excel spreadsheets, and a dash of wild ass guesses. In the end, the spring I used worked great. It lifts the lid with virtually no effort, holds it open, and lets you effortlessly close the lid.

The gas spring attachment to the lid insulation.

The gas spring attachment to the fridge box.

The lid insulation.

Actual food actually being cooled by our actually operational fridge!

I still haven't put a gasket on the lid. That's on my list, just haven't gotten to it yet. I will also add a blog shortly on the refrigeration system we chose and how we installed it.

Phew, good times right?

Three ways to run a messenger line

Christy on s/v Hello World has done the research, and gives us the results of it:

These past two weeks of (planned) vacation, we've ended up doing too much (unplanned) boat project work. Ugh. But we've gathered a bunch of ideas from some experts on running messenger lines that we thought useful to pass along...here are the big three:

1) Gravity: tie something flexible and heavy to your line at the top of the run and use gravity to do the trick. A bike chain or a line of nuts seems to work pretty well in some applications.

2) Magnet: using (non-stainless) bolts or some other metal tied to your line, get yourself a decently powerful magnet and lead the line where you want it to go from the outside.

3) Vacuum: tape off all other inlets/outlets, use your shop vac to pull a string tied with Kleenex through the run (this worked particularly well on our bow pulpit).

And when you finally get to running your electrical wire, decide on a suitable knot (we use 1-2 rolling hitches) and grab that KY Jelly from the bedroom and put it in your toolbox.

Closer to scrunchies

Please welcome new contributors Christy and Jason from s/v Hello World!  Christy has here a sewing project that we could all probably use at one place or another aboard...

We had some unused bulkhead space just next to the companionway. And we were always losing our sunglasses. So I sewed together a bulkhead pocket using Don Casey's instructions in Canvaswork & Sail Repair. It turns out to be a GREAT place to put all of these little things that we use all the time and want easy access to either from down below or in the cockpit: sunglasses, camera, deck key, swiss army knife, etc. And it fits really nicely behind our chartplotter which swings on an arm and caused this bulkhead to appear as wasted space - alas it is not!

I'm a fairly novice sewer (read: I used to make hair scrunchies when I was 8) and I found this to be reasonable to do. My husband makes it a habit to leave the boat when I break the sewing machine out - there tends to be a bit of swearing in any of my sewing projects. This was definitely not as hard as replacing the dodger glass, and not quite as easy as scrunchies, but closer to scrunchies than dodgers :)

It was definitely helpful to think about what we'd put in this thing before I put it together. This way, we ended up with a few custom pockets for our parallel ruler and watermaker ppm tester. With a little forethought, we were able to make it a great custom fit for the space too.

Christy & Jason
s/v Hello World
Seattle, WA