Boat Maintenance

Editors note: Designing, installing, and wiring a new main circuit panel on a full-fledged cruising boat is an extremely challenging refit project. The writer is a professional engineer who made sure that his installation met or exceeded American Boat and Yacht Council Standard E-11. Failure to adhere to the standard could result in fire, injury, or death. We offer the following article, which outlines the steps involved in constructing a custom panel, as a rough guide. In our opinion, such a project should not be carried out without the consultation of an ABYC-certified electrician.

I have sailed a Tartan Fantail powered with a Torqeedo Cruise 2.0 a few times. I fell in love with the silence and the power of the engine, and as a result, I have my diesel for sale. I plan to replace it with an inboard, electric 48-volt powerplant. I have investigated quite a few.

We were paging through our emails filtered spam folder last summer to make sure we didnt miss anything and came across an ad for a compact, flexible hose that looked ideal for small boats. The incredible expanding Flex-Able hose is made of a tough double-wall construction that is designed to bend and never kink, and included a seven-way spray nozzle with the hose. The hoses ability to shrink down to an extremely compact size when not in use was particularly enticing.

This winter, I completely rebuilt the Edson steering system on my boat. With the kind of monopoly that Edson International (www.edsonintl.com) has, I expected the type of customer service one would have found in a Soviet-era supermarket. Boy, was I wrong!

Our quest for new antifouling paints recently took us into the world of long-life spray-on coatings promoted in the commercial-shipping industry. While the spray-on, thermoplastic composite powder Tefcite may work well on a ship thats moving at 13 knots for most of its working life, it failed surprisingly fast in our static panel tests.

My 1979 Tayana Vancouver 42 came with two horizontal propane tanks and one vertical propane tank (all three 20-pound aluminum) when I bought the boat in 2007. I contacted Worthington Industries and learned that horizontal LPG tanks are those with the additional brackets attached for horizontal installation and must be used horizontally; those without brackets are vertical tanks and must be kept vertical, which is the norm from everything Ive read. Im a bit surprised that not more is published about horizontal LPG tanks.

Clear vinyl dodger windows, through which we keep watch, are annoying tattle tales, recording and announcing every bit of rough handling and neglect. They burn in the sun. They bleed plasticizers, turning yellow and sticky. And unlike mildew in the cockpit or an upholstery stain, we can't simply ignore their flaws by turning our heads.

If your vinyl dodger windows are more than five to seven years old and looking tired but your canvas is still looking good, its likely time to breathe some new life into them. Vinyl-window restoration can remove surface oxidation, plasticizer residue, imbedded dirt, scuffs, and very shallow scratches; it also can provide a durable coating to seal the surface, which will be more porous after buffing. Smaller window restorations can be handled by the do-it-yourselfer, but for big-or particularly gnarley-jobs, you may want to consider hiring someone to do it for you.

In response to your recent blog on removing bottom paint: We totally stripped our 1984 Camper Nicholson 58 in two days. Without a doubt, the best tool in our kit for stripping many layers of bottom paint was a massive linoleum floor scraper. It has one straight blade and one slightly curved. I used the belt sander with 800-grit sandpaper to keep it razor sharp. Sharpening was needed every 5 square feet.

While my wife and I have given up sailing, our current boat, a 1998 Eastbay 38, is equipped with a Maxwell Freedom 800 windlass. When preparing the boat for launch this year, I noticed that the sight glass had been splintered. Likely due to a previously broken seal that allowed water into the gearbox and the water freezing during one of the coldest winters in Connecticut in years.