Winter 2017 to 2018: Completing the Refit Part 10, Continuing...

The Never Ending Winter Weather

The day after Milford Boat Works pulled the boat from the paint shed the second of six nor'easters hit the area; I suspect many of you have heard of all of the storms and never ending winter in the north east US during March and April of 2018.  The weather put me 8 weeks behind on even getting the boat ready to launch.

And it put me 8 weeks behind in refinishing the wood of the companionway; you can't varnish in 30 and 40 degree weather and have it dry properly.

Now, there are several "post launch" personal activities I had planned that are in the way; oh well.

Refinishing the Companionway

The refinishing of the companionway stairs and walls has been long and frustrating because of the weather.  There have been pictures of the components in many previous refit posts.  

Well, I finally got the stairs over to Milford. The following pictures show some of the activities from mid-April to mid-May.

Here are the Pieces I refinished at home on the boat stand

I had the help of a forklift to get them on deck

After I got them below, I still had to refinish one wall in the companionway.  Consequently these large stair components turned the cabins into an unmitigated disaster in which it was very difficult to navigate, let alone working on getting the boat systems ready to operate.  In fact it was such chaos that I didn't/couldn't take a picture.

Anyway, it was finally warm enough to strip and sand the old varnish off and re-coat the wall with a new coat (actually 8 coats before I get done) of varnish,

The Companionway Wall before Refinishing

Stripping the Wall

Nearing Completion of Refinishing the Companionway

There is still much work to do on the companionway.  Heat and sound baffling needs to be installed on the back side of the lower stairs that form one side of the engine compartment.  The wall that I started varnishing needs 5 more coats to complete the varnishing.  Finally, I will need to coat the stairs with a non-skid material.

Covers for the Hatch Lens

As a safety measure I replaced the hatch lens.  The lens were crazed which could cause them to stove in under very harsh sea conditions.

To prevent them from crazing again, they needed covers.  Typically these covers are made from "canvas".

The panels I installed on the hatches

The hatch panels looking forward on the Boat

However, Outland makes panel that I think will be much better as shown in the pictures above.

Adding the Name

The name of the boat is Calypso.  While many think of the name as a dance, and many think of the name as the French research vessel, actually Calypso is the Greek Goddess of the waves and the consort of Poseidon.

So I decided to add a wave to the C in Calypso and put her in the Wave as a tribute.

The Name

The Tribute Wave

And yes, it is in real gold letters.

Electrical

New Batteries

I have upgraded the electrical system by adding solar panels with charge controllers as I discussed in a previous post.  But for long/blue water cruises the lead/acid battery bank on Calypso didn't seem nearly enough.  After doing much research and learning more about batteries than I ever thought was possible, I decided to replace the Group 27 batteries with Oasis Firefly group 31 batteries.  Given the information I have on the electrical needs of the boat, between the 400 watts of solar panels, which I plan will produce ~100 watts of power and these batteries, I think I will have enough electrical power both sailing and at anchor.

An Oasis Firefly Battery installed

Electronics

The Sensors for the instrumentation has all been upgraded this winter, except for the wind sensor, since I updated that in 2016.  And I added some.  While I had most of the instrumentation purchased in July and August of last year, it took until August to get some of it installed.  It wasn't until the end of June that enough of the sensors were installed that I could bring the boat back.  The following is a schematic of electronics on Calypso.

Schematic of Calypso Electronics

AIS

I installed a Vesper AIS 6000.  As shown in the schematic, It interlinks with the other instruments through the NMEA 2000 backbone.  This enables the data from it to be displaced on the two Garmin 741xs chartplotters(one at the nav station and one at the helm). 

Sensors

I also add three new or updated sensors; new speed and depth, new radar, and a forward scanning sonar.

The Speed/Depth Sensor and the Forward Scanning Sonar

Airmar DX900+

The Airmar DX900+ is an entirely new type of speed and depth sensor.  The speed sensor works strictly on electromagnetic technology rather than mechanical technology so there is much less to gum up.  It is shown in the Schematic above.  It is shown on the starboard in the picture above.

Since it fit directly into the same thru hull as the previous speed and depth sensor from Garmin, (though that product was built by Airmar) there were no changes needed to the thru hull components. 

Panoptics Forward Scanning Sonar

The Garmin Panoptics Phased Array Forward Scanning Sonar (whew!) is constructed to show the water depth (up to 300') and to show any objects, like rocks or containers, in front of the boat up to the surface.  This make it very useful for spot the channel when entering a port for the first time.  The sonar is also shown on the Schematic and is mounted on the port side in the picture above.

Apparently, when the boat was built 2003 the sensor technology was such that separate speed and depth sensors were installed.  Since the Panoptics is the same size, no changes in the thru hull size was needed, but the sonar came with a brass thru hull fitting, so we changed out the fitting.

Pulse Doppler Radar

The pulse doppler radar replaced the "old" Garmin HD+ 18" radar.  I had found it difficult, at times to get good returns (mostly because of its small size).  Additionally, the radar that came with the boat was a comparative  energy hog in comparison with the pulse doppler version.  Consequently, it made sense to me to replace the radar that came with the boat.

Anchoring System

The anchoring system that came with the boat was designed to meet US Coast Guard requirements, nothing more.  The surveyor took one look at it and said, "great lunch anchor".  The anchor system came with six feet of chain and one hundred feet of road; not nearly enough in a storm. This is the type of anchoring system installed on racing boats to save weight and on this one to allow the retractable bowsprit to operate.

The anchor and anchor roller were broken off the bow when a powerboat banged it in a freak thunderstorm in 2015.  That more than adequately demonstrated to me how weak the system was. 

While the Lewmar windlass is good, it is on deck instead of below deck, even though there is a specific place for it (I like the foredeck as clear as possible of things to trip on).  Still it works well, so that has stayed.

Anyway, the small anchor and weak roller had to be replaced if I wanted to sit at anchor for any duration; like a week.  My first attempt was to purchase a Fortress anchor, with 60' of chain and 300' of road.  However, there was no way to fit the anchor onto the bow roller.  Having said that, I still have the Fortress anchor as a backup and it will be used in two anchor situations and in situations where the Fortress is appropriate.

My second attempt was to purchase a Spade anchor; and this fits all of the requirements.  First, several reviews indicate that it's among the best for holding in multiple types of ground.  Second, it allows the retractable bowsprit to elongate and retract with minimal inference.  Third, it works with being able to get on and off moorings.

So the refit has come a long way.