We apologise for the inconvenience. . . .

We've a ton of photos and new posts on the current work on "Tesla's Revenge", but our lovely little marina is having some SERIOUS bandwidth problems of late, which is making  uploading just about impossible.  They're working on it, and should have it functional by the end of the weekend, but if not, I'll drag the laptop over to a starbucks and get some of this stuff here on the blog.  Stay tuned.  Lotsa stuff coming as soon as we can.

M

Making a Simple, snap-on Screen

Screening in hatches, ports, companionways, and the like on vessels and tiny homes can be a pain. The surfaces are often uneven, the openings far from square, and, in general, trying to fabricate something like a screen that will stay in place and keep out the native insect life can be as much of a pain as.  .well. . .as the native insect life.

Window screens for the original Floating Empire were never satisfactory, as they involved lots of staples and not a lot of finesse.

We've found that a relatively simple expedient can be created, however, just through the use of screw-in snaps.

These simple screw in snap kits contain all the tools you need, save a hammer.

The method is really simple.  Cut your screening to fit and trim the edges with a stout tape or cloth.  We used Gorilla gaffer's tape.  Set your female snaps per the package instructions into the tape rim, then mark where the snaps will fall on the surface of the window opening and screw in the male part of the snap there.

It makes for a clean, easily removable, bug free screening system.

Since the whole system is non-rigid, it will easily adapt to virtually any opening.  Have a mind:  if drilling the snaps into fiberglass, a pilot hole is recommended as the screws can bind and snap off.

Anyway, just wanted to pass this along.  We've now got a screened main forward hatch and a LOT less mosquito intrusion.

More shortly

M

The Saga of the Great Unmasting

So if you've followed this latest project of ours, you'll know that Tesla's Revenge, formerly a Cal 2-29 sailboat, had some issues that prevented her from being a . . .well. . .sailboat.  The supports that spread the force from the deck-stepped mast to the keel were shot, literally rusted to bits the size of coins, and that was, of course, one of the reasons we got her cheap.

Having re-assembled the interior, rewired stuff out the wazoo, and begun serious work on our wheelhouse, it was time to get rid of said troublesome mast in order to proceed with our conversion of the vessel into an electric cruiser.  Unfortunately, the marina where we're berthed, lovely as it is, lacks a crane to do this, and the nearest boatyard that can handle unstepping the mast is some miles down Middle River and up Frog Morter Creek, and, lacking either sails or a motor, getting over there was somewhat problematic.  But the boat DOES have an outboard mount, and, with an outboard borrowed from the former owner, we decided we could make the trip to Maryland Marina under our own power.

The Captain at his helm, mug of Iced Tea at the ready.  Note how hopeful he seems.

The day started auspiciously, with virtually no wind.  The borrowed motor started up instantly.  We did a wonderfully graceful job of getting out of the slip and into the center of Middle River.  All in all, quite the happy start.  I'd never been by water to Maryland Marina before (we did go to check it out by car just to be able to recognize the place) but I had the Navonics app on my smartphone, a functioning radio, maps on our computers. . . .the cat even seemed calm with his home suddenly deciding to move.  It was all good.

Okay, full disclosure here:  I have this paranoid distrust of internal combustion engines of any kind.  The guys at the marina all seem to love tinkering with them, listening to them, messing with them, talking about them. . . me, I seem to have a native antipathy to them.  I always assume they're going to fail, usually when I least expect it.  One of the effects of this paranoia is that I spend the ENTIRE TIME a motor is running listening for every hiccough, every burp and burble, convinced that something dire is about to happen.

But happily, nerve wrackingly, it didn't.

We even managed to find the Marina with only a minimum of angst.  All in all, the trip over failed to suck.  The Cal's huge rudder made steering a breeze, and the boat proved responsive and easy to manage.

Okay, to the mast.

The mast is a MOOSE.  You can also see some of our gonzo cribbing.

 The mast on this thing is a beast, the Cal being designed for offshore racing.  It's big and it's thick and it's long and the idea we had was to pull the thing and lay it across the new wheelhouse, along with a tripod of cribbing at the bow, then to motor back to Middle River Landing and remove the thing with the marina's sling.

As you can see, this thing is NOT short.

The whole process is kind of daunting.  The Marina made it look easy.

The crane was on it's own truck, and our beloved cat Magellan was totally freaked out by it, by the motor noise, by being off the boat (albeit with a leash) in a strange place.  I don't blame him.  Staring straight up at the mast, you really don't get a sense of how LONG the thing really is.  When they lowered it onto our cribbing, some of which nearly skittered off the deck during the loading process.  We lashed it on to the lifeline stands with some heavy line and managed to get it seated and tied down.

Tied down and mercifully back at our slip.

Of course, the entire way back, every creak and groan of the cribbing and the wheelhouse frame, every wave we hit, every burble of the motor, made me ABSOLUTELY SURE that with the next idiot powerboater's wake we would see the mast crashing into the water, dragging all our woodwork with it, COMPLETELY POSITIVE the motor was going to die any moment, leaving us stranded and void of course in the midst of the mixing bowl that is the lower Middle River.  AAAAAHHHH!   AAAAAHHHH!    AAAAAHHHHH!

It was not restful.

OMFG what an ordeal. 

We arrived back home, intact but stressed to the max and utterly exhausted (cat included).  The next day we pulled the mast off and set it on the hard using the Marina's boat sling.  That, at least, went smoothly.

But it's done.  Now we have a host of wiring and solar panels and electronics to deal with, but THAT, at least, I'm at ease with.

Not doing this again anytime soon, though.....sheesh.

Enjoy the summer.  We hope to be mobile and have lots new and happier stories for you by month's end.

This is a gin and tonic and I've earned it, so there.

Enjoy

M

Slow Progress, but lots more shortly

Apologies for not having posted a great deal lately.  Rest assured we're making progress and taking pictures, but a combination of an insane work schedule and bandwidth issues has made adding things to the blog difficult.  That's all about to change, so please bear with us.

In the recent days we've finished the structure for our wheelhouse, taken the boat on it's first trip, and gotten the mast removed.  Pix to come momentarily.

In the middle of that, our POS hand pump in the galley decided to stop working. . .then to start working. . .then to stop working again. 

I guess this thing was cheap for a reason, hunh?

So of course, I ordered a replacement, this time a Whale galley pump with far better reviews, and set about the knuckle banging task of getting the old one out.   This was complicated by the fact that the old pump required a much larger hole (which had to be filled) and the fact that I'd installed the old pump before putting in the sink, meaning I had to reach under and behind the sink and to the new installation by braille.

The new Whale galley pump.  You can see the repaired opening to the right, which I now have to tidy up.

But it's done.  The Whale galley pump is smooth, and twice as fast as the old one (it works on both stroke directions).  We're quite happy with it and I recommend it highly.

So stay tuned.  I'll be posting our first outing and the great mast removal saga shortly.

Happy summer.

M

Of Fear and Plywood: More progress.

Most of you who have followed this weblog know, Gail and I are makers. We're artists and tinkerers and designers and fiddlers and we love inventing and making stuff. Four years ago, we built the original barrel shanty," The Floating Empire", in our backyard and lived aboard her for over three years, making constant changes and experiments to the structure before selling her to a new owner and acquiring a used CAL 2-29 hull that we're turning into a solar electric cruiser. So I'm sitting on the dock covered in sweat in the middle of a Mad-Dogs-and-Englishmen noonday sun, merrily drilling away at the beams that will encompass our new, pergola-style wheelhouse, when one of our slipmates comes up and asks me: “Why bother?”

Yeah, it's noon and 92 degrees, so what?

What?

“Why bother? There are three boats up there on the hard you could have for nearly nothing, and none of them need any work, really. I mean, they'll travel too, why do all this stuff?”

I have to admit, I was a little amazed. I mean, NOT doing all this stuff would never have occurred to me. There are a lot of reasons to do all the projects we do. First of all, we know the boats on which we live inside and out, having either built or re-built the personally. We're fearless in chopping into to fiberglass or replacing structural members, because we know the forces involved, we know what pieces have to be strong and what are merely cosmetic and how to deal with those. Second, of course, we get the boat we want, not just something which is close to the boat we want that's commercially offered. If I want a port right there, I'll put one in. If the counter is too low, I'll raise it. We build the space to accommodate us, not content to accept what some designer has created to please the average public. 

 See? Both of those are real reasons, and they make sense.

They are also just so much fish bait.

The real reason we do this is that we love doing it, and the reason I don't have a commercially built vessel is that there's nothing special about owning a commercially built vessel. Everything we have is unique to us, from “Tesla's Revenge” to “The Floating Empire” to our odd little offset rig Puddleduck “Dharma Duck.” Like my writing or Gail's artwork, it bears our stamp, and we love describing the systems and processes and accidents and disasters and successes to folks, and the idea that, somewhere, somehow, someone else may benefit from our experiments. Like artwork, it's a kind of immortality, a way of making a mark on the world in a way that simply buying something does not.

Besides, it's fun.  Don't be afraid.  It's only fiberglass.

Aboard our new shadier cockpit.  The pergola will eventually hold our solar panels.

 We made a lot of progress this week.  The enclosure for the wheelhouse.is nearly complete and perfectly serviceable to shade the cockpit, and we've added some roll-up bamboo blinds to block the morning and evening sun from blasting in.  All in all it'll make things lots cooler and make doing the rest of the work we've got ahead of us.

Stay tuned.

M

What were they thinking

With me working, we've been making slow, but hopefully sure, progress on "Tesla's Revenge".  We're continuing to stain and seal the beams for the new deckhouse.  If you're wondering why the text heavy posts lately, the marina has been experiencing some bandwidth problems with our WiFi (as in, I think the router is failing) which has made uploads a long and occasionally iffy process.

We've also done some stuff to correct some of the more bizarre features of the Cal 229 hull.  The worst of these sins is that the forward V berth has ZERO ventilation.  No ports, no vents, no hatches, no little air scoops, nada, nunca, nichts, nuttin.  The trouble is, anything we could install would get in the way of the tiny bit of flat deck space we have, so I tried an expedient.

IThe large aft hatch is actually in the head.  The smaller, forward one is actually in the chain locker.

In the forward of the V birth was a small door into the chain locker, so I found a small vent with a powered fan and mounted it forward above the chain locker.  It has a screen and a 12V fan, so opening it and kicking it on and opening the chain locker door provides a nice, flow through ventilation to the berth.

Okay, odd, wanky, and not exactly to code, but it works.

We proceed.  This next week I'm hoping to get the mast pulled and the wheelhouse built.

More momentarily.

M

hey, more stuff at life, art, water.

A bit of Progress

A rare day off and a rare clear day and we finally got a bit of work done on the revisions to Tesla's Revenge.

The new hardtop, the roof that will enclose the cockpit into a wheelhouse and support the solar panels, will be a pergola-styled structure, stained to match the teak on the rest of the boat.  So on a cloudy day and in our right minds and everything we ventured out and purchased wood for the top.

Shaping the beam ends for the pergola roof.

One of the purchases we've made recently was a suite of cordless power tools, including a jigsaw and mouse sander.  The sander, particularly, proved useful in dealing with this project, but in dealing with the 1 1/8" holes in the beam ends, I was forced to resort to the massive drill I purchased to drill the holes in the support beams of Floating Empire nearly four years ago.  The little 20V drill just wasn't up to the task.

Stain going on.

So after the insanity of Memorial Day weekend, we'll be getting more lumber and fabricating the rest of the top and, hopefully, removing the mast before all this happens.

Stay tuned.

Hey, more stuff over at Life, Art, Water.

M

Stateless

Stateless: the downsides.

As we renovate and prepare the new boat, Gail and I were discussing the pros and cons of our livaboard lifestyle. So much of what I've put on these pages has been in glowing reference to the joys of the way we live, the place and the people. I thought, perhaps, it might be good to temper that with a bit of reality. . . not TOO much reality, mind you. Reality and I have always been barely on speaking terms, but here are some considerations you might take into account before taking to the water.

Sigh...here we go again.

First and foremost, as a livaboard, you are relatively stateless. Living on a (potentially) moving platform, your mailing address, your utilities, your “home” anything is largely a fiction. Slip four lines and shove off and you're somewhere else. By and large, this isn't a problem, but you will find, occasionally, that “we can't verify that address” will come up as the marina, a commercial address, can't be verified as a residence. 

Of course, the bug out potential is there as well.

Living on a vessel, you are living effectively in a floating tinyhome. Boats, particularly sailboats, can have a surprising amount of storage, but it's mostly “dead” storage. Want the tupperware? It's right there, under the cushion, under the hatch, underneath the extra life vests, the bagged catfood, the box of DVD's, my dad's photos, a box of tools that we had no place else to store, a bin of art supplies, and the peat moss for the composting toilet. No problem. But having to move six things to get to anything you want can be a hassle, and takes a bit of forethought when you arrange your storage.

It's also a compressed space. I'm fond of telling people that I don't take up any more room in a phone booth than I do in a stadium, and it's true, but this is, after all, a tinyhome. In a boat, Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones could reach each and every top shelf. From where I'm sitting right now, I can open the fridge, reach the wine glasses, type of course, reach the battery bank, the towel storage bin. . . .all without getting up. It's a convenience. If you're claustrophobic, it's the third ring of hell.  Your new "kitchen range" is likely a single burner stove, your refrigerator, if you have one, is likely the same one your kid has in her dorm room at college.  Hot and cold running water?  You must be kidding.

On a boat, you just can't “let things wait”. Like houses and apartments, of course, they can burn, gas leaks can make them explode, shorts can cause fire. Unlike houses and apartments, boats can sink. They can ram the docks in high winds. They can leak around the hatches. They can break free of their moorings and go drifting off uncontrolled, with you sound asleep belowdecks. You have to be a bit more proactive, and no one is going to do it for you. 

Boat repairs can be expensive. I once asked a distributor what was the difference between a $.40 stainless steel bolt and a $2.30 Stainless Steel Marine Bolt. He said, candidly, the word “marine”. Tack “marine” onto anything and you're likely to pay at least 40% more for the same stuff.

Not that “marine” is a vain piece of marketing, not entirely. Marine environments are damp, corrosive, full of stresses that no landlocked construction would ever experience, and you don't DARE let that slide. One good wake from a drunken powerboater, one grounding, one lightning strike, and you are, figuratively and occasionally literally, toast. You have to pay attention. You have to keep yourself safe, because no one else will.

Having said all that, here we sit. We're up to our butts at the moment in new wiring and making decisions about motors and solar panels and where what goes and what we keep, but here we are.

We're free. I can slip the bonds of this dock at will. The cat loves the place. We wake in beauty every morning, and no amount of wind and rain and dryrot can ever change that.

We live aboard. Neither of us would have it any other way.

Don and Gail and Magellan aboard “Tesla's Revenge”

Fixing Composting Toilet Issues

The composting toilet aboard Tesla's Revenge

For those of you who have followed this column for a bit, you'll know that we're big fans of composting toilets for vessels.  After years of dealing with smelly, wanky, miserable to service blackwater heads, the simplicity of a composting head--even a simple bucket composter--is a joy.  They have very little to go wrong, and they NEVER stink.

So imagine my surprise when, just a few days ago, my wife and shipmate goes "wow, the toilet stinks".

And so it did.  Why?

I looked inside.  Source of the stank was pretty apparent:  urine was pooled in the toilet.  Liquids=anaerobic bacterial action=stank.  I tossed in some more biomass, in this case some rather disintegrated wood stove pellets, and forgot about it. 

And yet the stink persisted.  I kept adding more stuff.   What was going on?  This is EXACTLY the same setup we'd been using for near four years now.  It never smelled before, not ever.  What the hell, man?

So, being a good American, I turned immediately to them interwebs.  At first, nothing.  Then on a forum for one of the self contained composting heads, one of the commercial ones, I ran across a statement to the effect that "the finely ground peat moss sold in some garden centers is far less effective than wood chips or coarser biomass."

Finely ground.. . . .hmm.  I looked at our woodstove pellets, the stuff we'd been using for years as biomass.  The last two bags I'd gotten--the last two available at the end of the wood stove season--had been sold to me for, well, nothing, because they had gotten damp.  As a result, what I had was essentially two big bags of very, VERY fine sawdust as the pellets had disintegrated.

If you're using wood stove pellets, they should look like this, not like powder.

So we trucked off to the garden center at one of the big box stores and came back with a 3 cubic foot block of compressed sphagnum moss peat, broke some of it off, and tossed it in.

Bingo.  Urine absorbed instantly, smell completely gone.  This is a very good thing as the head in the new boat is RIGHT next to OUR heads as we sleep.

So, what have we learned today, kids?  We've learned that liquid is not your friend in composting toilet land, and that bulky and absorbent is waaaaay better than fine and powdery.  The object is to create the circumstances for aerobic decomposition, the stuff that happens on a forest floor, and avoiding the cirumstances for ANaerobic decomposition, the stuff that happens in a septic tank.  This means locking up the liquids and providing a way for air to circulate in and among the waste and biomass.

WOW am i glad that worked.

More really cool stuff over at Life, Art, Water, check it out.

Much more later

M

Aboard the EV Tesla's Revenge

Madman in the Galley

I'm sitting here in the galley of Tesla's Revenge, sun streaming in the open hatchway.  The coming weeks are going to include a massive amount of work on the new vessel that we hope to share with you, including:

Pulling the Mast.
Construction of a new wheelhouse.
Installation of a rather large number of solar panels.
Installation of a new battery bank and inverter.
and, of course,
Installing and testing our new electric drive system.

All this mess should take us about three months (he said, being wildly overly optimistic) and then we should get to take you folks along on some travels, first around the Chesapeake, then into the Erie Canal system and the Great Lakes and Canada.

This is gonna be a metric craptonne of work (that is, of course, the technical term) but we love making things. 

Stay tuned.  This is just beginning.

M