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Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:31 pm
by VT_Jeff
Great looking work and congrats on all the new skills youre racking up, thats one of the best parts of this business! The sailing courses sound great too! I looked into doing some courses so i could credit-card captain in the carribean, but then i got the quote for the boat rental and realized i didnt have the right credit card!

Curious why you want to run your raw water intake through the keel. The 3-4 on my sailboat are all through the hull bottom basically under their point of use(galley sink/head sink/head/engine cooling.....i think thats it). Im going to guess you want it low so it will work with the rail-down?

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:14 pm
by mhd
VT_Jeff wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:31 pm Great looking work and congrats on all the new skills youre racking up, thats one of the best parts of this business! The sailing courses sound great too! I looked into doing some courses so i could credit-card captain in the carribean, but then i got the quote for the boat rental and realized i didnt have the right credit card!

Curious why you want to run your raw water intake through the keel. The 3-4 on my sailboat are all through the hull bottom basically under their point of use(galley sink/head sink/head/engine cooling.....i think thats it). Im going to guess you want it low so it will work with the rail-down?
Thanks! Yes, the courses weren't cheap, but we both enjoyed the experience. To be fair, just one or two of the courses would have been enough for what we wanted, but we were still learning and practicing things each day. And we visited some places we'd never been before. Now we want to get the build finished and put our limited knowledge into practice before we've forgotten everything...

As for the water intake, I figured the centreboard (CB) case was already one hole in the boat, so why not use that - no need for a sea-cock. The galley on the VG23 is right next to the CB case so it will be a short pipe run. And unless the intake pipe springs a leak (3/4" OD braided) water can't get into the cabin at any point - I've run the pipe to come out of the top of the CB case and that is above the waterline - I'll fit some kind of rubber grommet or might use silicone sealant to make it reasonably watertight just to be sure. We'll then use a hand pump next to the galley sink to pump up as needed.

Up to now I'm realising that boat building is really an exercise in project management, along with everything else. Trying to think of each part of the build, and also the complete final design, and hold it all in your head at the same time. I'm really trying not to make any decisions now that somehow make life a pain aboard in future (e.g. things in the wrong place that can't be moved without a lot of future work). But of course I'm still making my own mistakes along the way - biggest one up to now was cutting the CB case inspection hatch hole in the wrong place. Just 1" too far to the right and as a result once it was sealed up I wouldn't have been able to reach/change/replace the cheek block that is in there to lift the CB itself. I'd measured it three times prior to cutting too so only myself to blame. Not a major issue but I'm glad I caught it.

Mostly small mistakes up to now, but there are bound to be some bigger ones before I'm done...

Cheers,

Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:19 pm
by VT_Jeff
Now I get it. Very clever!

I cant imagine the mental gymnastics of planning/building your own cruising boat. I suspect fallguy has a pretty good idea though!

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:54 am
by mhd
VT_Jeff wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:19 pm Now I get it. Very clever!

I cant imagine the mental gymnastics of planning/building your own cruising boat. I suspect fallguy has a pretty good idea though!
Yeah, I'm trying to read/learn a lot of what people have done before. But also to trust myself and not be scared to go my own way or make my own mistakes when the situation arises.

I'm constantly impressed by the skill/time/patience/dedication some people have - some of the boats on here and elsewhere are truly works of art.

Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:35 pm
by mhd
Drafted out a very basic 12V system using two 85 Ah batteries, an estimated 200W of solar power, and various different components for the VG23. This will probably get modified at some point but a good place to start. Fans/low-power heater/cooler-plate/lights/navigation/radio.

Since the boat will only have a temporary outboard (so I can't ground to that) and no keel bolts or other significant external metal, and I don't want numerous circuits with floating potentials, I decided to make a common ground from pure copper plate below the waterline inside the centreboard case (but easily removable). This way, during normal use, everything will have a common negative voltage (that of the surrounding seawater). The ground plate connection can/will be disconnected for mooring in any marinas where other boats might be around too, all at a different potential. I currently don't intend to use shore power.

I made a similar (simpler) system on the Jeep that we use when camping - that does work using a floating potential and doesn't have a common ground. I wanted the common ground for the boat to keep all the DC components at the same potential and avoid any possible sparking - never a good idea on a boat.

There appears to be a *lot* of voodoo concerning electrical system design for boats, and the issue of grounding, and particularly grounding for lightning. I haven't decided which way we might go on that, and whether we may install some kind of lightning protection system. But doing it this way the entire 12V onboard DC system will be completely separate from any possible lightning protection system that we might install in future(which will need its own more serious external grounding). I haven't sketched out how to deal with grounding the VHF on the diagram here either but will get to that before too long I'm sure.

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Any battery recommendations? I've been looking at the Trojan deep-cycle batteries but they don't come cheap!!!

Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:20 pm
by mhd
Did a bit of a test with an old washing up bowl and a 150W water heater. I was thinking of maybe a small solar panel to be separate from the rest of the electrical system and directly attached to a small capacity "hot water" tank - just a few gallons. After a full day it should be warm enough to use for dishes etc. I'll do a more rigourous test when the sun is a bit higher in the sky in the spring. Directly connected to battery it was warmed from ambient to a decent temperature within an hour. Potential drop was 0.6 V (12.6 V to 12.0 V) when first connected. I could of course just connect it into the full electrical system...will decide after a bit more thought.

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My course materials arrived for the Westlawn course too, so plenty to keep me out of trouble this week.

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I've still not managed to get the centreboard case finished, but it is close now and hopefully I can fit that in too.

Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 7:53 pm
by mhd
Centreboard and case are practically finished now. Took longer than I thought, mostly due to me adding un-necessary complications. But I'm still happy with the result. Just needs fairing, and painting inside now, and the inspection hatch cutting in the top piece (not shown in pics).

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The orange wire leading off to the left will be connected to the negative bus in the boat and provide a common ground for electrical system. The raise/lower wire is stainless 1x19 with a two-part purchase, and will be operated from inside the cabin (or perhaps lead back to the cockpit). The water inlet (obviously just using a test piece here) will eventually be led to the galley sink.

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The short white cylinder on the lifting mechanism is to keep the wires on the pulley - originally they had a habit of slipping off during raising/lowering.

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The grounding plate is two pieces of copper 4"x12". I epoxied two pieces of copper to the inside case and glassed these over. Then drilled and tapped holes. Messed up the original holes as you can see - need to fill these in and glass over, and also coat the inside of the new holes with epoxy too, to make sure water can't seep through. When the grounding plate is attached for real, I'll coat the inside of the holes with marine sealant prior to screwing it down tight. The three bolts next to the case hold the plate securely together at that side. They screw through tapped copper and provide a location to attach a grounding wire. The nuts/bolts are silicon bronze. I ground down the nuts and the bolt heads as I was worried about them catching/scratching the centreboard, but it isn't close at all and I needn't have bothered. The square piece of copper on top are my diy large washers.

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All done with that now. The cb and case can head to the basement to join the keel and rudder. Next I need to do a few more tests for parts of the electrical system and start thinking about facilities for ablutions and WC - probably solar-shower and portapotti.

It it is getting ever-closer to the point where I have to actually buy the rest of the plywood and cloth and tape and epoxy...($$$$$$$$!!!)....and start building the hull itself.

Cheers,

Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:15 am
by OrangeQuest
All very nice and clever. Very well done.

Very exciting to get to the part of assembling a hull!

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 1:30 pm
by mhd
OrangeQuest wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:15 am All very nice and clever. Very well done.

Very exciting to get to the part of assembling a hull!
Thanks. I'm very much looking forward to the hull build. I think I more or less understand the entire build concept now - but that is different to having the hull full-scale in there and realising exactly how much room there is/isn't to work with. Still, onwards and upwards. Mick

Re: VG23 New Build

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:41 am
by mhd
Has anyone here experimented with a DIY Peltier cool box? Any tips? The electronics are cheap and there are plenty of examples online. I bought some plates + fan + heatsink, etc, and have been doing a few tests. Next job is to build an enclosure and see how what delta-T temperature difference is possible inside/outside and whether it will be worth the effort.

Mick