Today's work would be focused on locating the cleats for the new anchor locker shelf, as well as progressing the installation of the new TruDesign seacocks and thru-hulls.

I worked over the prior week to bring the anchor locker shelf, a two-piece removable system, to the point of being ready for paint - though work remains to channel the ground tackle to the lower portion of the anchor locker and glue and screw the cleats on the larger piece which will serve to support the inboard smaller piece. I brought the two-piece shelf into the v-berth, along with a couple levels and digital bevel. Placing the larger of the two pieces in place, I located level athwartship and allowed for a forward to aft cant in the shelf piece. Happy with the orientation, I slide a marker underneath the shelf and marked a line along the hull following the edge of the shelf. This line gave me the location of the supportive cleats that I will be glueing (epoxy) to the hull. Next, I zeroed the angle finder (bevel) and applied it to several locations along the marked surface of the hull, placed a small level on the arm, found level, and then recorded the angle in degrees. I transferred this measurement to the corresponding points along the bottom surface of the anchor locker shelf. When I return to the shop, I will source material for cleats in my storage to fabricate the cleating with appropriate angles cut to then be able to support the shelf system. At this point I was finished with the anchor locker shelf work and so pivoted to the thru-hulls.

Five of seven backing plates have been mounted in a bed of thickened epoxy, with a pilot hole centered in the original thru-hull opening, or hull penetration. I brought one of each of the various diameters of thru-hulls, and accompanying seacock, to Somerledi to continue towards final installation of the TruDesign system. Beginning with the head intake, I used an appropriately sized hole saw and drilled out the recently installed backing plate, using the pilot hole of the backing plate to guide my piloting bit on the hole saw. With the hull penetration opened back up, I cleaned the area and slid the new thru-hull, or skin fitting, into the hole and secured it to the hull with tape to the exterior of the boat. Climbing back inside, I secured the thru-hull with a backing nut and washer provided by TruDesign, and then took the all important measurement of the length of the threaded shaft of the thru-hull - from top of backing nut. For the 3/4" and 1" thru-hulls, TruDesign was a max of 3/4" shaft length from top of backing nut and a minimum of 5/8". The length of shaft that I measured for the head intake was 1", so I marked and removed 1/4" of the shaft.

I then placed the thru-hull back into the hull penetration, taping and securing from the exterior, and then climbed back up to place washer and backing nut. I hand tightened the backing nut (fairly tight), and then threaded the seacock with collar onto the thru-hull shaft. The orientation for the handle of the seacock was perfect, so I climbed back outside and marked the orientation onto the hull in order to capture this success when I go to the final install of the head intake thru-hull and seacock. This seacock has a 90-degree elbow to accept the hose, and so I decided to test-fit this; however, the end of the 90-degree elbow was interfered with by the adjacent cabinetry. As the picture shows, I small amount of this bulkhead will need to be removed to allow the elbow to be seated properly. The decorative access ring will cover any modification of the bulkhead and so will not present an issue. I removed the thru-hull and seacock for final installation at a later date.

I then moved on to opening up the galley drain hull penetrations, again using the backing plates' centered drill holes to capture and align the hole saw. No further work was done to these two locations during the day.

I moved to the engine room hull penetrations, and repeated the dry-fit install process for the raw water intake, marking thru-hull orientation on the exterior hull, and then removing for safe keeping prior to final install. I completed the day by epoxy-glueing in the remaining two backing plates (for the cockpit scupper drain seacocks).

Total Hrs: 3.5