Meet the new La Rea!

MarkB

Is it okay to be envious?  Well done LaRea! Looks beautiful.

Ian

Us Aussies build nice boats…

rasbury

That's a lot of wow, gongrats- can you do like a video walk around, including the engine room of course...really cool picture.

LaRea

@rasbury - great idea.  Yes I'll do a video!

LaRea

@ian there was an Aussie tourist here yesterday taking pix.  She agrees with you, mate -- Australians know how to build a yacht!

Formulaben

LaRea said:

Thanks!  In Venezuela she was named "Anemona" which is a female name of Greek origin.  In the US, that name was awkward ... people kept calling her "an enema" until I took the name off!

Soooo, I have to ask.  Did you do the full renaming procedure?

Liberty44140

She looks great! Very interesting tab info. 

LaRea

@Formulaben - we still need to pay homage to the numerous marine gods, semigods and demigods that will protect us on the waters of the world.  That ceremony will happen soon.  We will sacrifice many bottles of Tranya! 

@Liberty44140 - without tabs, the boat was creating a wake that was absolutely gigantic.  I knew that was where my fuel was going -- basically creating a mobile wave park.  Now, with tabs, the boat runs like a normal boat with a normal wake.  But I have to admit, I didn't expect a 20% improvement.  

LaRea

I'll keep posting my little projects -- thanks for listening!  This one is from a couple weeks ago. 

To free up storage space in the engine room, I relocated the watermaker to an out-of-the-way location on the starboard side.  

The new location is above the battery bank, so the major challenge was building a shelf strong enough to support a 60-pound device in pounding seas.  I used 3/4" plywood supported by three hefty 1/4"-thick stainless steel brackets (one on the right, two on the left).  

The brackets are held by 1/4" bolts through a stout 3/4" bulkhead of solid fiberglass.  To reach the backing nuts, I had to cut a 6” hole for an inspection plate in a nearby plywood bulkhead.  I do love the thrill of taking a power saw to a luxury motor yacht!  Bonus:  the inspection plate gives visibility into a cavity that is otherwise inaccessible.  

With the shelf in place, I rerouted the 110-VAC power cable and three water lines (raw water supply, product output to the water tank, and wastewater discharge).  By luck, I was able to reuse the original lines.  

Being an optimist, I first mounted the raw water supply pump up on the shelf.  That was a fail.  It couldn’t pull enough water until I remounted it down at deck level.  But I ended up with a neat and tidy installation – better than original if you ask me.  

It was easier than I expected, and I like the math on this one.  I invested $200 in materials, 10 hours of labor, and four Advil tablets.  A yard would have billed me $2000 for this job, so my “take-home pay” was a happy $180/hour.  Not every job goes that way, but this one did.  

The watermaker formerly occupied this space above the water heater, right behind the ladder.  Now I have 5 cubic feet of convenient, easy-to-reach space that I will fill with tool storage.  But that’s a project for another day!

LaRea

And here's a project I finished today:  at the transom, I added a sliding cabinet door behind the grill to turn dead space into usable storage. 

Here’s the "before" photo showing the grill (new, installed a couple weeks ago) and the space behind it.  Couldn’t really store anything there because (1) it would just slide around, and (2) nobody wants to see our cleaning supplies when I'm grilling shrimp on the barbie.

 

I built a custom frame with sliding doors, and it fits perfectly behind the grill.  Now there’s plenty of space to store cleaning supplies, grill tools and other stuff where it’s secure and hidden out of sight.  

 

 

The doors are 1/4" panels of HDPE (a.k.a., Starboard).  I built a wood frame with plastic tracks at the top and bottom for the door panels.  The front of the frame is finished with HDPE trim panels.  To provide finger-holds for opening the doors, I made shallow cutouts with a table saw – looks great and works perfectly.

 

 

All in, I invested $100 in materials and 8 hours of labor.  A yard would have charged $1500 for this job, so another win for the home team.  

Liberty44140

Sliding doors look awesome, great use of specs for sure! Starboard from boat outfitters?

LaRea

Thanks!  I used Polymersan from Amazon.  Same finish as Starboard, but 25% cheaper.  Bit of a gamble going with the off-brand, but I'm happy with the product. 

Liberty44140

For the most part HDPE is HDPE. Of course starboard may have a higher pigment load for a more defined color, uv additive for sun or some impact modifier to handle hits…. But those are all tenths of a percent difference. You are unlikely to see the difference between starboard and off brand HDPE. 

Spyderweb

Terrific upgrade with the doors!  Goes to show, no matter the size of the boat, you can always use more and better storage.

captkevin

Nice upgrade.

aero3113

Nice work @LaRea ! ⚓️

rasbury

Awesome- maybe I'll be able to buy this boat when you are ready to upgrade!

LaRea

For future long-distance cruising, it's all about storage, storage, storage!

Today's project: started installing a 5-port Reverso oil change system for two engines, two transmissions and the genny.  It's like a tile game.  First I moved the watermaker.  That lets me move the water heater, which lets me install the oil changer.  

Liberty44140

I have the reverse for the mains and genny and it is really nice. Flip the switch one way to drain and opposite to fill. Glorious. 

LaRea

For the Reverso - I still haven't figured out how to attach hoses for the transmissions, but I ran most of the hoses today.  Had to order more hose because of a last-minute design change for the location of the pump.  

LaRea

@Liberty44140 - yesterday I used the Reverso for the first time (on the genny).  What a luxury!  Put end of hose into waste bucket, press button to drain.  Replace oil filter.  Move hose into container of new oil, press button to fill, and it will vacuum the container clean.  

The mains are next -- 12 gallons of oil and 8 filters, so not a cheap exercise.  

Liberty44140

Yep it's pretty nice. Glad it worked out for you. Definitely want to stick with buckets vs jugs when using the system. Of course works better with warm oil in the engine, and then is slower when re filling room temp oil, but it works. Takes me maybe 4-5 min to put 5 gal of new oil in to the engines.

Yea I am 5 gal per main with 2 filters each, 1 gal for genny with one filter and while there I do the on-engine secondary fuel filters so $450 for the maintenance. You are probably 2X.

How often do you plan to do it? I've done every fall and really thinking every other will be just fine. All of the mechanics here tell me every other is fine given the large quantity of oil held in the diesels and how we run 50 hours or less per year. 

LaRea

I just had that conversation with the Admiral.  We want to start cruising 500-700 hours a year, so we'll hit the hours limit way before we hit the 12-month limit.   With US diesel under 0.5% sulfur, we'll try to run the oil 350 hours.  Maybe get it tested at 300 hours and see how it looks.  (Spoken as if I know what I'm talking about.)  I'll get my money's worth out of the oil changer.  

Liberty44140

Yea no doubt you’ll hit hours first. Blackstone is the well known oil analysis lab but I’ve used titan in Colorado and they are less expensive and do a good job. Lab tech was happy to talk with me when I needed an explanation (which was that 4 year old tranny lube needs changed every 2-3 yrs, not 4, it’s burnt!) 

LaRea

Four years ... I guess the PO liked pushing his luck!  Volvo says 500 hours or 12 months for mine.  I just sent all five samples to Blackstone.  

Liberty44140

Exactly. Listing broker didn’t appreciate my advice to the PO that 4 is too long for future reference. Mine are Volvo too so that 500/12 is good to know. Essentially ZF with Volvo labels and Volvo electronic shift bolted on, but still Volvo. 

I’m sure you know this but they make an easy kit to pump directly in to little sample containers for analysis. Little hand pump that the containers attach to. 

LaRea

How are your transmissions connected to the Reverso?  My transmissions have a drain plug at the bottom, but there's not enough clearance to attach a fitting.  I'll probably have to rig up a tube that gets shoved into the dipstick opening.  

Grahamu

I have the Reverso pump but was reluctant to use it to refill thinking some old oil was still in the hoses. It only has 2 ports, engine and genset, I have a small 3 liter oil change unit that I used for the transmission. 

LaRea

@Grahamu I was worried about that too, but draining the engine removes only about 90% or 95% of the dirty oil.  It's not perfect, so a bit of oil inside the hose won't change anything.  

Also I'm pretty sure I'd make a huge mess trying to hand-pour 12 gallons into the tops of the mains.  

Grahamu

I will do it that way next time, I  use 5 Gallon buckets from Walmart for the waste oil, they're cheap, the lid seals firmly,  mark it as used oil. I also put the old filters in it.