I just returned from Maine. The weather was uncharacteristically beautiful with warm temperatures and clear skies. The leaves had not really started to turn and it did not seem like the last week of September.
We made a number of design refinements to the interior, clarified the spec in many places and began the design of the upper cabinets in the salon. I reviewed the preliminary layout of the electrical panel and we made some minor adjustments to the electrical system. The engine had been put back into the hull, the shaft fitted and the strut was being glassed in while I was there. As always it was a pleasure to work with the Lyman Morse staff.
I added some pictures of the furniture and joinery that has been fitted into the hull in anticipation of the deck being put into position in the next 2-3 weeks. I also added a few pictures of Maine and of the Lyman Morse facility.
The next big event is the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show, the last week of October, where we will review our options for interior lighting and nav/comm electronics. We hope to make the final selection of lighting fixtures by mid-November.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Updates
We started the detail design of the hanging locker in the forward cabin and did a second iteration of our plan for the switching requirements at the electrical panel.
Ben Ellison, who writes the marine electronics blog Panbo (and articles in major boating magazines) accepted my offer of dinner next week. I'm looking forward to picking his brain in advance of the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show where we'll pick the nav/comm electronics.
On the web site I added a sidebar on Why Fiberglass, almost finished the Why a custom boat? section, and made an assortment of corrections and minor updates on other pages.
Ben Ellison, who writes the marine electronics blog Panbo (and articles in major boating magazines) accepted my offer of dinner next week. I'm looking forward to picking his brain in advance of the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show where we'll pick the nav/comm electronics.
On the web site I added a sidebar on Why Fiberglass, almost finished the Why a custom boat? section, and made an assortment of corrections and minor updates on other pages.
Monday, September 17, 2007
New web site
Published a major revision to the web site. There were problems with formatting a proper blog [now fixed] so this is the temporary substitute, hopefully the problems will be resolved soon.
Added some new pictures. Great to see the companionway starting to be installed. Exciting to see maple inside the boat instead of fiberglass!
A lot of open items have been put off until next week when I'll be at Lyman Morse in Maine.
Added some new pictures. Great to see the companionway starting to be installed. Exciting to see maple inside the boat instead of fiberglass!
A lot of open items have been put off until next week when I'll be at Lyman Morse in Maine.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Fuel system and electrical outlets
Normally it's not good to mix fuel and electricity, but when we're talking design it's ok. The fuel system is pretty well finalized as we're up to rev 1.5 of the design. Darius found a stacked valve that will let us switch both bypass lines with a single lever to simplify the operation of bypassing the day tank (which I hope we'll never need to do).
I made a first pass at the location of all the AC and DC outlets. It's mostly a matter of convenience as I don't expect too many things to be plugged in at once, but it wouldn't be good to be running too many extension cords! Of course convenience has it's cost with more wires running around the boat so I tried to strike a proper balance between convenience and thrift.
We still haven't found a home for the "rechargeables" locker, though we did disqualify two potential locations (I think that's progress). This is where the ever increasing population of rechargeable gadgets can rest and be renewed from their electrical source of choice (110vac or 12vdc). Cell phones, iPods, cameras, spotlight, handheld VHFs and probably half a dozen things that I don't yet know I'll be owning in the future. They need a home.
I made a first pass at the location of all the AC and DC outlets. It's mostly a matter of convenience as I don't expect too many things to be plugged in at once, but it wouldn't be good to be running too many extension cords! Of course convenience has it's cost with more wires running around the boat so I tried to strike a proper balance between convenience and thrift.
We still haven't found a home for the "rechargeables" locker, though we did disqualify two potential locations (I think that's progress). This is where the ever increasing population of rechargeable gadgets can rest and be renewed from their electrical source of choice (110vac or 12vdc). Cell phones, iPods, cameras, spotlight, handheld VHFs and probably half a dozen things that I don't yet know I'll be owning in the future. They need a home.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Shorepower
This week we wrestled with shore power. 110v / 60Hz, 230v / 50Hz and/or 220v / 60Hz? Isolation transformers, solid state or toroidal transformers? In the end we decided to further simplify the electrical system (always a good thing). We decided to accept 220v/60Hz and 230v/ 50Hz shore power, but it's really any 200+ volt power with either one or two hot legs. The only components connected to shore power will be the charger and the hot water heater and neither of them is very fussy about voltage or frequency. So we eliminated the isolation transformers all together saving time, weight and money. With the exception of the water heater, all the other AC consumers will be run from the inverter which will produce nice clean 110v / 60Hz power.
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