Ballast

During an early dismissal from school one afternoon I raced to a scrap metal yard just outside of McAllen, TX. I had never been to a scrap metal yard before and I felt like a kid-- wanting to watch the electromagnet pick up big loads and drop them into piles. One of the guys working there gave me a hard hat and we went out to the yard to pick out metal for the ballast. I felt pretty tough in my cowboy boots and hard hat picking out scrap metal. When the guys at the yard saw the tiny Toyota hatchback I wanted to load the 800 lbs of I-beam and rebar into, they laughed. I did zoom back to the ranch riding a little lower than normal.

After another trip to the yard, I had about 1700 lbs of scrap metal at the boat shop that I thought I might be able to jam into the ballast. Even then my poor little Toyota wasnt quite finished-- I also picked up 14 50-lb bags of Quikrete at the local building supply.

A few weeks later, I picked up a cement mixer, got a few neighbors together and we started pouring the ballast. I made the mold for the pour the night before. I built it pretty stout and Im glad I did because my main concern when pouring the ballast was that the side of the mold (what would become the bottom of the keel when standing upright) would not stay square. It did stay square so I was happy.

 Boat building in hindsight: Overall, I was surprised by how well the ballast pour went. If I were to do it over again, I wouldnt use Quikrete-- Ive since learned its not as good as what you can mix yourself.

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More Ballast Winterising

As we carry over 2000L of water in the bow tank the trim of the boat is affected between full and nearly empty.

In order to minimise this I decided to put some ballast in the water tank.  As my brother owns a stone worktop company Granite Unlimited he gets plenty of cut outs from the sinks and hobs.  The beauty of natural stone is its free for me, very heavy 30mm is 90kg per Sq/m and its totally unaffected by water.

 This small amount is 750kg worth

Now its in the water tank the leverage being right at the front of the boat has brought it down nicely.  It has displaced about 175L of water so the net effect on a full tank is about 500kg of extra weight and on an low tank nearer 750kg.  Its true we have lost some capacity but is not going to be a problem as I see it because we will simply have to fill up that bit sooner which in turn will mean a more frequent refreshment of new water. The stone is nearly 3000kg a cu/m whereas water is 1000kg

 In the water tank

Since being on the water we have filled no more than 4 times from taps along the river, and the tank was freshly painted when we launched.  So where has all this come from?

 New 5 micron filter on the left

The one removed after around 8000l

Hmm! makes you think.  We also have the 0.5 micron drinking water filter for next to pure drinking water.

While I had the tank empty I moved the stop cock to be right on the copper exit stub from the tank.  I feel a lot happier about that. It was close before but was in a plasticc pipe run.

All this was done mid week while on the boat myself.  We have a rule when we are both on the boat.  I mustnt do any work.  I did however slip a couple of winterising jobs past SWMBO.  I installed a frost stat.  Its actually the original CH controller that came with the Mikuni.  I opted to use the RF or remote version as we can move it around the boat depending on where we want to control the heat more fully, i.e. bedroom or lounge.

I have wired it in parallel so it will trigger if the temperature drops below 5c.  The remote unit which looks exactly the same requires 240v at the receiver end so wont trigger when the inverter is off.  This additional one is battery powered.

The other little job sneaked by was draining out enough water form the generator to top it up with antifreeze.  I never knew if it had any in as I acquired it used so to be sure I have put my own in.

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A Bit Council House

I have been up to quite a few things on the boat but nothing really blog worthy. I do have a lot to say about generators, batteries, alternators and charging but this is still a work in progress.

I have put the 12v toilet back in and fitted a better design non-return valve.

The 230v toilet was OK but had its issues, principally the amount of water used.  Since fitting this valve no backflow has been noticed.  The other issue I had with the 12v toilet was voltage drop on activation.  I have overcome this with a small sealed 12v battery in a cupboard very close to the toilet.

This was the original toilet swap blog.

Its a common joke in the UK that mounting a TV on the wall is a bit "Council House".  It just happens on the boat I decided it would be a good idea as it frees the surface of the unit.

Before

After

Much neater as all the wires are in the wall now.  The extra height is better, more comfortable viewing angle.  It was a bit low before.

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A couple of thoughts regarding ballast

Follow the money, a good point, and someone doing good...

So, here are a few numbers to play with;

• A cubic foot of water weighs 62 pounds
• A cubic foot of concrete weighs 150 pounds
• A cubic foot of iron weighs 491 pounds
• A cubic foot of lead weighs 709 pounds
• A cubic foot of gold weighs 1206 pounds

Like a lot of people I like the idea of water ballast. Whats not to like... its free, you can lose it when you dont want it around, and it works. Of course, theres a downside (theres always a downside to anything) in that it takes up a lot more room than most of us care to give up within the interior.

Case in point: Phil Bolgers take apart three piece schooner that Ive often considered building as a non-take-apart boat which has often been on my shortlist for the next Loose Moose. Of course replacing the water ballast with other ballast types would gain a lot more room...

That said, somehow the idea of a 47-foot boat has lost a lot of its allure for me but would still make a certain kind of sense due to its 1.5-foot draft and enough room and stowage to be able to work on rigging jobs and build self-steering gears/dinghies/surfboards as a nomadic shop/business model.

Listening to Bob Dylan covering Frank Sinatra

So it goes...

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