Small boat big big project!

[hardchines]

Excuse me if I jump around a little but I am not a good story teller.

I said this will be my retirement LRC, you could ask why not just go buy a trailer tug like the Ranger or Nordic offerings, two reasons, COST, and they do not meet my requirements. In the end my boat will look just lake a 26 foot Carver and not a little bright red tug that has a 150 to 300 HP diesel, making it a full planing tug with a planing hull. My boat is capable of planing, but only if you tow it with a fast boat, maybe a baby 300HP tug! I hope to do some LRCruising but in mostly protected waters, I hope to do extensive canal cruising in the canal systems of NY and Canada, doing the Intercoastal to Florida is also on my places to go list, maybe the great loop but I have heard from people that did it, they found the Mississippi trip boring, so that remains to be seen. I am considering a trip from Gardiner NY (my home town) to Oshkosh Wisconsin via the great lakes, I am a pilot and go there each year for a pilot get together called Airventure , 1000 miles by road and I am thinking 1500 by water, long trip in some large expanses of open water with a bad reputation, to often in mid summer if you go in the water .......you stay in the water!

I will be doing my trips SOLO, my wife is younger than I am and is working and has no interest at all in my boating plans, but she also has no problem with me doing it, win win situation.

My wish list for this boat is.

Small economical motor (diesel)
large fuel supply tank for min 500 mile range
large black water tank, used in fresh water in the north country and a pain to pump out!
large fresh water cap. min 50 gallons, I shower every day but use about two gallons of water to do it,Navy shower!
air conditioned cabin
heated cabin
a very comfortable helm seat in cabin that doubles as a cabin seat!
a armed helm seat on bridge
a bow pulpit
a electric anchor windless
a large flat swim platform
a way to power the AC, lets say a diesel generator
a AUTO PILOT IS A MUST, remember solo!
electric stove I hate alcohol stoves in cabins , see note below

stove note, I did install a 2 burner electric stove top, First I never liked electric stoves and on my first trip I lost my generator on the second day, I had a plan B in such an event, I brought and ended up using for the following two weeks a single burner portable butane stove top cooker. It is fantastic the small sealed gas bottles seam to last for ever, 2 cans for two weeks, I cooked breakfast everyday and cooked vegys every night. Butane stoves can be had on Ebay for about 20 bucks and comes in a plastic case. The flame control is perfect and safe , NO flare ups, no odor, has a self contained igniter no open flame needed to light and butane burns hot so a small flame does a lot of work and the stove fits on top of a standard marine electric stove top just fine. See stove when used on my Grady 204C when staying on board off of Mystic Seaport Ct.




Stay tuned folks!
Some pics of my other 1980 yacht!

[Viper]

Looks like you have your work cut out for you. Have you tried turning the motor over yet?

[hardchines]

No I have not started it yet, but I do run the video to see/ hear it run from time to time.

[hardchines]

Time to remove gas tank and make room in engine room for some modifications. Gas tank is 103 gallon aluminum and to my surprise is like new (its original) and cleaned up nice outside, inside was spotless so just hot soap and water slosh and rinse. Only hard part of pulling tank was the fact that it had 30 gallons of older but decent gas in it, I removed gas and used every gallon in my cars. So about 75 dollars of gas, cost of boat is now +25 bucks, its all down hill from here folks.

Once again I found things that impress me about this boat and its construction, ahead of the transverse mounted gas tank I found a full glass bulkhead with very few perforations for hoses and cables. In a effort to keep the cabin as quite as possible when engine and or generator is running I fabricated what I hope will be a good sound absorbing bulkhead. I used a product called "Hardbacker board", it is a product used in shower surrounds as a substrate for applying ceramic tile, it is a cement and paper product and is dense and heavy with smooth sides, I have found that the only way to cut it nicely is with a circular saw and masonry blade . Once the pieces were all cut out I applied a 1/4 inch of dense foam rubber sheets to both sides of the Hardbacker boards, then screwed to existing bulkhead ahead of the gas tank.

[waybomb]

Awesome project. Thanks for sharing and please keep it up!

[hardchines]

I already typed this out then lost it, one more time. One thing I had on my wish list but forgot to include on the list on the previous page was a bow and stern thruster, the stern thruster was no problem but the bow tube would be involved given the limited space of a 26 foot boat. I removed the 40 gallon fresh water tank from the bow and then cut out a section of the boats inner liner to gain access to the tunnel install area. When I exposed the hull I found box style hull reinforcing construction, impressive but will make tunnel install difficult at best, project on back burner till end of the big project and may not get done, will still do stern thruster.

[hardchines]

Lets talk about a helm seat you would not mind sitting in all day long, Carver installed a clever folding seat on top of the galley counter top that could flip over giving more counter space when needed by the first mate, OK this boat was not built for long range cruising and with a command bridge the lower helm seat would not get that much use anyway so Carver has a reasonable excuse for installing this poor excuse for a seat in their low dollar day cruiser. Here is my question, what excuse does Ranger Tugs have for installing the same piece of junk in their very high dollar LRC tug with no second helm? In the following pics you can see the factory seat and a counter top extension that comes up next to the factory seat, the shift/throttle controls as well as the main switch panel is mounted, I removed and relocated controls and switches then cut out the counter and built a seat base and installed a Volvo leather seat (yes the power seat works), I made the seat mount so the seat can be rotated to face aft towards the aft bulkhead where the flat screen TV will be mounted.

[hardchines]

During the winter I found a add for a marine diesel generator on Craig's list in my area, needed engine repair or replacement. I bought the generator that day for 350. , it is a Next Gen 3.5 KW diesel generator in a factory sound shield, the owner had over cranked the engine filling the exhaust with salt water that back flowed into the cylinder, the engine is a Kubota single cylinder diesel with duel internal counter rotating gear driven balance shafts, with all shafts having very large roller and ball bearings. I rebuilt the engine, Replacing the cylinder sleeve,piston,rings,rod bearings and bushings as well as a complete new cylinder head inc. new glow plug (old plug was open!). Total for parts was just over 1,000. expensive parts, but the sound shield alone is a 800 dollar option when buying the generator new, cost new will be about 6k. The shape and design worked well for my install size and position and now I can run my AC underway and on the hook which I typically prefer over tying to a dock! The generator is mounted on 4 anti vibration mounts inside sound enclosure, in addition to those mounts I mounted the enclosure on 4 new high end anti vibration mounts. I mounted the generator untested on the Starboard side of engine room just forward of the transom, a water lift muffler exits exhaust out the starboard side of the boat to reduce station wagon exhaust effect.

[hardchines]

More gen pics, read note on pic. for info.

[hardchines]

To continue, with sound barrier installed and 103 gallon fuel tank installed with a new sending unit for a new gauge and all new fittings it was time to add the generator platform seen in previous post, then the generator was mounted. I had lots of equipment I had put together for my project, I installed a Port side platform opposite the starboard generator platform, this platform held a 34 gallon holding tank for sewage, foreword of the Port holding tank and next to the fuel tank I installed a 15 gallon fresh water tank bringing water capacity to 55 gallons. I added 100 lbs of permanent ballast under the sewage tank platform, to help counter the 200 pound generator on the other side of the engine room, the 15 gallon water tank will add another 120 pounds to port side and will remain full till 40 gallon bow tank is emptied. A six gallon hot water tank was added forward of the generator next to the fuel tank, I used a Raritan 1700 model with a heat exchanger.