Lithium-ion batteries are a hot topic in the sailing community these days, and many sailors wonder if they’re a practical option. They actually come in a variety of chemistries, each with its own set of advantages and potential pitfalls; lithium-iron-­phosphate, or LFP, options are getting the most traction in the cruising-under-sail and powerboat ranks. While there are other lithium-ion batteries that offer greater efficiency and energy density, the LFP variety represents the greatest balance of safety and performance.

When compared with AGM (absorbent glass mat) lead-acid batteries, the primary advantages of lithium-ion are efficiency-based, especially the ability to be charged very rapidly, several times faster than AGM chemistry. They can also be deeply discharged, down to 10 or 20 percent state of charge (compared with AGM’s 50 percent state of charge), without shortening their life span. And they can be left in a partial state of charge for an extended period of time without suffering the ill effects of sulfation. In fact, it’s best to avoid leaving them fully charged, a condition most LFP battery management systems (BMS) intentionally avoid. In addition to being able to endure deeper discharges, LFP batteries can be cycled many more times than lead-­acid batteries. Finally, lithium-ion batteries are significantly lighter than their lead-acid brethren.

As a result of the increased energy density, converting from lead-acid to lithium-ion yields either greater amp-hour capacity in the same footprint with less weight, or the same energy capacity for a smaller footprint and even less weight.

Thus far, then, lithium-ion seems like a win-win option, so why wouldn’t any boat owner or builder make the switch to this seemingly miraculous electrical technology? As is often the case, there is a price to pay for improved performance, and lithium-ion is no exception, both literally and figuratively.

Perhaps the most noteworthy difference between lithium-ion and lead-acid technology is cost; lithium-ion batteries, depending on the size and type, cost several times more than lead-acid. However, with the ­extended cycle/life span and faster charge times (this assumes more charge current can be brought to bear)—which equates to shorter engine or generator run time—the difference in cost over the life of the battery bank is diminished, potentially even to the point of parity.

Then, of course, there’s the safety factor. Who hasn’t seen the videos of exploding ­cellphones or smoldering electric cars? While it’s true that these examples involved lithium-ion batteries, none employed the LFP chemistry. Once again, LFP is among the safest of the lithium-ion chemistries; when comparing the Material Safety Data Sheets for LFP and AGM batteries, the distinction is clear, and it might come as a surprise to many that the warnings associated with the latter are direr.

The final distinction involves complexity. While advanced, high-output lead-acid charging systems can be complex, lithium-ion batteries rise to a higher level of complexity, for one primary reason: safety. While overcharging a lead-acid battery can, in rare cases, lead to overheating and fire, overcharging a lithium-ion battery can also have the same effect (there are many online videos that illustrate this issue well).

Lithium-ion batteries are also susceptible to issues when charged at especially high or low temperatures, which could make tropical or winter use problematic. It is, therefore, essential that lithium-ion batteries be “managed” by the aforementioned BMS. These management systems, which can be either ­external or integral, ensure that a lithium-ion battery cannot be overcharged or overdischarged (the latter can also damage the battery, or lead to ­overheating). Most BMS are designed to be ­fail-safe, meaning that they will prevent harm to the ­batteries, as well as avoid ­battery ­overheating and fire.

Perhaps the most important caveat of all concerning lithium-ion batteries is the value of opting for an integrated system, designed specifically for marine applications, and supplied by a reputable manufacturer. The internet is rife with examples of inexpensive, “homebrew” lithium-ion systems, used both ashore and afloat. While the users of these systems are free to do whatever they wish, the risk associated with these is substantially greater than vetted, properly engineered, BMS-controlled systems.

Finally, the American Boat and Yacht Council recently released a technical information report called “TE-13, Lithium-Ion Batteries,” which is a guide for manufacturers and installers of lithium-ion battery systems. If you are considering installing such a system, or purchasing a vessel that has one, make certain it—and the installation—complies with this guideline.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and ­buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting.

The post Choosing Lithium-Ion Batteries for Sailboats appeared first on Cruising World.

Sailors are forever watching out for promising new gear while also keeping a weather eye on risky leaps from technology that’s long been settled. During Cruising World’s 2021 Boat of the Year roadshow this past fall, we judges saw a couple of new proprietary systems that test that tension and promise new ways of using our boats, one of which comes from Seldén.

We were sailing the new Island Packet 439 off St. Petersburg, Florida, when we first set eyes and hands on its Synchronized Main Furling system. (For a review of the IP 439, see page 52.) This system is actually two separate products—each a stand-alone device worthy of its own attention—joined by one electronic brain. The first is an in-mast furling motor that Seldén’s designers created for either new mast installations or for retrofits of existing Seldén manual-furling mainsails. Check out the video “How to Upgrade a Furling Mast to Electric Drive” at the Seldén website (seldenmast.com) to see a retrofit in progress and determine whether your rig qualifies.

The other new product from Seldén is arguably more exciting and certainly more applicable to a wider population of boats. The E40i electric winch is a powered winch that incorporates the electric motor inside the winch drum. That means no motor belowdecks, no drive shaft passing through the deck, and none of the usual noise, space, and joinerwork problems those motors introduce in the installation.

Both the in-mast furling motor and the E40i winch are built around brushless electric motors that run at 42 volts. Why 42 volts? The “power formula” tells us that power (watts) equals electrical potential (volts) times electrical current (amps). For a given wattage, as volts go up, amps go down proportionally. The size of electric motors and the wiring to supply them are determined by their operating amperage. Stepping up the voltage by a factor of 3.5 in a 12-volt system means that the amperage goes down by the same factor—all of which allows for a powerful motor that’s small enough to fit inside the winch drum, and wire conductors of just 10-gauge AWG to power it.

And why didn’t Seldén go with a voltage that’s higher still? The American Boat and Yacht Council has long deemed direct-current voltage up to 50 volts “safe,” as in nonlethal (ABYC recently revised that safe limit to 60 volts DC). Seldén designed its system at 42 volts to stay well inside that safe threshold, even in the peaks.

Read More: Hands-On Sailor

The electronic brains behind both the furling motor and the winch are two separate components: a power-supply unit and a motor-control unit. Each about the size of a car stereo, these are installed belowdecks, typically under a berth or settee. The PSU takes in voltage from your boat’s house battery bank at either 12 or 24 volts, then converts it to 42 volts. The small 10-gauge wire runs from this PSU through the deck to the winch or furler; you’ll need larger-gauge wire from your house battery to the PSU. The MCU uses a proprietary SEL-Bus protocol that communicates through standard NMEA 2000 cable to deliver commands among switches, other Seldén components, and the winch or furler motor. A single PSU can supply multiple winches or furlers on a boat, but each individual winch or furler gets its own MCU. A boat that has a Furlex electric headsail furler, an in-mast furling motor and an E40i winch would have three MCUs but just one PSU.

The Seldén Synchronized Main Furling system, or SMF, comes into play on any boat with both the in-mast furling motor and the E40i winch installed. With the mainsail’s outhaul loaded on the E40i winch, the helmsperson simply pushes the furler’s “mainsail out” button. Four brief beeps sound in the winch to alert any inattentive crew that the winch is about to go to work. Then the E40i and the in-mast furler work together until the mainsail is drawn all the way out. Initially, the furler automatically tensions the mainsail on the furling drum, then starts rolling it out. When the main is out, the furler stops. If the MCU senses a load greater than 400 pounds, it stops both the winch and the furler automatically—long before damaging any sails or equipment. To roll the mainsail in—or reef it—you simply take the outhaul out of the teeth of the E40i winch and push the furler’s “mainsail in” button.

We appreciated the seamanlike redundancy that was built into this system. Seldén provides simple mechanical solutions for any failure in the electrical components. The in-mast furling motor comes with a clutch that can be disengaged easily; a winch handle in the furler’s line driver provides ample mechanical advantage to roll in the mainsail. Same goes for the Furlex headsail furler. The E40i does not accept a winch handle for manual operation. In the event of an electrical failure of that winch, Seldén recommends turning the line once around the E40i and running the tail to a nearby manual winch.

My partner and I aim to add a single E40i winch to the cabin top of our Passport 40 as part of our ongoing refit. We’d always wanted one powered winch in the cockpit but never wanted to add a noisy motor into the sleeping cabin below, one that would interrupt the cabin’s only bit of standing headroom.

Problem solved.

Veteran sailing writer Tim Murphy once again was an invaluable member of the judging panel for the 2021 Boat of the Year contest.

The post Seldén’s New E40i Electric Winch appeared first on Cruising World.

It’s a scenario I encounter with alarming regularity: electrical cabling routed in ways it was never meant to be. I’ve seen examples through sharp cutouts in bulkheads, over engine bell housings, around motor-mount brackets, through bilge water…the examples are nearly endless.

Achieving reliability in a marine electrical system is no small feat. The environment is obviously harsh, wet, salty, vibration-prone and, at times, bone-jarring. Add to that temperature extremes caused by the seasons and engine heat, and you have the makings of a perfect storm of electrical unreliability. However, following just a few good wiring practices can eliminate the vast majority of electrical failures and calamities.

Start by getting into the casual habit of paying attention to wiring every time you encounter it: in cabinets, the engine compartment, sail lockers, bilges and, of course, behind and adjacent to the electrical panel itself. You must be mindful of AC power sources such as shore power, gensets and inverters; if any of these are energized or running, unless you know for sure otherwise, then assume every exposed terminal is live AC 120-volt power. Using a tool such as a noncontact AC-voltage detector (always test it first on a known, live AC source before relying on it to alert you to an unknown AC source) will enable you to determine if wiring is energized.

However, even then you must use caution because an inverter that is in sleep mode and producing no power can generate electrocution potential if you touch an energized terminal.

The only way to be sure an inverter cannot harm you is to disconnect it from its DC power source, either with a disconnect switch (all inverter DC positive cables should be switched for this reason, and to deenergize in the event of a fire) or by removing its fuse. While 12- and 24-volt DC power won’t electrocute you, you can cause a short circuit, which could lead to a fire. Remove all metallic jewelry and watches before working around any electrical connections, even if you believe them to be dead.

Read more from Steve D’Antonio: Monthly Maintenance

Look for wires that lack support; American Boat and Yacht Council standards call for all wires to be supported at least every 18 inches. Look for wires that enter metallic chassis or junction boxes that lack strain relief and chafe protection, often known as cord grips. If you can pull on a wire that enters the chassis of a battery charger or inverter, for example, and impart strain on the connection within, that’s a violation of the standard, and an invitation to a failure.

Check ring terminals wherever you encounter them, and make sure the screw that supports them is tight; if you can twist the terminal under the screw head, it’s too loose. Ring terminals should be installed in size order: largest first, then successively smaller, and no more than four per screw or stud. Of course, if you see any green crustiness, then that is clearly a problem as well.

With one exception, every energized wire (i.e., DC positive or AC “hot”) must be protected by a fuse or circuit breakers. These overcurrent-protection devices have one primary mission: to protect the wire in the event of a short. Without them, a short circuit would cause the wire to rapidly overheat, and if it’s adjacent to something flammable—like almost everything we use to build boats, including fiberglass, timber and fabric—it could lead to a fire.

The one exception to the overcurrent-protection rule is the positive cable that supplies the engine starter. In an effort to avoid nuisance-tripping in the event of a weak battery (low battery voltage induces high current flow), ABYC standards exempt this cable from overcurrent-protection guidelines.

However, this means that the threshold for protection of this cable is necessarily higher, thus every inch of it should be carefully routed to prevent chafe or damage. And above all else, no part of this cable can be allowed to make contact with any part of the engine, other than the starter’s positive post. For an extra measure of protection, consider adding a split loom sheath to this cable for its entire length, which will afford it increased protection.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting (stevedmarineconsulting.com).

The post The Dos and Don’ts of Boat Wiring appeared first on Cruising World.

It has been our pattern ever since we began cruising on Ganymede, a home-finished Cape George 31 cutter, to take the already simple systems we began with and simplify them further. And so, the motorcycle battery first used to start the outboard got chucked in favor of pulling the cord; the fuel now lives in a 5-gallon Mexican fabric-softener jug with a hole cut in it for a hose (it actually leaks and smells less than the OEM tank); the hand pump for lamp oil is in a junk heap in a Colombian boatyard. The list goes on: Suffice it to say that nearly everything is simpler and has fewer moving parts than when we began. Only one boat ­system, in fact, has become more complicated, and that was by necessity.

For the first several years of our cruise, when we were exploring Central and South America, in some of the places we explored, our sanitation strategy—the tried-and-true rubber bucket—was positively space-age. And in locales with more-modern conveniences, the strict injunction to use designated pump-out stations was made ironic by the complete absence of such facilities. I look forward to the day when every harbor has a pump-out facility, and coastal cities no longer dump sewage straight into the water. But these are the times we live in, and that was the situation in the spots where we cruised.

Returning to the United States, however, presented a new challenge. Here there are designated pump-out facilities, and the dutiful sailor will want to avail himself of them, for the good of everyone. And so, seeing we were going to cruise in home waters for some time, I installed a holding tank and a porcelain toilet. There being nowhere else to put it, the holding tank went in the tiny head cubicle, in the place where we used to hang foul-weather gear and stash the laundry basket. The biggest advantage of having it there is that there’s a very short run of hose from the head to the tank—the plumbing doesn’t pass under people’s bunks or through any bulkheads and is 100 percent accessible. Another advantage is that the 20-gallon tank takes up so much room that on really rough nights, there’s no chance of falling off the toilet because you’re wedged in pretty tight. It might not be comfortable, but who goes to sea for that anyway?

I have always wanted a Wilcox-Crittenden “Skipper” head, the one with a cast-bronze body and oh-so-elegant pump handle. Sadly, they’re no longer made, and if they were, there simply wouldn’t have been room on our boat. My No. 2 choice was the Lavac, largely because it seems the simplest, most trouble-free marine head out there. Also, being able to mount the pump separately from the toilet was necessary due to the space restrictions I’ve already mentioned. I mounted the pump on the bulkhead above, which was perfect for the children, who could stand on the closed lid of the head and pull on the handle to their hearts’ content.

Now, however much space a 20-gallon holding tank uses up, it’s not really all that big when five people are contributing, and we had to find a pump-out station pretty frequently. Also, since the system was closed—there were as yet no through-hulls at all in Ganymede—the only way we could self-empty the holding tank was to adapt a spare hand pump to the deck fitting, drop a hose over the side, and pump overboard that way. Definitely not for the faint of heart, and too ­acrobatic to do out at sea in any kind of weather. Clearly more plumbing was needed.

I had avoided putting any through-hulls at all in Ganymede when I built her, for the simple reason that I dislike and distrust them. However well-made and well-installed, there’s no denying that they make for a weak link ­below the waterline, and hose connections with clamps are a common point of failure and raise the potential for sinking. But there was no denying that some sort of outlet would be needed if we wanted to cruise offshore or in foreign lands again, and a water inlet would be nice as well: So far we had been pouring water into the bowl in order to flush.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to use regular bronze through-hulls and seacocks. I mean, a sailor has to sleep at night! Instead, I ordered some lengths of thick-walled fiberglass pipe from ­McMaster-Carr. Then with the boat on the hard, I cut a hole for the larger-diameter pipe on one side of the bilge sump, and a smaller hole on the other side. Now the inlet and outlet sides would be separated by the entire full keel of the boat; there was no chance of sucking back in something that had just been pumped out.

Since fiberglass tube isn’t flexible, I took some careful measurements with T-bevels to ensure that the pipe joints would go where I wanted them, then cut the pipes and glued the joints back together with thickened epoxy glue. I was careful to make the outlet pipe have the straightest run, without unnecessary twists and turns. The inlet pipe crossed over from the opposite side of the bilge before turning up to parallel the other one.

It took some careful dry-fitting and fine-tuning before I was comfortable with the setup, but once it all looked good, I put the large pipe in place and held it there with some fiberglass pipe straps I’d made using the pipe itself as a mold. And just for good measure, I squeezed some glue onto the straps so they’d never come off the pipe. Then, making sure the pipe and the hole in Ganymede were thickly coated in thickened epoxy as well, I tabbed the pipe firmly to the inside of the hull with some scraps of biaxial carbon fiber.

It didn’t take long, and before the first phase was cured, I fit and tabbed the inlet pipe in a similar fashion. Because it spans a large distance inside the bilge sump, I glued a support strut halfway along, just in case someone were to drop something really heavy down there, though that would require some serious acrobatics.

On the outside, all I had to do once the glue dried was sand the protruding pipes flush with the hull and make sure I got antifouling up inside as far as the brush could reach.

Ganymede’s bilge sump, though easily accessible for cleaning and inspection, has never been pretty. It just wasn’t on my list of things to beautify during the construction. But now that there had been so much grinding in there anyway, it seemed a shame not to tidy it up a little. And so I sanded—with 80-grit by hand wherever a machine couldn’t reach—then primed and applied gray Bilgekote. It still isn’t pretty, I’ll admit, but it’s all a uniform color, and it’s got less dirt-trapping hollows. It’ll have to do.

At the upper end of the pipes I had installed Marelon ball valves—something I might not have been comfortable with if they were beneath the waterline. But as it is, they’re a couple of feet above it, which means I can take them off, with the boat in the water if necessary, to service or change them. I could probably have done without them entirely, but I wanted an easy means of sealing the pipes in case the siphon breaks failed. You never can be too careful with plumbing.

As with everything on a small boat, it took some careful arranging to get all the hoses, valves, siphon breaks and other fittings to fit peaceably together. Since Ganymede hadn’t been designed with all that plumbing in mind, there was nowhere to hide it out of sight—it’s all just out in the open, looking more as though it grew there, vine-like, than was placed on purpose. The advantage of that, though, is that the Y-valve can be operated and the filter changed without grubbing about in a dark cupboard, and all maintenance is easily done without the usual contortions.

Well, there it is: The one boat system on Ganymede that has become more complex rather than simpler. And while I grudge the expense and the space that it all takes up, I must admit that a porcelain toilet is far more classy and convenient than the old rubber bucket. So no, I don’t regret it—I just hope the rest of the world catches up and installs pump-out stations soon.

Boatbuilder and writer Ben Zartman is a frequent contributor to CW

The post Upgrading a Sailboat Head appeared first on Cruising World.

This year we sailed from the Mediterranean to the Canary Islands, down the West African coast to Cabo Verde, then right across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean—over 4,000 nautical miles, and while underway, not once did we run our engine or generator for power or propulsion. For a whole month of sailing, we were driven entirely by the wind, sun and sea.

Compliments of Mother Nature, our B&G autopilot, sailing instruments, chart plotter, VHF, AIS, satellite phone, fridge/freezer compressor, lights and entertainment all ran on clean, natural, renewable energy. We even operated our Spectra Ventura 12-volt watermaker every three to five days when the sun was high, and had enough juice to run our Mastervolt inverter to charge our electric toothbrushes. In fact, we regularly had more incoming power than we needed and frequently restrained the wind generator to manage our charge during the day.

We didn’t always have such a green wake or an abundance of amps. When my wife, Catherine, and I set off from New York in 2007, Dream Time, our 38-foot Cabo Rico, sported just an Ampair wind generator and one feeble flexible solar panel sagging over the Bimini. On a really good day, both would generate about 5 to 6 amps—just enough to keep the beer cold. We made it as far as Florida before realizing an upgrade to our renewable-­energy source was necessary. We replaced the single flexible solar panel with two 85-watt panels, the fore/aft angle of which can be adjusted to face the sun. A few years later, in New Zealand, we replaced our Ampair wind generator with a D400, and a few more sea miles after that, in the Northern Territory of Australia, we bought a secondhand hydrogenerator from a local sailor, rebuilt the unit and added it to our arsenal of passagemaking power.

Since our original upgrades, we’ve gone weeks at anchor in the tropics without having to burn fuel to charge our two 225-amp-hour gel house batteries. The solar panels provide 10 to 12 amps when the sun is high, while our D400 wind generator adds another 10 to 15 amps when the trades are steady. Combined, it’s more than enough to give us complete off-the-grid freedom to power our floating home, make water and run the inverter for a few hours every evening. But passagemaking was always a charging challenge because sail shadows would, at some point in the day, cover our solar panels, and as we spend most of our time going with the breeze rather than against it, the apparent wind speed for our D400 would drop by 30 percent.

Cruising catamarans typically have plenty of surface area and can comfortably carry 500 watts of solar panels, and even twin wind generators, one for each hull, without looking cluttered. But for a modest-size monohull where space is at a premium, unless you don’t mind your boat looking like an overloaded pack mule or having an engine thumping away in the hull a few hours a day just to boost your volts, finding balance between power consumption and renewable energy can be a little more challenging.

Our voyage across the Atlantic wasn’t our fastest —under mostly sunny skies, we averaged a respectable 6 knots, with 15 to 20 knots of wind blowing steadily across our stern—but it was the first offshore passage during which we’d been able to tow our Aquair hydrogenerator. The unit produced a little less than 1 amp for every knot of boatspeed, contributing up to 5 amps—faster speeds did not result in an increase of current and only had the unit’s prop whizzing and leaping from waves like a hooked mahi. Some cruisers attach anodes to the propeller shaft to increase its weight, but for Dream Time, this would rarely be necessary. The 100 feet of trailing line and propeller made no discernible difference to boatspeed, and like our wind generator, provided steady, reliable power 24 hours a day, allowing Dream Time to sail quietly through the night, with volts rarely falling below 12.6.

Since we left New York, we have sailed 48,000 nautical miles, and we have found a balance on Dream Time, one that we never imagined possible 13 years ago. Our independence and the security we feel that comes from our self-reliance are among the most valuable discoveries we have made on our long voyage around the world. There is an intimacy and awareness to the moment that comes when living on a small boat sailing far from the noise and distraction of a modern life. And there is a most satisfying freedom, a harmony that comes from crossing oceans, exploring the world under sail, powered entirely by the wind, sun and sea.

The post Sail Green Across the Atlantic appeared first on Cruising World.

It seems sailors these days just can’t get along without some source of alternating-current electricity on board, either from shore power, which requires staying at the dock all the time, or by running an AC generator or possibly an inverter, which draws power from the boat’s direct-current battery bank.

I love comparing today’s boats to what my wife and I used on board when we were cruising back in the 1980s. Our boat didn’t have any AC circuitry! We read at night using gimbaled oil lamps; we used a sun shower for hot water. Coffee was brewed using a French press heated on the propane-fueled stove-top, music came from a battery-powered AM/FM cassette player and we dried our hair in the breeze as we sailed. Oh, and our refrigeration system was powered by a strange thing known as block ice. My, have times changed!

Last month in Hands on Sailor, we discussed selecting a generator for your boat. Now, let’s take a look at a closely related device, the inverter/charger. We’ll consider models from Mastervolt, Magnum Energy, ProMariner, Victron and Xantrex, all well-known players in the marine marketplace, and compare their advantages and disadvantages, with an eye toward adding just a little bit more convenience to your sailing.

How Much Power?

Once you’ve decided that blow-drying your hair in the wind is not the approach you want for your cruising lifestyle, you need to carefully figure out how much power you need. Modern inverters are available with 5,000 watts or even more power potential, and many models can be connected in parallel, effectively doubling — and then some — their output in kilowatts.

Sailboats equipped with an AC generator will usually have one in the 4 to 10 kW size range, depending on the gear sailors intend to use regularly. When installing an inverter, you may have to decide to eliminate some of the items you would power either from shore or your AC generator. It all depends on how much battery power you have on board.

RELATED: Choosing a Generator for Your Sailboat

The pluses of inverter power drawn from the battery bank are silent operation and not having to smell diesel exhaust. But, there are trade-offs. The batteries needed to power an inverter are heavy and take up a lot of onboard real estate, especially if your boat has older-style lead-acid batteries. Think of battery power as the fuel for an inverter. The greater your electrical appetite, the more storage capacity you’ll need. In some installations I’ve seen, the lack of space for batteries has been the limiting factor on the electrical system.

Generally, inverter power is not used for items that run continuously, such as refrigeration and air conditioning, which are instead run either directly from the battery bank, in the case of refrigeration, or run from shore power or generators. That said, it can be done, but you need to understand that the amount of battery power you’ll need to make this happen will be considerable and might bring you to a point of diminishing returns. The capability will depend upon whether you already have upgraded to new technology, such as thin-plate pure-lead absorbent glass mat or perhaps even lithium technology.

Several important technical limitations play into the whole inverter-battery relationship. One is the fact that modern inverters are approximately 90 percent efficient, so there is a 10 percent loss of power right from the start. Second, battery amp-hour capacity will be a limiting factor. The term I use to describe this is “current density.” Simply, this means how much battery capacity you can squeeze into the space available aboard your boat. This is an area where significant improvement has occurred over the past decade. Historically, we have used a 50 percent level of discharge as a maximum for flooded-cell lead-acid batteries. So, a battery with a 100-amp-hour rating would only have 50 amp-hours available if you wanted to maximize its cycle life.

Many of the new AGM battery vendors are now claiming an 80 percent level of discharge as acceptable and not damaging to cycle life expectancy. So, that is a 30 percent improvement in available amp-hour capacity, if you are willing to spend the money for the initial purchase of these new batteries. Moreover, you can theoretically get more available power into the space you have available compared to using less expensive flooded-cell batteries. This could be the difference between being able to run an air conditioner all night on inverter power and enduring a hot, sweaty night on board.

The take-away: You are going to have to perform an honest evaluation of how much power you intend to use in a 24-hour period. Next, you must determine whether you will have battery-recharging capabilities. Your options include shore power, an onboard AC generator supplying power to a permanently installed battery charger and running your engine-driven alternator long enough to get your batteries back up to charge.

This brings up another point regarding modern batteries: They can be recharged more quickly than older flooded-cell batteries. Battery acceptance rate is the term here. Flooded-cell batteries have a recharge acceptance rate of around 25 to 30 percent of their amp-hour rating as a maximum. This means that no matter how many amps you try to shove back into them, they will only accept power at this fixed rate. AGM-technology batteries have a slightly higher acceptance rate, in the 30 to 40 percent range, saving engine run time if your recharge method is either with an AC generator or propulsion-engine alternator.

With these factors in mind, you can see that selection of an inverter and its rating is going to require a bit of calculation to determine your expected loads, the amount of time you expect to use them and what your real-world battery capacity is going to be.

Also, if you are going to be powering air conditioning or refrigeration equipment using a compressor motor, you need to take into account motor start-up current. All inverters have a peak output rating in their specifications. Just make sure your peak amperage demands for motor start-ups don’t exceed your inverter’s peak output rating. Most, but not all, have a peak rating that is twice the nominal rating. (One of the Magnum 3,000-watt units we looked at has a maximum rating of only 3,900 watts, an exception to the rule.)

What’s Your Sine?

Ten years ago, the matter of whether you needed a true sine wave or modified sine wave inverter was a decision with a significant price differential. You were going to pay big-time for the true or “pure” sine wave inverter compared to a modified square-wave model. Today, that price differential has shrunk considerably, and depending on whose inverter you choose and its rated output, you will only be looking at a $200 to $300 price increase.

The essential difference between the two types is the AC waveform that gets created as part of the ­conversion from battery-supplied direct current to alternating current. The pure sine wave AC is nearly indistinguishable from utility-delivered power, and it is able to run the most sensitive of equipment. The modified square-wave option introduces what is described in the world of electronics as “noise” into your electrical system. This conducted electronic noise can affect the performance of some onboard appliances that are becoming quite popular on modern cruising boats. Audio ­amplifiers might turn the electrical noise into an audible hum, for instance, and noise can cause television screens to flicker. As more and more electrical devices acquire digital controls as a part of their designs, the potential for issues with modified square-wave inverters becomes more real.

On the other hand, devices such as hair dryers, toaster ovens and most coffee makers are not as finicky about their power source, as long as voltage and frequency requirements are met. In today’s global marketplace, many appliances are rated for 120 and 240 volts, and dual frequency at 60 Hertz or 50 Hertz.

If in doubt about a particular appliance, check the label on the device to provide you with vital information on wattage, amps, frequency and volts needed. All you need to do to figure out how many amp-hours of capacity you are going to need is consider how long you intend to use the equipment. Multiply that value by 1.1 to account for the efficiency loss in the inverter, and you should be close to your inverter-rating needs in watts.

Compelling Features

The newest inverters have incorporated some impressive features that you may use, depending on how far you want to go with integrating the inverter into your onboard electrical system. For example, inverter/chargers are now commonplace, and I would certainly recommend one, especially if you are upgrading to modern batteries and your existing battery charger is more than five or six years old. Of the popular brands in our roundup, we focused on the ProMariner inverter-only devices, but when you look at our comparison chart, “Inverters by the Numbers,” page 84 of our December 2018 issue, you can see that the price differential between its inverter and all the other brands with integrated chargers is such that purchasing a ProMariner charger that will match nicely with these latest-version inverters is a very doable option. ProMariner does offer two slightly older-technology combination units at its online outlet store; these offer both inverter and battery charger in one case. The pure sine wave ProMariner inverter has a 2,000-watt continuous and 5,600-watt peak output rating. The modified sine wave model has a 2,500-watt continuous rating and a 7,000-watt peak rating. They are available with retail prices of $1,495 and $1,149, respectively. With those two units, the charger technology integrated into the units is quite state-of-the-art. The inverter side of the device does not offer the same capability as the inverter-only units in our comparison. So, it really depends upon your specific needs and product availability.

The newest chargers from the manufactures listed in “Inverters by the Numbers” come with three- or four-phase charge capability — step one in ensuring long battery life — and are programmable to more effectively match a specific battery technology. If you are going to invest in the latest batteries, you will want to maximize your battery cycle life, and these newest inverters/chargers have that capability. In my view, this is the compelling reason to pay a bit more and get this more sophisticated charger capability. It’ll maximize your return on investment when it comes to the battery bank.

Another relatively new inverter feature is the ability to automatically switch on and supplement generator or shore-power output when the loads on the boat reach their peak. This “cogeneration” capability, popular in Europe for some time, has only been allowed on U.S. boats under American Boat and Yacht Council Standard A-32 since 2012. Among the inverters mentioned in this story, the Magnum units, both Mastervolt devices and the larger Xantrex inverter offer this capability.

Some inverters will automatically switch to shore power when it is sensed, preventing unnecessary battery drainage. In some cases, this will also work in reverse: When shore power is lost for whatever reason, the inverter will sense this and turn on automatically. All the inverters and inverter/chargers we’ll mention here have programmable low-voltage shutdown when battery state of charge reaches critical levels. This will also help prevent damage to your expensive batteries.

To sum up, today’s inverter/chargers offer a list of features that can make them and the batteries that fuel them work more efficiently than ever. There is considerable initial cost, however, involved in designing a system that can conceivably power up the average 35- to 45-foot cruising sailboat. This is especially true if you want to have silent AC power available away from the dock and more of the conveniences from home available to you while on the hook.

That said, I am more and more convinced that it is possible, with ample storage space for batteries, to design a system using alternative ­battery-charging means, such as solar, wind and hydro power. This means you can have the luxury of home without the need to run AC generators or main-­propulsion engines just to replenish your batteries — and I love the concept of minimizing the need for fossil fuels to every extent possible. Long term, I believe that capability far ­outweighs the initial ­investment required.

Ed Sherman is a frequent CW contributor, Boat of the Year judge and is vice president of education for the American Boat and Yacht Council.

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Bonding systems connect underwater metals, including through-hull fittings, struts and rudder stocks. The system has several goals, the primary one being corrosion protection for these metals via an anode, or “zinc,” to which the system is also connected. In the world of corrosion, the anode is, when measured on the galvanic scale, less noble, or more corrosion-prone, than other metals, which allows it to sacrifice itself to protect bronze and ­stainless-steel alloys. As long as the two maintain a very good low-resistance electrical connection, the anode can do its job.

How low is low? The maximum allowable resistance between any bonded underwater metal and the system’s anode is a scant 1 ohm. If you aren’t familiar with electrical resistance, think of it as one page out of a phone book (i.e., very low). By the same token, the voltage level involved in galvanic corrosion prevention is equally low; it’s measured in millivolts, or thousandths of a volt. For this reason, that resistance must also be kept to an absolute minimum.

Exposure to water begets corrosion, and corrosion begets high resistance. Generally, where marine electrical systems are concerned, every effort should be made to keep connections and even wiring well above bilge water. Bonding systems, however, present a special challenge: They are connected to below-the-waterline fittings that are invariably adjacent to or even submerged in bilge water. It is, at best, a very challenging electrical environment.

While all onboard connections benefit from the use of corrosion-resistant materials, this is especially true for bonding systems. The wires used in this system must be tinned, and type II or III (very flexible) and at least size number 8 (or number 6 if used as part of a lightning protection system). While heat-shrink terminals are not a prerequisite, they are well-suited for this application.

Alternatively, bonding-system conductors may be a copper strip, provided they are a minimum of 1⁄32 inch thick and ½ inch wide. Connections must be made using through-bolts and never tapping screws. Provided the copper strip is thick enough for four threads of engagement, it may be tapped to accept machine screws. Per American Boat and Yacht Council standards, copper braid or tubing may not be used for this purpose.

If employed, the copper strip may consist of one or two “branches” that run down either side of the hull interior, below the sole and above normal bilge-water levels, from which wires or “drops” are run, connecting the through-hulls and other metals. Alternatively, tinned copper bus bars may be located in several locations; through-hulls and other underwater metals would then be connected to these, and the bus bars connected to each other. Copper strips or bus bars are then connected to a zinc anode(s).

Connections using ring terminals and screws benefit from the use of a conductive paste, such as Thomas & Betts Kopr-Shield. Once again, tapping screws should never be relied on to complete any electrical connection, including bonding wires. Once the connection is complete, it should be sprayed with a corrosion inhibitor, one that will not easily be washed off if repeatedly doused with seawater. The product I use for this application is CRC Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor; it dries to a waxlike consistency and is especially resilient.

For existing systems, thoroughly inspect all connections, making certain they are clean, tight and free of corrosion. For those that aren’t, if the materials are otherwise sound, they can be ­disassembled and cleaned using a 3M Scotch-Brite abrasive pad sprayed with a commonly available electrical cleaner, and then reassembled using the previously described process and products. If your vessel is hauled during this operation, you can use a multimeter to confirm that no more than 1 ohm exists between any bonded underwater metal and the zinc anode(s). Achieving this goal will provide your underwater metals with the greatest possible corrosion protection.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting stevedmarineconsulting.com. This article first appeared in the January/February 2018 issue of Cruising World with the title “Ties That Bond.”

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In a sailing career spanning 30 years and the ownership of four lovely sailboats, we’ve always been ardent proponents of KISS — the “keep it simple, stupid” credo. Not only did we talk the talk, but we zealously walked the walk. For example, when, in 1996, we built our third sailboat — a semi-custom Alden 45 sloop — we specified one manual head and no generator, electric winches or freezer.

KISS is a design philosophy coined in the 1960s by the U.S. Navy that exhorts the virtues of keeping ship systems as simple as possible and shunning unnecessary complexity. While originally intended as an engineering principle for large naval warships, the KISS mindset was, nevertheless, widely and enthusiastically embraced by recreational sailors worldwide. Its widespread diffusion can be partly credited to its almost universal endorsement by the small but growing cadre of adventurous globe-trotting sailors like Lin and Larry Pardey and others who were already crisscrossing the world’s oceans.

These intrepid sailors were often hundreds of miles from land and largely on their own when needing to make repairs at sea. For them, every “essential” piece of equipment needed to be designed to provide simple, straightforward and carefree voyaging. In their widely followed chronicles — in magazines such as Cruising World — they enthusiastically drummed the virtues of keeping it simple, which further promoted the KISS gospel. We, like many fellow sailors, embraced it fully cognizant of the inherent trade-off: A simple boat invariably means a less comfortable boat.

That was the paradigm of the 1980s and 1990s. The question now: Is it time for an update?

A Paradigm Shift?

When choosing a new boat and its essential equipment, most prospective boat owners continue to struggle with the fundamental conflict between the desire for low maintenance and low risk of failure and the urge to be comfortable. Even today, many of us remain stuck in the 1980s mindset, stubbornly striving for absolute simplicity. This, we believe, might no longer be warranted.

The optimal balance between absolute simplicity and overboard complexity is obviously a personal choice, reflecting one’s sailing style and objectives. But it is important to understand that optimal balance is not static. Rather, it is (or should be) a moving target that continuously resets as technology matures.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, the KISS option was understandably the safer and preferred one, even for coastal sailors, because back then, many boat systems (such as watermakers, freezers, etc.) were still immature technologies, relatively unreliable and a headache to maintain. Since then, though, we’ve witnessed huge advances in technology.

So, while the inclination for absolute simplicity may still remain perfectly reasonable for those contemplating a circumnavigation or, say, a sail to Antarctica (where one expects to sail in marginal conditions and for prolonged periods in relative isolation), it probably isn’t for most of us. Sailing to exotic faraway destinations may still be what many of us dream about, but it is not what we actually do. Unfortunately, an all-too-common mistake sailors make when equipping a boat is to set unrealistic goals.

We confess: We are repeat offenders. Like many fellow sailors, we selected and equipped our previous boats with the dream of crisscrossing oceans and sailing off to the ends of the earth. We never did. And after thinking hard about it, we really do not want to.

For our latest boat, we finally took the trouble to honestly articulate our true cruising goals. Surprise, surprise … a circumnavigation was not among them. What we really wanted to do was spend each sailing season extensively cruising one of several destinations on our bucket list (the Med, Scandinavia, the Caribbean). This did not mean we didn’t expect to occasionally venture offshore. We certainly will. But the occasional offshore passage (when/if needed) is only the means to deliver the boat to the season’s designated cruising destination; that’s where the bulk of our sailing will lie.

With scaled-down expectations for venturing offshore, our tolerable complexity threshold proportionately increased. A new willingness to increase our boat’s equipment list, we do understand, invariably increases the risk of breakdowns, but we reckoned that risk is significantly lower today than two decades ago. This is for two reasons: 1) maturing technology, and 2) given our intent to cruise in destinations like the Med and Caribbean, we could count on always being in reasonably close proximity to professional help if required.

Before delving into what (complex) systems we wanted to incorporate in our new boat, we first had to find one. That search started in the beginning of 2014 and lasted for approximately nine months. We were looking for a high-quality boat that was small enough for one couple to handle but large enough to accommodate two couples in great comfort. And it had to be pretty! After an extensive search, numerous boat tests and several transcontinental trips to boat shows, we found our perfect boat: the Contest 45CS.

With the boat selection done, our next task was to specify its essential equipment. Below, we discuss four items that are particularly revealing because they are all items we had previously considered when we commissioned our Alden 45 20 years earlier but, as KISS devotees, had always shunned. The first two examples were chosen to enhance liveaboard comfort, the second two to facilitate better boathandling.

Watermaker

Our cruising style has always been to alternate between stays in marinas and anchoring out. When anchoring for three- or four-day stretches, abundant fresh water for showering, washing and cooking is obviously a boon to life aboard. But we also figured that having the capacity to make our own water and arrive with full tanks when visiting marinas is a big plus. The reason: Access to fresh water of drinkable quality is not always assured. For example, in some Corsica marinas, water was turned off for many hours to conserve water. In Mallorca, there were no conservation measures, but because the water quality was suspect (too chlorinated or outright raunchy), it was suitable only for washing, not for drinking.

And so we decided to install a watermaker. In our search for one, we were particularly impressed by the performance and reliability of the latest generation of small DC units, and selected a Spectra Newport 400NP-MKII-400S.

We were not alone. Yachting World magazine’s 2014 survey of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) fleet centered on water — its production/collection, stowage and use. The overriding advice from the 193 respondents to the YW survey was to fit a watermaker. Almost 60 percent of the fleet did.

In retrospect, we can also report that our watermaker proved to be of great utility when venturing offshore on our 2,300-nautical-mile trip back from the Med to the Contest yard in Holland. On several occasions on this long trip, we were pummeled by Force 7 winds, monstrous waves and boarding seas. After conditions settled, we were left with a lot of salt on deck. When salt is everywhere, it gets on your hands and in your clothes and keeps everything damp and sticky. Having a deck washdown spigot and the capacity to replenish our water supply allowed us to hose the deck and avoid getting salt down below.

Generator

We designed our boat to be relatively efficient. For example, we use LED light bulbs throughout and added foot-­operated water pumps in addition to the electric ones. Still, given our desire for espresso and croissants in the morning, ice in our cocktails and the ability to whip up a quiche in the microwave, we expected our power needs to be high. They were. Without recharging, our house battery bank (a 24-volt system with 340 amp-hour capacity) regularly dropped to 60 percent of full charge at day’s end. That’s too low for the long-term health of the batteries. It meant our battery bank did indeed need to be recharged daily.

We looked at many of the new clean-power systems available, but ultimately decided that an AC genset was the best bet. Our choice: a Mastervolt Whisper 3.5.

As with the watermaker, our generator was a definite boon when sailing offshore. The power needs when at sea (for navigation, autopilot, watermaker, fridge, entertainment, fans, etc.) do add up. Our generator — smaller, quieter and more efficient than the main engine — was an asset we greatly appreciated.

Bow Thruster

For our many years of sailing our home waters of San Francisco Bay, we managed quite well without a bow thruster. But, we figured, cruising to foreign destinations, especially the Med during the peak summer months, is an entirely different ballgame. Indeed, it was! Often we needed to dock in tightly packed marinas, and on many occasions with an extremely difficult crosswind to boot. That’s a much more stressful exercise than easing into our private slip back in San Francisco. So, thank heavens for our bow thruster. It saved our egos!

In making the decision we looked at three things: our cruising grounds (the Med), the close-in maneuverability of our vessel (challenging because of boat size and a relatively high freeboard) and our crew size (two 60-year-olds). The answer: bow thruster, bow thruster, bow thruster. Our choice: a 10 hp 24-volt Sleipner.

Hydraulic Mainsail Furling

We remembered well how handling the 700-square-foot mainsail on our Alden 45 was by far the most formidable task aboard the boat, so we had been watching with great interest developments in mainsail furling. When first introduced, in-mast furling systems seemed quite unreliable and inefficient, but they’ve now been around long enough for manufacturers to work out virtually all their kinks.

While considering in-mast furling we certainly weren’t blind to its potential drawbacks. The two biggest are the loss of some performance (because of a hollow leech) and the risk of jamming. In recent years, sailmakers have learned how to mitigate the inefficient sail geometry by installing full-length vertical battens to add roach and give the sail a much more efficient aerodynamic profile.

The second major concern is a jammed sail. After talking to many people and reading plenty of articles, we concluded that the major cause of in-mast jams isn’t typically the sail or the mechanism but user error due to owners and charterers not being familiar with the furler’s nuances.

So, we bit the bullet and made the decision to install one. Our choice: Seldén’s stowaway hydraulic system.

We are now unabashed fans of the in-mast furling mainsail. Not only because it significantly lowers the burdens of sailhandling, but because it allows us to sail more — a lot more. Our Seldén in-mast furling system essentially flipped the dreaded 80-20 rule. Instead of motoring 80 percent of the time and sailing only 20 percent, we now sail most of the time.

We also find in-mast furling to be a great benefit when sailing offshore, especially when double-handing. It helps keep us safe and in the cockpit instead of wrestling with sails on deck. And on night watches, it’s easy for one of us to set and shorten sail with little chance of a problem.

Drawing the Line

After living with our choices and logging more than 4,000 miles in a wide range of conditions, our unfettered advice: It is OK, even wise, not to KISS in the Med.

But embracing, not cringing from, modern proven technology does not mean overindulging. There is no escaping the fact that higher complexity invariably increases the risk of breakdowns and, with it, the burden of maintenance.

There were two items we considered but decided we could do without: a washer/dryer and hydraulic furling for the jib. We chose not to install a washer/dryer because, for us, the negatives far outweighed the benefits. We planned on a simple wardrobe — basically swimsuits and T-shirts — so our daily load of laundry is easy to wash in a bucket or sink. On the rare occasion when we have a larger load, we can always use a marina laundromat. On the negative side, adding a washer/dryer would have robbed us of valuable storage space. But the decision is personal. A washer/dryer may be very beneficial for couples cruising with young children — indeed it may even be essential.

We chose not to install a hydraulic jib-furler system because the added benefit — assisted sailhandling of our 100 percent jib — was minimal. And we felt it would be prudent to have a separate and independent system for the jib in case we lost the hydraulics on the mainsail (though that probability was very low).

In Conclusion

We took delivery of our new Contest 45CS in April 2016 at the Contest yard in Medemblik, Netherlands. To test and debug our new boat, we took it for a three-week spin of the Ijsselmeer. In mid-May, the boat was shipped to Palma by Sevenstar Yacht Transport. We were back on board June 4, just in time to participate in the Contest Owners Rendezvous — a three-day affair of partying, socializing and racing. After the rendezvous, we were ready and eager to embark on a three-island odyssey circumnavigating Mallorca, Corsica and Sardinia.

In October, after four months of continuous cruising, the boat was sailed back to Medemblik for winter storage. That was a rough trip via Gibraltar, Portugal and the treacherous Bay of Biscay. All in all, we logged approximately 4,000 miles over a six-month period, the equivalent of what we historically sail in four years.

Our relatively complex boat resulted in a more comfortable, less arduous cruising experience, and we can happily report that the added systems created minimal maintenance problems (we had to change the watermaker’s filters and service the generator at 50 hours). It was a wonderful and successful experience that we attribute to two things: 1) a sensible selection of equipment that made life aboard a lot more comfortable and handling the boat a lot more manageable, and 2) the skillful shipwrights and engineers at Contest Yachts, who made it all work flawlessly.

MIT graduate Dr. Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid is a professor of information and services systems at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and the author of three books. When not teaching or writing, he and his wife, Nadia Mansour, are usually on the water, these days on their Contest 45CS, Mabrouka. This article first appeared in the January/February issue of Cruising World with the title “Executing a KISS-Off.”

The post Do We Still Need to Keep it Simple? appeared first on Cruising World.

The engine in my 1977 Down East 45 schooner, Britannia, is a tried and trusted — but noisy — Perkins 4-236, an 85-horsepower four-­cylinder diesel. There are also a Kubota three-cylinder diesel generator, five electric pumps and two bilge air blowers, all under the cabin sole.

I call the space the equipment bay. It runs 12 feet under the saloon floorboards and is 3 feet wide at the sole level, then tapers to just 15 inches at the bottom of the 41⁄2-foot-deep bilge. Seven removable floorboards give amazing access to all the equipment below, but the large space also acts as a massive boombox.

I previously had restored the teak-and-holly sole to its original beauty throughout the whole boat, but this made no difference to the noise level from the machinery below. When both diesels and extractor blowers were running, it was very noisy in the saloon, with a dull drumming you could almost feel. So I decided to do something about it.

There are a number of products that claim to significantly reduce noise from machinery, and some are specifically designed for boats. The trouble with most of these is they are also specifically aimed at your bank balance! For a boat my size, I found prices ranging from $350 for simple ¾-inch foam to $800 or more for double-thickness sound-­insulation sandwiches.

In simple terms, the object of sound insulation is to absorb noise at its source, and thereby minimize what filters into the interior of the boat. It would be practically impossible to eliminate this altogether, but I had effectively reduced the engine noise from a similar diesel on a previous boat simply by installing a false floor beneath the cabin sole. This is quite an easy and inexpensive do-it-yourself way to achieve a significant increase in peace and quiet.

Before I started work on Britannia, I wanted to take a reading of the sound levels to have a numerical comparison after the modifications were complete. I downloaded a neat iPhone app, a decibel meter by Decibel Meter Pro, for the vast sum of 99 cents, from iTunes. It was very easy to use, and I took readings at head height in the center of the saloon. With the main engine running at cruising speed, the meter registered 85 db. Then I started the generator as well, along with the twin extractor fans. The level went up to 93 db, which is roughly equivalent to a power lawn mower. When the freshwater pump was activated, it added another few decibels. I don’t know how accurate these readings actually are, but it doesn’t really matter because what I wanted was a comparison of before and after sound levels.

Fitting the False Floor

To get started, it was first necessary to make support battens for the false floor panels to lie in, under the existing plywood sole. I bought a 24-by-48-inch sheet of ½-inch plywood and cut it into 4-inch-wide strips with my table saw. I also made ¾-inch square battens out of hardwood. It was necessary to reposition some pieces of equipment fastened to the sides of the floor beams, such as wire hangers, water pipes and the big main engine filter. They all needed to be lower than the new floor. The 4-inch-wide plywood strips were then screwed to the underside of the 2-inch-wide floor beams, forming a 1-inch lip on either side.

I screwed the ¾-inch square battens to the sides of each aperture to support the ends of the false floors. I painted the beams and all the new timbers white.

I found some medium-­density fiberboard (MDF) at Home Depot that cost $25.95 for an 8-by-4-foot ½-inch sheet. I calculated that I’d need two to make the seven false floors. MDF is a heavy manufactured board similar to particleboard but smooth on both sides, with a density of 44 pounds per cubic foot. It’s used to make stereo-speaker boxes and other things for which sound control is required.

The sound-deadening properties of a ½-inch-thick sheet are actually better than the ¾-inch-thick marine plywood sole, which is roughly 35 pounds per cubic foot. (The MDF sheets were also available in ¾-inch thickness but would have been heavier and more expensive. In the end, I decided to compromise between weight, density and price, and go for the thinner stock.)

One problem to be aware of with this type of manufactured boards is their susceptibility to deterioration in damp conditions. If there is a chance they might become wet, it would be better to use marine plywood, though it’s much more expensive. A store employee cut the MDF sheets to the sizes I needed using a vertical circular saw. This saved me having to manhandle them out to the car, and enabled them to fit in my vehicle. I had them cut half an inch smaller than the spaces between the individual beams to prevent them jamming when I needed to lift them out to gain access to the bilge. A few boards still needed trimming to fit round obstructions that I could not reposition, but that was easy to do with my jigsaw.

The simplest, time-­honored method to handle boards covering apertures is to cut a hole in the board big enough to get a couple of fingers through to lift it in and out. But these MDF boards were too big and heavy for that, and it would also have allowed a little bit more noise and heat to escape. I therefore drilled 3⁄8-inch holes in each board and threaded some 3⁄8-inch-diameter rope through them, knotting it on the underside to form simple handles to easily lift the boards in and out.

The weight of the new fiberboards was 60 pounds, but it’s all positioned low in the hull, and it was a small price to pay for reducing the noise. When lying between the beams, their weight also keeps them firmly in place. The sole and subfloor now has a combined thickness of 1¼ inches, with a density of about 80 pounds per cubic foot.

Beat the Heat

To complete the project, there was one more thing I wanted to do. We could often feel heat permeating through the single-­thickness cabin sole when either of the diesel engines had been running a long time, especially on our own soles when walking barefoot. There must have been some sort of insulation glued to the underside of the floorboards at one time, but this had disintegrated. What was left was a dirty layer of dry adhesive that had to be scraped off by hand using Goof Off adhesive remover and a sharp 1½-inch chisel. I then painted the underside of the floorboards white.

To reduce the heat, I decided to add a layer of thermal insulation in the space between the subfloor and sole.

I bought two 4-by-8-foot sheets of Rmax Thermasheath R6 foam-board insulation from Lowe’s for $21.98 each. These are 2 inches thick, with aluminum foil on one face and an insulation rating of R6, which is the highest available for this thickness of foam. I cut them to the sizes I needed at the store using a sharp knife, which helped me fit them in my car. I then glued them to the underneath of each plywood floorboard using cheap construction adhesive by Liquid Nails; it was only $1.95 for a 10-ounce caulking-gun cartridge. This adhesive does not melt the foam.

The section of floor around the Perkins engine was particularly awkward because parts of the top of the engine were higher than the bottom of the floor beams. In fact, the valve cover was only an inch below the sole. This was, of course, the principal source of all the noise, so it needed special attention anyway.

I fitted battens all around the engine as I had in all the other openings, then shaped pieces of fiberboard to fit around the engine as well.

Next I cut pieces of foam and fiberboard to the size of the aperture and pressed the foam down over the engine with the fiberboard on top by actually standing on them. This indented the soft foam with an exact pattern of the high points of the engine, which I then cut out of the foam with a sharp blade. I glued what remained to the fiberboard, which then fit snugly under the removable piece of sole.

The remainder of the floor now had the ¾-inch plywood sole pieces, with 2 inches of foam glued underneath, then a ½-inch air gap, then the ½-inch MDF false floor. It was now certainly a compact floor.

After all this backbreaking work, I was naturally keen to take new readings on the decibel meter. With only the main engine running at the same revolutions per minute as before, my iPhone app meter read 65, a reduction of 20 db! Adding the generator raised this to 70 db, 23 db less than before and now about equivalent to an electric sewing machine. This reduction may not sound like much (forgive the pun), but decibel ratings are logarithmic, so the noise reduction is very noticeable. Now we can comfortably listen to the television or music at anchor, even with the generator running.

In addition to a considerable reduction in noise, there is now no perceptible heat coming through the floorboards, which helps to keep the living area cooler. Heat is carried outside by the engine-room extractor fans, and the noise from them is much reduced too.

Most projects I have undertaken on Britannia resulted in visible improvements, most notably when I renovated the teak-and-holly sole. The noise-and-heat-abatement project, on the other hand, showed no outward improvements, and the cabin looked exactly the same as before I started the job. It was only when the engines were running that the improvement was appreciated.

This method of sound insulation would be very worthwhile for any boat, offering excellent noise reduction for minimal financial outlay. I actually used some spare pieces of MDF to double the wall thickness in the spaces where my two air-conditioning units were installed, and this reduced the noise of the compressor and fan as well.

There are, of course, no labor charges factored into the cost of the job, which took me four days to complete, but messing about on boats is supposed to be fun.

– – –

Roger Hughes has spent six years restoring his Down East 45,8 Britannia. *For more on the restoration, visit his website (schooner-britannia.com).

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Fuel-supply and return hoses, the plumbing used to convey diesel fuel to an engine or generator and then return unused fuel back to the tank, are often designated as USCG Type A1. They are similar to the fuel-fill hose in that they too should be rated for two-and-a-half-minute exposure to flame without failing or leaking (see “Venting Out,” October 2017). Hoses manufactured within the last few years will likely carry a number “15” suffix, e.g., A1-15, which represents the permeation resistance, an EPA requirement for gasoline engine applications. The same hose can be used for either gasoline or diesel fuel. Type B fuel hoses carry no flame resistance rating and thus are not suitable for inboard use, particularly in engine compartments.

Supply and return hoses must be clearly and permanently labeled in capital letters; numerals must be at least 1⁄8-inch tall and include the manufacturer’s name, the date the hose was manufactured and the rating (A1 or A2) every 12 inches. If a hose is not marked, or if it doesn’t carry the appropriate rating, the risk of failure of one kind or another is a possibility (the result of interaction with fuel or additives, or in the event of a fire).

Supply and return hoses should be terminated using barbed pipe-to-hose adapters retained with all-stainless-steel and preferably nonperforated hose clamps, or sleeves and threaded insert compression fittings. (The “all-stainless” caveat includes the screw. Use a magnet to check before buying. Mild steel is highly magnetic, while stainless steel is nonmagnetic or only mildly magnetic.) Under no circumstances should a fuel-supply or return hose be placed over a smooth, nonbarbed, threaded or knurled pipe or tube fitting, including and especially pipe nipples. Doing so is an invitation to a leak.

If the vessel’s fuel plumbing utilizes metallic tubing, the transition from tubing to hose must rely on a flare fitting and a threaded pipe-to-hose adapter. Furthermore, where the transition from tubing to hose occurs, typically adjacent to or beneath the engine, the hose must be firmly secured to the vessel structure to prevent any movement of the tubing whatsoever. If the tubing is allowed to move as a result of engine vibration, it can work loose or harden and fail.

On the subject of security, a fuel hose should be secured to prevent movement, ideally using rubber-lined, corrosion-­resistant metallic P clips, and where it passes through bulkheads or other structures, it must be protected to prevent chafing. Plastic zip or wire ties should not be used to secure fuel plumbing where it passes over moving machinery such as shafts, pulleys or belts. Fuel hoses should never be secured to electrical cabling, and vice versa.

Valves used for isolating or directing fuel flow must be of the positive stop variety, i.e., a ball valve that turns through no more than 90 degrees. The reason for this guideline, which is an ABYC standard, is to facilitate a quick, at-a-glance indication of a valve’s open or closed position. Traditional rotary “washing machine” gate valves, while not uncommon, do not meet this standard, and the handles are often mild steel, making them rust-prone. The same holds true for tank sight-glass valves; these too should be of the ball rather than gate variety. Finally, any valve that relies on an external stem spring should not be used. The spring applies tension to a tapered plug, thereby maintaining a liquid-tight seal. The spring itself, however, is nearly always made from mild steel; when it rusts and crumbles, a fuel leak is sure to follow.

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Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting (stevedmarineconsulting.com).

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