Stern Extension

[JoeWalling]

Major excitement yesterday - launch day! Yippee! After 3 months or so, Jonathan, his son Lewis, Andy and I watched with inner anxiety as HUSH floated herself off the cradles. Would she sit stern or bow heavy? Happily, she sat perfectly, with the new transom breaking the water a few inches in.

Attached are two photos. The first is the last land based one, showing the rubber fender continuation and the new backstay. The original backstay comes off a single starboard mounted chain plate. A local fabricator made a mirror image from it and now the backstay is supported by port and starboard chain plates. New wires from both rise three meters to meet the original and now shortened backstay. These three wires are joined together by a small triangular stainless steel plate. All of the rigging was redressed and retensioned by a local rigger.

Sea trials next....

Joe

[Pat Ross]

She's beautiful Joe, she is right on her lines.

Pat

[JoeWalling]

Thanks a lot, Pat. I must say that your interest and support has made me catalogue progress a lot more than I would otherwise have done and hopefully it will be of use to others at some time. I hopw you are recovering from your injuries and that you get some sailing done on Bayou Breeze this season. Cheers.

Joe

[JoeWalling]

Hi all

Going sailing 'in anger' tomorrow, so will know what's what and will report back. here is a picture taken today showing HUSH's quarter. Note that the stern breaks the waterline just in front of the rudder.

Next winter I'll be doing a complete internal refit. I want to fit new cushions, with backs to them and to redesign the table.I have an open mind about what to do so I'm looking for some input. Lou - how are you getting along? One thing I might do is to move the main bulkhead forward by 12 inches or so, creating a larger saloon and a smaller forward berth. David Chinnery ( see old newsletters ) thought about this as part of his theoretical Telstar redesign, putting a heads compartment opposite the galley area. I can't see how this could be done but then i can't see how it is done on the Mark 3 either. There doesn't seem to be enough headroom to fit and to sit on a sea toilet. Maybe someone (Pat?) could take a photo and show me. I've never seen the inside of the Mark 3s.

Joe

[Pat Ross]

Hi all,

One thing I might do is to move the main bulkhead forward by 12 inches or so, creating a larger saloon and a smaller forward berth. David Chinnery ( see old newsletters ) thought about this as part of his theoretical Telstar redesign, putting a heads compartment opposite the galley area. I can't see how this could be done but then i can't see how it is done on the Mark 3 either. There doesn't seem to be enough headroom to fit and to sit on a sea toilet. Maybe someone (Pat?) could take a photo and show me. I've never seen the inside of the Mark 3s.Joe

Joe,

I am not sure specifically what you wanted so I have 2 photos that show the head area in the 8M we own. It is located on the Port side of the salon as you enter. Personally it is a great location for good air freshening and a wonderful location for a wet locker. The measurements for this area are:

Height: Hull Floor to ceiling of Head Entrance = 68" or 1.73M
Height: Hull Floor to Toilet Ledge = 22.25" or 55.51cm
Height: Toilet Ledge to Ceiling = 45.50" or 1.16M You loose a little height as the ceiling is slooping down.
Head Width: 27.75" or 70.5cm
Depth from the front of door entrace to the side of the boat: 42.50" or 1.08M

In the 2 photos of the our head area we have removed the wall partition and the doorway for cleaning, our boat was in a terrible mess, fortunately the portable head had been removed, AMEN.



Toilet ledge to ceiling.JPG (119.15 KiB) Viewed 131 times





Head Floor to Toilet ledge.JPG (101.98 KiB) Viewed 131 times



The next photo is where a Sea Toilet can go, at least this is my understanding. This is what Joe S. did. He remodeled his boat and installed a Sea Head in that location, changed his V-berth into storage and used the double for sleeping. Here is a link to his site and you can see the photos of his V Berth mods, click on the "Home" link and there is more dicussion of what he did and why:

http://home.inreach.com/siudzin/veeberth.htm

Here is the sea toilet area for our boat.



Wow, what a difference in the V berth when cleaned.JPG (154.74 KiB) Viewed 131 times



Hope this is what you were asking,

Pat

[Marina]

Hey Joe.
This is where the heads are on mine: Port aft. I only have a very small pic of the sea toilet itself:

It's hardly spacious, but is very usable and a welcome addition.

[luigisante]

Hi all

Going sailing 'in anger' tomorrow, so will know what's what and will report back. here is a picture taken today showing HUSH's quarter. Note that the stern breaks the waterline just in front of the rudder.

Next winter I'll be doing a complete internal refit. I want to fit new cushions, with backs to them and to redesign the table.I have an open mind about what to do so I'm looking for some input. Lou - how are you getting along? One thing I might do is to move the main bulkhead forward by 12 inches or so, creating a larger saloon and a smaller forward berth. David Chinnery ( see old newsletters ) thought about this as part of his theoretical Telstar redesign, putting a heads compartment opposite the galley area. I can't see how this could be done but then i can't see how it is done on the Mark 3 either. There doesn't seem to be enough headroom to fit and to sit on a sea toilet. Maybe someone (Pat?) could take a photo and show me. I've never seen the inside of the Mark 3s.

Joe

I have finally started working on the cabin again after repeated interruptions from work (dam that work). I have the update in the project area. Interesting idea to move the bulkhead forward to open up the cabin. But, by keeping the forpeak floor as low as I could make it, I can stand up in the area forward of the bulkhead. I think it will make a perfect shower area and a place for a proper marine toilet. I would hate to loose that area and I'm not sure where you would put a marine head across from the galley without some seriou8s structural rearrangement.

The double doors can keep the area closed off from the rest of the cabin to keep what little privacy you can have in such a small space and, probably best of all, you can install an opening port-lite that opens into the anchor locker. That way, while at anchor, the locker can be opened all the way through to the port-lite and help ventilate the head area. I'm also looking at locations for solar vents (x2). The area forward of the shower floor will have the shower sump. I still can't figure out where to put a basic water tank.

I'm at the point where it is time to completely clean the interrior with TSP and start to paint or prime the fibergalss in anticipation of finishing over it. I want to seal the fibers under a layer of primer before I start to add finish materials above it. It is probably a bit of overkill. I have found a material that I can use for the walls in the forepeak. It is an all plastic sheet, without a backer like formica, which I had my concerns about.

Right now, I'm building the shower drain/sump. Once that's done, the forpeak should be relatively easy to finish.

Nice to see your boat in the water. I can't belive how perfectly it sits on its marks. I am interested to see if you can see a difference in performance in less than favorable conditions due to the extended stern.

I've been sketching the port bunk beds and measuring them. I think I have it figured out. Both seats will have a back and a cushion. The port side back will fold up to a bunk and the starboard will be hinged and convert to a double bed when pulled out. The galley will be close to original. I think I'm putting a chart table across from it. I have not been able to figure the setee table out yet, but I don't want to recreate that monster of a table that Tony designed.

Anyway, progress is slow but the work is much better than fiberglass work.

Lou

[JoeWalling]

Pat,

That was really kind of you to go to all that measurement trouble - I just wanted to get a feel for how there was space to put a toilet anywhere other than the forepeak. You have more space than HUSH of course, as BB and all the 8Ms are wider.

When I refit HUSH's interior I want to be able to fit a cool box/fridge and a heater. There are a number of heater alternatives, but the cool box/ fridge bit has confounded me so far.

I think I may have had a Eureka moment. The reason I was thinking about moving the front bulkhead forward was to use all that lovely vacant space in the port and starboard 'cheeks' of the forward cabin, as I could do with a slightly longer berth to port and a bigger galley area to starboard. My Eureka moment, if it works, will be to cut holes through the bulkhead, rather than to move it. So, I could build a box section on the port side to accommodate a pillow area and on the starboard side a box section to build a cool box accessible from the main cabin. This all still takes some figuring out but in principle I'll be bringing some of that 'dead' storage space though into the main cabin whilst still maintaining the structural integrity of the hull. Hmm..food for thought!

Joe

[JoeWalling]

Sea trials.

Well, I'm trying to be objective about this. It's difficult because,having spent a lot of time and money, you always want to feel that the effort has been justified.

The area where we live is majorly keen on conservation - I think that Chichester harbour is the third largest natural harbour in Europe - and the sea is left to do what the sea does. So, we have a lot of water shelving and silting and at the end of the season most hulls have had a fair old dousing of mud. The effect of this is more pronounced on a multihull, I think, due to a combination of the size of the wetted area of the hulls - no more is this apparent than when antifouling! - and the added weight of the mud/slime/sludge/barnacles as a proportion of the lighter displacement of a boat with no lead keels. I therefore find it difficult to know to what extent the improved performance is down to the modifications versus the effect of the new shiny gleaming slippery hulls with their top of the range antifouling. All I can say is that it feels like a different boat.

The new transom slices through the water like a knife. It's great - there is no frothing or bubbling, as was the case with old transom. It is so quiet - at least it would be if it had'nt made evident another problem - the outboard tray support/slider bar and brackets. The new transom is so quiet that you can hear the water hitting against this pole and its two brackets. This might become an irritation.

The acceleration is now most impressive. It was always good - now its so good you can almost feel you are being pushed back in the cockpit.

An unexpected bonus and the thing my sailing buddies (monohullers, all of them) have noticed is how high she points. Its astonishingly high - higher than any monohull I've experienced and with no loss of way, especially with a decent wind around. I don't know why this is, I just look at the amazed faces of those on the helm.

The rocking is all but eliminated, but I did'nt notice much of this before, to be fair.

The one thing I have not yet noticed is any increase in absolute speed. I'm surprised at this, as I've got another metre on the waterline and the boats hulls are eel slippery at the moment. I might be wrong but it just doesn't seem any faster. Have not been out in a real blow yet, so we'll see.

Joe

[Pat Ross]

What a great report, thank you. Having others onboard who do not own the boat commenting positively is a good objective view I think. Speed is not everything, the improved issues you mention, to me, more than say the extension is a great idea and worth the effort an investment.

Pat