Construction of the Sternwheeler “Port Explorer” Part 9
by Steve Hutchison
More Time Passes
The rough-in plumbing has been completed and tested. Finished the sub-flooring on the first level. Now we can finally walk anywhere without fear of stepping on the wrong area! What a great feeling! The hatches have been cut, and we have access to all of the compartments. The picture below is looking down into compartment 3, and shows the water supply arrangement: below that is a picture of the water supply from the internal water tanks to the 12 vdc pump. From the pump, it does a 180 and comes into the upper water line from the right. The supply coming from the top of the picture is from an outside commercial water supply. As you can see, both supplies go through a regulator (at left with a green tag) before going into the boat water system.
We put in the last partition (between the kitchen and the main salon), and steps down into compartments 2 and 3. Compartment 4 didn’t get any steps, because I didn’t want to encourage this as a storage area, being aft of the center of buoyancy.
During the next few days, we worked on the plumbing and framing for the shower. This is the last sizable unit to be installed, and I don’t want to have to remove any of the previous work.
Now we’re ready to start the a. c. wiring in the main level. This has been a thorn in my side for some time: whether to wire the boat for 240 v.a.c. or to wire it for 120 v.a.c. 120 volt hook-ups are more readily available than 240 volt hook-ups most places. There is only one thing that requires 240 volts on the boat, and that is the kitchen range; everything else is 120 volts. So, we finally decided to wire the boat for 120 volt hook-ups, and use the generator whenever we need 240 volts for the range. That really simplified things.
The above picture shows the main breaker panel (right) and the disconnects (left) for the generator power and shore power. These are manual disconnects, and one of the “stabs” has been removed so there is only one to be shared between the two disconnects. This is a simple and relatively inexpensive safety mechanism to ensure that the shore power and the generator power cannot be connected at the same time.
The receptacle between the two disconnects is wired to the shore power “input side”, and is connected to nothing else. Its sole purpose is to be able to determine proper wiring of the shore supply before connecting it to the boat system (never assume that the shore power is correctly wired). The panel and disconnects are located amidship for wiring efficiency, and will disappear behind a picture.
All rough wiring has been run (both for the 120 v.a.c. and the 12 v.d.c.), and all switches and receptacles have been installed; all rough plumbing has been completed; all insulation has been installed; ceiling has been installed throughout the lower level; lighting has been completed for most of the lower level (both 120 and 12); and the bathroom vent fans have been installed.
The walls have been completed in the kitchen, and started in the guest bedroom. It’s nice to finally see some of the “finished” project. The bead board paneling was stained (Ipswich Pine) and sealed with “verathane”, which is a very hard polyurethane designed for floors.
The above picture makes it look darker than it really is because of the lack of natural light. It was foggy outside, and the flash just didn’t do it justice.
John Campbell (mechanic) came over and spent about 20 hours putting the engine (5.9 liter Cummins diesel) back in running order. Remember, that this is an engine from a wrecked truck, and hasn’t been rewired or run for over three years. There is still more work to be done, but she purrs like a kitten!
By the time this is published in the newsletter, we hope to have the “color” version of the boat on the ASA website.
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To Be Continued:
Steve can be reached at: PortHutch@gmail.com