2 year refit of C&L 37 Europa

[questionmark]

So a quick update... The windlass is mounted! The wires are run to the junction, I'll terminate them tomorrow.

I have the hole for the chain conduit 90% drilled. It falls through a stringer, so I have to reinforce that before I put the conduit in. That's total paranoia on my part, as the deck is almost 2" thick up there.

Here's a before and after...


A few of the process

I put in pieces of hose in as chafe protection from that all-thread. I had to really work to get them in, I'll have to put them on a six month inspection regime.



The starboard is "sealed" to the sprit with butyl rubber tape, as is the bottom of the windlass. I'll tighten the windlass down a little bit each visit for a while. I managed to heat gall one of the bolts, so I'll grind it off tomorrow and replace it.

Both anchors can deploy independent of each other without interference. I got lucky there. The Bruce will be a backup with 50' of chain and 250' of rode, in the original chain locker. The Rocna will be on 275' of chain below the v-berth. It should be about the same weight as before, just lower down and aft a bit.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Just a few more hours and it should be good to go.

 

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Here's the labeling system I use for wiring.

 

[questionmark]

Last week my wife came down and we spent the day working on the boat. She did netting for the dog on the foredeck, I did a bunch of little stuff.

The netting is the kind used on golf courses to keep cars dent free.



I terminated the cables for the windlass and mounted the control box. I also did some more work on the chain conduit.


My wife really wanted to get the giant Garmin box out of the guest room so family could stay, so I finished the adapter plate and mounted the radome.



Starboard sure is handy stuff. When I did this project on the sailboat I used G10. It was much harder to work and fabricate, and I had to paint it. Starboard cuts like butter. Just be careful using a hole saw...

We fished the cables down the mast and left them coiled at the bottom.

 

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The new prop came in. It looks great. It should make a big difference in efficiency.

 

[questionmark]

I had today and Tuesday off, so I worked on getting rid of boxed parts. I didn't take a ton of pictures, I was kind of in the zone and finishing stuff.

I made the template and then fabricated and installed the chain locker divider. I was concerned that there wasn't a limber hole in the lower locker, but I worried needlessly. I hit it with the scraper and shop vac, and after removing several inches of debris from the bottom, there was a hole there after all.

I mounted the RAM mics. They're up out of the weather.


I ran the wiring for the RAM mics, and the power and data for the radome. I also removed a bunch of old, disused, wiring.

I had a GMI-10 display that I parted out of our old boat, so I figured I'd mount it up on the flybridge so at least I'd have a depth display up there. I also thought it was kind of silly to have a power socket facing up on the dash where it can fill with water, so I swapped it out for the windlass control switch.
Before:

After:

I have one of the older, original, GMI-10 displays that requires external power. So that required some additional thinking.

But as of today, the instrumentation at the flybridge works, I have both VHF radios available at the flybridge, and the radar works.

The only bummer is that I finally crawled over to lap and service the final three bronze tapered seacocks and wrecked two of them trying to disassemble them. None of the usual tricks worked. I'm going to replace one, remove one, and hopefully that will give me room to rebuild the third.

But, focusing on the positive, I'm feeling really good about the last two boat days. The yard fabricated the bearing holder / shaft log extension and it turned out great. They're installing it now.

 

[O C Diver]

Nice Progress! Keep up the good work.

Ted

 

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I had a few hours after work this morning before I had to be home to take over kid duties, so I snuck over to the yard to get some boat time.

The yard is finishing off the shaft project, and it looks amazing. A bit of project history:

The survey noted that the shaft had corrosion and should be dye tested at the least. The keel was also filled with water, possibly from a leaking shaft log. We pulled the shaft and found a grenade from some PO.

The shaft log on the boat is short, it doesn't go all the way to the end of the keel. The end is threaded, so it most likely had a cutlass bearing holder that threaded on at the time of build. It has long since gone the way of the dodo. When the shaft was removed, we discovered that the cutlass bearing had been cut down and shoved into the keel. Two set screws were run through what was left of the keel sides, and the whole thing was filled with Bondo.

It's hard to see, but here's the opening. The bearing pretty much just fell out when the little set screws were removed. The yard mechanical guy can't figure out how it didn't just spin itself into oblivion.

So I had the yard fabricate a new bearing holder that would fit into, and properly extend, the shaft log. They really wanted to replace the whole shaft log, but the quote was $12k. Pretty much a non-starter, even if I wanted to.

Here's the finished piece.
It turned out great.

They ended up having to build up the keel a bit as the hole for mounting left about a single layer of glass.

The nylon spacer is glassed in to give a flat mount for the bearing holder.

Here's everything installed and sealed, waiting for me to put on the new prop.


This should solve the water intrusion into the keel, the shaft vibration, and the alignment issues. The shaft was flame sprayed and trued, also.

The yard guys have done great work. I sometimes have trouble with paying to have stuff done, but I'm getting more acclimated to it. There are times when it's more cost effective to farm out the stuff I'm not able to easily do to spend my time on the things I can. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway...

 

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In the few hours I had this morning I finally managed to get the last bronze taper thru hull disassembled. It involved some serious boat yoga, and would have been impossible without the flex ratcheting wrenches. Those wrenches have saved my bacon more times than I can count.

Here's the tapered cone and handle after a good fifteen minutes with the Brasso and before lapping. The seacock grease tub is enough for a hundred lifetimes, but it really is nice. It's amazing how blue and green encrusted the whole thing was.


That was the last show stopper to launch, which is scheduled for my next week day off, which is Wednesday morning. It feels really good to have the appointment on the calendar.

I also removed the old Benmar autopilot and began removing the wiring. I have a new ComNav 1420 that's been occupying a settee seat for a while now. I brought the book home with to read at work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to get it installed soon.

I planned the locations for the course computer and compass modules. I think the biggest hassle will be routing all the wiring, as the manual recommends neither cutting nor extending any of it.


The contents of the box.

 

[questionmark]

2 year refit of C&L 37 Europa

Launch got bumped till tomorrow afternoon. The yard asked if I would mind giving my spot to a working boat that had an emergency haul a few days ago. Gladly. I figure that captain operates on a "no go, no dough" model, while I'm just puttering about.

The Rudder is back on. The added wedge looks great.


I took the opportunity to move the rudder indicator sensor a bit to "calibrate" it. Now it actually reads correctly. I installed and mounted the rudder sensor for the ComNav autopilot. Got lucky on the fit.


The steering is much smoother. I still need to drain and flush the system, but that can wait.

I mounted the heading sensor from the sailboat, and the fluxgate from the autopilot. The heading sensor is N2K, so that was easy. Works great.

Since I was running the rudder sensor cable forward, I took the opportunity to remove the wire tie anchors and replace them with the conduit straps as previously mentioned by Ted.


The astute observer will have no doubt noticed the wire nuts on the now removed cord. That was a nifty LED under cabinet light that the PO installed as an engine room light. Unfortunately at some point he sliced the cord, so out came the wire nuts and tape. It's an AC only fixture, so I've removed it. I'll fix the cord with crimped splices and use it with my sewing machine. I have a bunch of LED strip lights that will some day be mounted on the engine area ceiling. Probably about the time I mount them in all the cabinets (as in not anytime soon...)

I finished wiring up the new transducers, and they seem to work. At least, the plotter sees them. I only powered them up for a second, but I did get a return from the ground under the boat. I'll post a few screenshots of the sidescan view if any look good.

I really have to get this boat back in the water so I can stop the financial bleeding of "while it's out" project creep.

 

[jrs1958]

Great job! Rebuilding the shaft log is a great improvement and keeps the water out!

 

[O C Diver]

Lots of changes. Interested to hear how you make out with the new wheel and rudder.

Ted

 

[Aquabelle]

"Starboard sure is handy stuff. When I did this project on the sailboat I used G10. It was much harder to work and fabricate, and I had to paint it. Starboard cuts like butter. Just be careful using a hole saw..."

What is the problem using a hole-saw on Starboard?

 

[Aquabelle]

Here's the labeling system I use for wiring

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Those labels look great. What is the gadget you're using to make them?

 

[questionmark]

What is the problem using a hole-saw on Starboard?

It melts rather than cuts from the friction, making a real mess and requiring constant clearing of the teeth. And lots of edge cleaning afterwards.

 

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Here's the labeling system I use for wiring

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Those labels look great. What is the gadget you're using to make them?

Just a standard label maker. It's one of many good ideas from Compass Marine.

On another note, I was recently trying to troubleshoot an electrical problem with one of our apparatus here at work, and when I pulled the panel cover off I found that the entire wiring harness was built with wire that had been custom printed with the circuit label. It certainly makes it easy to trace wires through the harness.

 

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When I got to the boatyard Thursday morning my boat wasn't where I left it. A good sign. The little travel lift dock got blown out by a big squid boat when he couldn't stop and crushed it, so the yard uses the big commercial lift for everything right now. So they used the little lift to move the trawler over to the big lift, and then used the big lift to launch. So they moved me over first thing.

I have been procrastinating dealing with my nasty bilge since day 1. But no longer. I used a cheap Harbor Freight transfer pump to pump it into a 5 gallon bucket. It was so nasty smelling I just tossed the pump in when I was done. I plan to go grab some elbow length gloves before scrubbing it.

The launch went as scheduled, and nothing leaked. The engine started right up so I buttoned everything up for the night. It felt great to finally be back in the water.

 

[questionmark]

We did a sea trial Friday morning. I can't even begin to describe how much better the boat handles (but I'll try.) If you don't have a wedge on your rudder, do whatever it takes to add one!

First the new prop: the acceleration is impressive. Before, when I throttled up it would immediately make more noise and slowly add speed. Now the stern dips and the boat picks up speed smoothly. Slowing and stopping is night and day different. The first few times I goosed it in reverse I not only stopped but ended up drifting backwards. The engine hit WOT way too easily, with the tach reading 3100 RPM when I backed off, so I'll have to experiment with that later. Also, on the trip up it seemed that the top end speed was lower per RPM, but the trip was uphill and up current. "No honey, I HAVE to go out again to test the prop. The prop shop guy said so..."

The biggest change was the addition of the rudder wedge. An amazing difference is that I now have steerage, without throttle input, at speeds above about 1.5 kn. The turning radius is much tighter, and I can manage the turn into my slip in a single smooth movement instead of needing to use reverse to help walk the stern.

Another pleasant surprise is the handling in reverse. I actually have some steerage in reverse. Above about a knot of speed I was able to turn to starboard (counter to my walk direction) with the throttle in reverse idle. I'll have to go practice more down at the side-tie, but I think it might be physically possible to back into my slip now. Another perfect excuse for boat time: handling practice.

Overall I'm super pleased with the results from the mechanical changes. The boat is much quieter and smoother, the shaft vibration is gone, and it handles like a completely different boat.

 

[CPseudonym]

Great result, well done.

 

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Made the trip back up from Ventura to SB on Friday morning. I didn't have time to finish the autopilot install, so I hand steered. It was significantly more pleasant with the revamped steering. I also played with the new electronics toys, and drove quite a bit from the flybridge. It's just so pleasant up there. Conditions were great, although it was pretty windy in SB when I arrived.

Leaving Ventura. Perfect weather.


New toys to play with... The transducers in action.


Rock ledge structure seen via sidescan. This is going to make the upcoming lobster season way more fun...


Nearing Santa Barbara. The weather is still perfect. That isn't haze, it's smoke from the Rey fire.


Back in paradise after two months. And there's even still a beer in the fridge...


The new radar worked great. I need to calibrate the heading sensor a few degrees to get the overlay dialed in, but it's already usable even without. I spent a little time playing with the various gain and noise reduction settings. I somehow managed not to take any pictures of it in action, but the color differentiation of return strength was nifty, although I don't think the 18" dome really has the angular resolution to make it a "must have" feature.

I didn't see any whales this time, and only two pods of dolphins. A few came over to say hello, but none really surfed the bow for long.

All said, another great trip and good time.

 

[O C Diver]

Sounds like everything worked out well although you may be a little under pitched on the prop. Have always liked a big rudder that makes things happen NOW.

Ted

 

[Marlinmike]

Congrat's awesome work, thanks for sharing.

 

[questionmark]

It's been short of forever, but sometimes life just gets entertaining.

I've been using the trawler rather than working on it, as I've been doing projects on other boats. That and the boss declared a moratorium on tearing her up for the fall.

I had shoulder surgery, and it wasn't until this week that the doc has finally released me to start doing real stuff, as long as it isn't over my shoulder height, or heavier than 10 lbs. That limits the boat yoga...

But, I have at least been sitting on her a ton, which is nice. And we spent a spell back in Wyoming, where it got to -40F and snowed most of the time. So it was nice to get back and sit in a tshirt and shorts.


So I've been spending my downtime learning digital electronics, among other things. I've always kicked around building a custom boat monitoring / management system, so I figured this would be a good time. I decided to go with the low hanging fruit, so my first piece is a temperature and humidity sensor. The plan is to put several of these around various places (salon, cabins, engine room, bilge, flybridge, fridge.) There are lots of sensor options I've been considering, such as water level monitors, bilge pump counters (and duty cycle monitoring), heck, I even have a UV level sensor on the way (slow boat from China, literally.)



Version 1 functions so far. I have an upgrade with a tiny OLED screen that is working, but I'm in the middle of learning the screen drivers, so it doesn't display data properly yet. That'll be the next goal. I have set up a raspberry pi with a little touchscreen that will be the control head and primary display. They can talk over the wire now, but range is limited.

As soon as the doc clears me to start boatwork again I have one other boat to finish, and then it's back to work on the trawler. My goal is to back to trawler work by mid-march. Until then my plan is to build the boat monitoring system here at the house, and then install it this spring.

Thanks for following, folks. If there's interest, I'll document the building of the monitoring / management system.

 

[questionmark]

Back in business

So the doc has cleared me to do a little bit more, like crawl around, so it's back to work in boat-ville. Sort of. I've been filling my time volunteering at my kid's school, and the school my wife teaches at, so that's been burning up about three days a week. The PT is a real bear, and seems to take forever. I think I need to get back to work so I can have more time to work on my boat... Fingers crossed on that one.

At any rate, I did manage to get down and start up the boat refit again yesterday. That was a couple hours of "getting everything back out" and "where are the parts hidden" and "crap I left that tool at home" and "what was I doing again, and why?" I did manage to get the rest of the cabling run for the autopilot, and all the cables up to where I'm going to mount the control unit. I managed to get them terminated, and was just about to mount it when I ran out of time. So that part felt good.

I took the measurements for the new DC panel. I spent this morning drawing up version 1.0 in Inkscape. I'm supposed to supervise the "liquids and solids" lab for the 2nd graders tomorrow (basically melting things with a torch and heat gun) but I'm hoping to sneak over and fab it afterwards. If I manage it, I'll post a photo or three.

On the electronics front, I did manage to get my sensor units speaking NMEA2000, and built a N2k to USB gateway (for $6 in parts, yeah!) First up is a monitor of the fridge and freezer with dual temp gauges and a nice little display. Hopefully this weekend it will find it's way off the breadboard and onto a proto-board and case. I brought home a cut end from a N2k cable, so it should be complete by the time I've finished the new DC panel and wiring. Fingers crossed again.

I'm glad to be back at it after a couple months break.

 

[Xsbank]

That was an interesting read! The satisfaction of doing a job properly and knowing that a system will run as best as it ever can is immensely rewarding, even if it will remain forever (until the next owner) hidden from the light of day.

The other nice thing about your work is that you know it will probably outlast the boat. Any systems done once properly are frequently never done again. Think of the crap you have pulled out of your boat and marvel at how nice it is now.

 

[questionmark]

Thanks. I'm having a great time, and the next owner of this boat is going to be way ahead of the current one...

I am super stoked with how the new DC panel is turning out. I had to redo all the text, because a standard SVG file is only standard if the proprietary software importing it agrees. So that took a while, and since I was in the center, I ended up spending the majority of the morning helping out the kids, and not much doing my project.

Here's the current setup:


Here's my project loaded up and ready:


The laser cutter going to work:


Here's the cut acrylic panel:


Populated with all the breakers I had:


The rest of the breakers should be here tomorrow, as well as some more heat shrink. I ran out of little stuff, and want to label all the wires in the wiring harness individually for the new panel. The hole at the top is for a battery monitor. I'm still working on ideas for some form of panel light. Maybe incorporating an LED strip. Any thoughts on that front are very welcome.

This piece of acrylic is what I had, but it's 3" too short. I'll have to order a piece that's 27" long for the final version, but I need to get moving on this next week, so I'm going with it for now.

 

[FlyWright]

Love the new panel. Beautiful work! Is the top hole for a SOC/Battery Monitor?

 

[O C Diver]

Very nice work!

Ted

 

[Insequent]

Sounds like you are having fun, very important for a project of this scale. Love the panel, but I would invariably not think of all the breakers that would be required at the time, and have to add some later with stick-on labels.

 

[questionmark]

Sounds like you are having fun, very important for a project of this scale. Love the panel, but I would invariably not think of all the breakers that would be required at the time, and have to add some later with stick-on labels.

Well, it does help to have a 40 year old boat. Most of that stuff has reached equilibrium, and I just had to change over the electronics labels. And the stuff I've added, like our portable chest fridge/freezer, although to be honest I haven't figured out exactly where I'm going to put that thing. Right now it sits on a counter burning up space.

The other great thing is that I have regular access to the laser cutter. I have the file, so making changes and cutting a new panel is pretty easy. I actually have been referring to this as "version 1" of the panel. Sadly, I've already come up with enough changes that I'm considering cutting another one before mounting the rest of the breakers.

The reason that the hole to mount the battery monitor is centered is to match the shape of the cutout in the woodwork without having to cut more of the helm station out. I don't really like it there design-wise, but it fit and was a good use of the space. However, I think I've figured a decent way to do the panel light.

I'll float my idea for the panel light and solicit input before I get everything out to fabricate it... I have a few issues I'm trying to handle. Firstly, the acrylic pieces I had around are all three inches too short for the space. Secondly, there's a centered notch cutout at the top, requiring me to center the battery monitor if it's at the top. Thirdly, I'd really like to have a "panel light / courtesy light" that can be easily worked in the dark.

Our first boat had a pull knob right next to the entry door that lit a little courtesy light on the companionway stairs so that it wasn't lethal to try and get into the boat at night. Our last boat had a switch at the top of the electrical panel that lit up the panel so you could see what you were turning on. Given the location of my electrical panel, I'd like to combine those functions.

So my current plan is to take a piece of Mahogany lumber that's 3 1/2" by 10" and rabbit out a slot on the bottom edge to recess an LED strip. Then I'll route in channels for the wiring and connector, Then I'll wire up a switch towards the top of the panel, and a parallel one by the door (I can use the now depricated auto-pilot pull knob switch which will be super easy to find by feel) that will both light the panel and the floor in front of the door. It'll serve as the panel light, the courtesy light, and both cover the gap in the acrylic and move the panel down enough that I can move the battery monitor to the left side. If I do so, I was thinking I would use the upper right hand side for a sort of "bilge pump" control area.

 

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Since you can't let sleeping dogs, I stayed up late and designed a v2. Of the DC panel that incorporates the bilge pump controls, and since I had to finish the growler of beer before it went flat, I did up an AC panel too.

I ran out of time between when the kids left and the instructor had to leave this afternoon in the center, so I didn't get to finish the DC panel. I did get the wood test panel done, and got lucky... everything fits.

Here's a bit of a closer view of the upper part. I also tightened up the tolerance on the circuit breaker holes.

Here's the wood test cut of the AC panel. I had a mounting hole out of place, so I had to adjust for the final run

Here's the before of the AC panel as it came. I should note that the red lamp is not connected to anything, it's just there.

And finally, the populated version of the AC panel. I have to pick up the last two breakers at WM tomorrow afternoon. Then it's down to the boat for install!

The little boat icon is to show which of the shore power inlets is in use. I actually have to add #1, but it's going where the cable/phone connector is now, so it'll be a quick replacement. I needed something to fill the space, and I think it adds a "cool factor" in some nerdy way.

I should be able to cut the DC panel in acrylic tomorrow at lunch, since I'm volunteering in the center again tomorrow morning...