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When initally joining
the boating scene,
most folks have a
dream, to travel distant shores
or sailing off into the sunset. For
many it never gets much
beyond a dream, but for some,
who are prepared to leave the
protection of a marina berth, the
sky is the limit.
In a marina, we enjoy all the
comforts of home: water,
electricity, telephone and TV. It
sometimes seems hard to even
bother to move. But a boat
represents a major investment,
and if it remains unused it will
deteriorate. To protect one’s investment and keep the dream
alive, it is important to get out
and have a go at making the
dream come true. Take out
some friends for a day, or try
an overnighter in a small local
cove. Even when started on a
small scale, you will learn a few
things about your boat and
soon find whether it fits your
needs.
Small beginnings can lead to
great expectations, and after
some experience you’ll determine
if your boat is really equipped
sufficiently to sustain you once
you leave on that lifetime cruise
into the sunset. Few boats come from the builder prepared to
such a degree.
WATERMAKERS HELP
No matter where you are on
this planet, you need water. A
boat owner needs water for two
very important reasons. First to
float the boat and second, to
drink. These requisites can be
combined by having a reverseosmosis
watermaking system
onboard. Watermakers produce
freshwater from saltwater in
quantities enough to support
crew needs, depending on
machine size, and run off various
forms of electrical power.
Although watermaker prices
have come down in recent
years, they are still costly, and
require space not always
available on every cruising boat.
WATER, WATER,
EVERYWHERE
It is generally assumed that
water is readily available in all
developed countries. But as fulltime
cruisers over the years, we
have found this not to be the
case.
Most marinas, unless one is
willing to pay dearly for its
services, understandably frown
upon, or refuse, cruising boats
coming alongside to fill their
tanks. Although public docks
with potable water are
sometimes found along the way,
in our experience they are
usually few and far between.
Aboard Dreamworld, our
40-foot custom trawler, we have
a 24VDC, 5gph watermaker. It
works fine when under way, but
we find its use in an anchorage
requires us to run the generator,
certainly not an ideal situation.
We also worry what would
happen to our freshwater supply
if this equipment is out of
commission for any number
of reasons.
We recently completed an
extensive 18-month cruise
around Central America.
During this trip we found the
problem of a good source of
water much more difficult.
In Third World countries
much of the water is totally
undrinkable. Even in pumped
water systems, the exposed
plumbing is under constant
exposure to baking sun, nurturing the growth of all
sorts of nasties. River water is
an option, but that too is sure
to contain dangerous parasites.
Fortunately for us, for much
of our cruise these areas were in
their “wet seasons” and we were
able to supplement our onboard
water supply with rain caught in
an upturned sailing dinghy.
However, we lost much of this
captured water during the
transfer by bucket from dinghy
to the water tanks. After a short
time I had a better idea.
At the same time, our boat’s
fabric bimini top needed
replacement, after years of
exposure in the tropical sun.
Rather than replace it with
another fabric bimini, I decided
that my son Simon and I could
design and build a hardtop
bimini that could serve several
functions.
As we watch our pennies, we
would try to use as much of
the existing structure as possible. This included the
original radar mast and the
bimini’s tubular support frames,
all constructed from one-inch
stainless steel tubes. My goal
was to build an economical,
reasonably light, permanent
hardtop that could also catch
rainwater and plumb it directly
into our water tanks.
HOW TO DO IT
As with most biminis our
frames were not originally
level, a requirement if uniform
support of a new top was to be
achieved. Also, the radar mast
was not originally part of the
old bimini, and being six inches
lower than the original, would
need to be incorporated into
the new design. We planned
eventually to enclose the
hardtop to protect us from the
elements while running the boat
from the flybridge.
Any full enclosure would
have to be made so it could be released quickly in the event ofserious weather as our stability
is compromised with the
increased windage of the
additional structure.
A final consideration was that
all of the materials had to be
readily available and the project
simple enough for amateur
construction.
We planned to do the project
right on the foredeck of Dreamworld, and use the leveled
frames as permanent jigs.
Adjusting the height of the
fixed sockets and moving the
hinged sections of the frames
leveled the bimini structure,
held in place with a length of
2" x 2" wood tied to the
underside of the frames.
The new hardtop measures
8 feet wide by 13 feet long,
including an aft section that stepped down across the
radar mast.
The top consists of three halfinch
panels of exterior-grade
hardwood plywood. The panels
are laid across the frames with
the plywood edges pulled down
by clamps to form a degree
of camber.
We then glued plywood
strips to the underside of each
panel across the seam between
the frames, temporarily held in
place with drywall screws. (The
screws were later removed and
the holes filled in.)
Longitudinal hardwood
strips, with one narrow edge
beveled to 15 degrees, were
then joined and glued to the
underside of the plywood on
the outside edges. The ends
were done similarly, but curved
to follow the camber of the
hardtop. After the glue dried,
the square edges of the
plywood were sanded to match
the camber angle as well.
In the next step, hardwood
strips were jointed and glued
over the previous strips, their
lower edges kept level, capping
the plywood edges.
The upper edges of these strips
are higher than the plywood
surface of the top, angled inward
and forming the edges of the rain
catchment system. The total top
was then sheathed inside and out
with fiberglass cloth, using West
System 105/205 resins, and then
faired with two-part epoxy paste.
We painted the structure with
Awlgrip, and installed the new
hardtop using stainless steel
brackets around the frames.
We installed two flush
through-hulls at the lowest points on each side and
connected them with plastic
pipe, concealed in the flybridge
helm. It was a simple matter to
make a quick-release pipe to
reach the tank filler.
We installed the radar,
GPS and other antenna
directly onto the new top,
and added an overhead
console, where we put a
monitor connected to our
laptop navigation computer.
We made the flybridge
enclosure using a mini walkingfoot
commercial sewing machine
we purchased.
After learning how to use the
machine, the job was easy. We
sewed ropes into the edges to
enable them to slide into the
fitted extrusions. Cost of the
enclosure was less than $500
and the hardtop cost us $700.
The water catchment system
has been in continuous use
for six months and proven
very successful. We get gallons
of water even in light showers.
In a good, long downpour,
we can quickly fill our
160-gallon tanks.
Who needs marinas?
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2003 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com
You are reading the text-only copy of this article. To access the article as it appeared in PassageMaker Magazine, please log in to purchase and download the PDF version of this article.