Boat's freshwater storage planning - tank, filtration and galley area. Lifeboat Conversion Ep66 [4K]

Some of this was filmed over the festive week, and for me this means consumption of mince pies. You'll recall in my summer sea trials episode, which thanks to the blessings and favour of the YouTube gods, recently retrended and sits at over three quarters of a million views, that I do like eating Danish pastries. Well, the same goes for mince pies. I'm conflicted about whether they should be available year round, or whether that may be the final straw that leads to Right, enough of the pies, and now on to a cold-ish and frosty-ish morning, and my very underwhelming rental car, but it's the contents that matter. Yes, a sheet of plastic, but what is it for? And with proof that I'm most likely to be sacked as the clothing continuity operative on a movie set, this episode we are talking all about water, and for that we need to go to the bow. Well first of all, before I explain what I'm about to do, I'm going to orientate you as to where we are, because it might be a little bit confusing given the camera angle. Up here is the bow hatch, this is the bow of Alan right here where the camera is, and then over here, just to the left from my perspective, from where the heater, the reflex heater is going to be mounted, is the heater itself. It's just sitting there for a while until I'm ready to actually fit it into its slot, but here this thing appears in all sorts of clips and episodes but never quite gets its own attention, or the attention that it really deserves, and it's a water container that I've had back from the early days of owning Alan, back in the days when it was owned by my team and I, and it's going to be mounted in a sort of a little cubby hole down here in front of the main area of racking. This is the leading edge of the large fuel tank racking, and also the racking that's going to keep all sorts of supplies safe when we're at sea, but anyhow this needs to have an ecosystem design around it, and that's because it's going to be the area where we're going to cook, and maybe wash things and prepare, it's going to be sort of the galley, the washing station, that sort of zone of the boat, and I need to therefore sort out the surrounding area. What I'm going to do first of all is put a nice wipe clean solid sheet of perspex, of acrylic, in front of the racking here, so that's going to be my first job, and then there's going to be a fold-down worktop which will sit on top of the water container itself. I can then install a pump so I can get access to the water, but also so I can get water into the tank, whether that's from melting snow or from simply piping in fresh water. So quite a lot of work to do here, and it's something which I've neglected since the early days. In case any of you are in doubt about what a water tank looks like, this is what a water tank looks like, from these angles at least. We need to do some fiberglass work now. A moment ago I mentioned a cubby hole for it to sit in. This is essentially a recess down into the bilge, which I filled with two-part marine grade polyurethane foam to fit tightly around the polyethylene tank. I want to skin this for better water sealing, so I'm using basic cheap chopstrand matte glass fiber. I'll use a single layer as this isn't a structural build, and for the same reason I used cheap polyester resin with a few drops of MEKP catalyst to complete the skinning process. This will make some of you cross, but it just wouldn't be worth coating the inside of alum with dust should I've used an angle grinder, so for now you'll have to make do with my Black & Decker jigsaw, the same jigsaw one of you was snobby about in a past episode. And it was cut. T'was time to welcome the sheet of plastic inside and offer it up to its new home, not that I was planning to give it the right of veto to any of my decisions, because it's a sheet of plastic and Alan is not a democracy. Whilst you enjoy this view of me positioning the plastic and working out where the indents and bolts are going to end up, I'll expand on what's going to end up here. The worktop can hinge onto the top beam of the racking and then rest with a rubber strip on the water tank itself. The tank actually sits angled slightly sternwards. This is because it buys me quite a lot of retained walkway space and only loses me a little capacity in the tank. But it does mean that the tank's top won't be flat, but instead jauntily and indeed charmingly angled. To the side will soon be a sediment filter and a chemical filter, and finally a manual lever pump. I don't want to run electrics to this part of the boat, and frankly if you want a glass of water you should be prepared to work for it. You didn't think I would leave you bereft of grinding action this time, surely, and complete with a total lack of sparks, this'll have to do. But more importantly, it means I can smooth off all the sharp corners so as not to introduce an anti-human weapon, and also I cut away a few areas so that they fit around the series of brackets and bolt heads already in place in the steel racking. Let's interlude from the mounting of said plastic for a moment or three, and finish off the floor recess. The glass fibre is nearly transparent, so all the mucky foam still shows through. Also, I've edged the top with some basic rubber strip. And now, lots of fun with my go-to cheap and cheerful white bilge paint. It's tough, wipes clean easily, and covers a large surface area quickly. The rubber edging wasn't sealed, so I'm finishing off with a layer of my new favourite product, the air-curing liquid rubber coating from Gorilla. Not bad, although that edging tape, like before, still doesn't do a great job with this viscous rubbery liquid when it comes to sharp lines. Let's install the backing sheet. This will be both original and innovative, things you come back again and again to this channel for. First, I use a centre punch to make a mark in the steel. Then, I drill a hole in the box-section steel. It's important you complete these two steps in that order, otherwise the centre punch is harder to use. Then, I pop some bolts through with washers to spread out the pressure and, remarkably, finish off the unlikely ensemble with some nyloc nuts. Back in my early days on board Alan, racked with anxiety about galvanic corrosion and the absolute certainty from many that if mild steel so much as glances at a piece of stainless steel, the latter will immediately collapse into a pile of rust, I did consider a change, i.e. swapping out the stainless steel fixings in this galvanised structure for zinc-coated ones. But then I did the reading, and saw other professional builds with mixtures of metal types. I'm comfortable that far more catastrophe is likely to overwhelm Alan before stainless nuts and bolts, at below 1% ratio compared to the galved steel box-section, and without seawater immersion, start to eat away at the racking in a sort of galvanic cell-induced end of days. I've been having real drama with parts and components not arriving in time, or arriving wrong, and this is holding up this episode's next stages, and also the major installs on the reflex heater. Sorry about that. But this exciting internal tank-cleaning melee can also lead us onto some questions I have for you about my water treatment plans. There are all sorts of ways to keep water safe for drinking when stored for extended periods of time, and I need to pick one, or a few. Algae and bacteria are my two likely foes. I can certainly add a removable light-excluding jacket, and that will help stymie the evil growth plans held by algae or plant life. I should also put something in the water itself to kill any nasties. But then, I need to remove whatever I put in through filtration, in order for it to be safe or pleasant to drink or use to cook with. Comment section, arise. This is your moment. Anyone with real experience, or indeed with completely arbitrary and random, yet absolutely certain views on the matter can now chime in. There's chlorine. There's bromine. There's copper. There's silver. There's snake oil. Do let me know. A little extra job for you today. I have been hosing off lagging the engine exhaust to turbo bit. It gets rather hot. In fact, it will be the hottest part of the engine's exterior. I have racked my brain, and the brains of people with actual qualifications, as to a method to use this surface area to reclaim on-demand, and the on-demand bit is the crux, heat from the engine to heat the cabin. But we can't find a workable system with or without a separate cooling fluid circuit, so I'm just going to lag it. The thick fiberglass lagging rope the engine came with seemed hell-bent on covering me, and everything, in tiny itchy glass fibers, so I've upgraded to a very pleasant woven basalt fiber here. It's only a little pricier, and it behaves itself. There we go, and just enough time to screw the steel guard back on. I certainly did not mislay one of the bolts and have to go and find a replacement. And for those of you intrigued about the earlier whiteboard conundrum, here's the totally useless whiteboard solution for you. Don't ever say I gloss over the important things. I'll get more ready to post for you over the coming weeks, and I'm conscious that the summer, and therefore the start of Alan's journey, will appear in an instant. I also have a six-week Arctic expedition to fit in, so rest assured that even if episodes aren't always weekly, I am still feverishly working away. Bye.