tabernackle installation

[jeadstx]

On my boat getting ready for the Texas 200, I added two 6" inspection ports in my cuddy cabin floor to provide water bottle sotrage lower in the hull. I also secured a bag under the floor to keep the water bottles from moving around. I used inspection ports so I could seal the inner hull back up and keep water out of there. On the Texas 200 we had to start out with 14 gallons of drinking water for our six days of sailing. There was a lot of other stuff to pack in the cuddy cabin as well.

It seems to me, rather than cutting the floor away, that someone wanting to put something large like a battery under the cuddy floor could install a rectangular storage compartment that would seal the flotation compartment to keep water out. I've seen rectagular storage unit inserts in West Marine's catalog, and I'm sure there are other sources. I think it is a good idea to get heavy items like a battery low in the boat.

John

[jdoorly]

Greenlake, the plywood to fiberglass lip joints, as well as the plywood to cleat joints are fully gasketed and have screws every 6 inches outside of the gasket. The battery box is fully fiberglassed up to the floor level and is also fiberglassed to the hull. It was my intension from the start to maintain watertight integrity.

I do get water in the bilge. One leak was due to the lower rudder gudgeon. Now I think water is coming in thru the centerboard uphaul, which I will get to soon. But it's not much of a problem as it's not much water and I have an electric bilge pump, and I also open the bilge drain in the stern for the hilly ride home.

[GreenLake]

Jdoorly,

from reading your description of the various modifications I've gotten the impression that what you do is carefully thought through. So I'm not surprised to learn that you took this issue into account. But I wanted to make sure, because maintaining the watertight integrity of the DSII floor is something of a safety issue and others might not have tumbled to that detail from your earlier descriptions.

[jdoorly]

No problem. Excellent motivation BTW. As I move from senior moment to senior moment I appreciate the compass checks, and I don't want to steer anyone wrong. Keep it coming.

[hectoretc]

Hi Guys,
I've read in this thread discussion on maintaining the watertight integrity of the bilge area beneath the cuddy for floatation space retention, and then I've read comments about putting a large battery box as low as possible and comments about heavier centerboard materials to provide "righting" force which I associate to returning a capsized boat back upright. If I'm wrong on any of these perceptions, my question is probably invalid, but assuming I've not misunderstood what's being said...
If a DSII were to capsize, wouldn't the low floation of a sealed bilge make it harder to right it again? Wouldn't it almost be better to allow the bilge to flood and rely more on high floatation in and behind the seats and perhaps even built into the cuddy ceiling to want to help right the boat so then water can then be pumped or bailed from the cockpit (and bilge)?
I realize I must be missing something, but I'm not sure what it is...
Thanks,

[jeadstx]

Having weight low in the boat helps keep the boat from capsizing. I capsized my boat in March of 2010 while getting ready for the 2010 Texas 200. The boat stayed high on it's side. I kept the mast from going under and causing the boat to turtle. I've since added flotation to the mast head. I had trouble righting the boat until I swam it into shallow water where I could stand on the bottom. My righting problem in deep water in part was due to an outboard and a 28 lb. anchor on the side that was down. A battery box centered lower to the keel of the boat would help in righting. Flooding the flotation tanks would swamp the boat and it would depend on the condition and amount of flotation in there as to wether you would stay afloat. In my case, I was lucky when I capsized that my inner hull did not flood. After the capsize, I removed the inspection ports to check the flotation for water logging. From the time I had bought the boat until the capsize I had never checked my flotation. Just never occured to me for some reason. At any rate, when I opened the ports I found the previous owner had removed all of the flotation and didn't replace it. If the area had flooded my boat would have sunk. I have the area stuffed with flotation now.

John