Shower just about finished.

April 20, 2011July 15, 2014

I have made some excellent progress this past week or so. I needed to, I am going away for Easter. I am just waiting on a plumber to fit my kitchen gas pipe now before I can finally glass the black tank in behind the bathroom side wall and then the side wall on. So the port shower is pretty much done.

I have glassed the back shower wall doorway into the boat. I have also glassed the curved stairwell cabinet into the boat. I did not glass the lid on though. I have decided that I may one day need to access the plumbing of the grey tank, not so much the gravity out pipe-work but more likely the rubber hose that pumps the water into the tank. So in order to get to it I would rather not have to rip the top out and make a new one so I am going to hinge it into the boat so it can be opened. The back and sides where the join would be visible will be under or behind the wall lining on 2 of the 3 sides which will stop it opening (so in order to get in I will have to remove the wall linings but they are removable anyway) so only one edge will be visible. So with that cabinet finished its back onto the bathroom.

Behind the shower is the laundry, and there are a number of water and power requirements to this area so there was a need to plumb and power that section via conduits. I could have run them behind the black tank but that would have had them entering and exiting inside the kitchen cupboard, in a difficult spot to get to easily. Ideally you want conduits to be dead straight so you can remove and replace or add new power cables or water pipes easily. That ruled out behind the black tank, there is some room in front of the black tank (but behind the shower side wall) but that would have them exiting above the bathroom vanity top and another feature you want is the wiring and pipes hidden and not obtrusive or intrusive.

So the solution was to run some conduit across the shower. And to hide them it occurred to me that in a moving boat standing on one leg to clean your feet or shave your legs is fraught with danger and the solution of hiding the conduit provided a solution to the danger of standing on one foot in the shower. A small step down the shower side that we can rest our foot on to make life safer and easier, especially for Jo.

And today I cut the side wall panel to size and dry fitted it. With the door in the doorway and the side wall on, the dimensions of the shower are able to be appreciated. The shower we have at home is 800mm x 800mm. The floor of the shower in the boat is 800mm wide (across the hull) x 1000mm deep. I made the shower 1000mm deep because the shower is actually 1000mm wide at the top of the chamfer panel and chine panels on each side of the hull so making it 1000mm deep made sense. So except for the base the shower is 1000mm x 1000mm. Its great to be able to build better into our boat than we have at home.

When making the side wall of the shower step (cover of the conduits) I debated whether to make it angled to match the hull side angle and keep the existing shape of the shower or to make it upright (plumb) 90 degrees to the floor. In the end I decided on plumb because I didnt want to eat into the shower floor real estate that would have been necessary to maintain the mirror image angle of the hull sides. And with the plumb shower side wall in, which sits directly atop the footrest top it does not look out of shape. It does not match the outer side of the hull so is no longer mirror image, but it looks ok even though it is not the same angles. Jo is also happy that she will be able to put shampoo and soaps on that shelf and being a cat, they should stay there!

I have ordered the water pipes. I am going with the Whale clip together system. I have read good reports on it being a very good system. I will have blue pipes for cold water, red pipes for hot water and green pipes for water from the watermaker to the water tanks. Those 4 conduits, 2 are for water into the laundry to the washing machine, laundry sink and hot water heater and water out of the watermaker to the tanks and hot water from the laundry to the kitchen, shower and bathroom. The other 2 are power (I used grey conduit for power, white conduit for water but it doesnt really matter they are all the same size), one for 12v for the watermaker, the underwater light, the rear step lights and the deck wash pump. The other is for 240v into the boat from the shore power in to the inverter charger, and 240v coming back from the inverter for the washing machine. I will also have 12v into the inverter charger coming from the wind gen that will sit atop the mini mast that will be mounted in the aft of this hull (there will be a matching mini mast with the radar dome and aerials (vhf and gps) in the other hull). I have been told that for safety and insurance reasons, 240v must be in separate conduit to 12v, so I have done that, and in these separate conduits, some wiring will be sending power (or water in the water pipe conduits) in each direction. So there is a lot of traffic through these conduits.

Behind the shower side wall will also be 3 copper conduits that will carry the sail halyards from the mast post to the rearmost bulkhead along the chamfer panel. If not for these halyard conduits I would have mounted the shower side wall from the top of the chamfer panel, adding about 50mm to the width of the shower but in the end hiding these conduits is paramount and the shower is already bigger than the one we have at home now so I cant complain. And also behind this wall is the black water in and out of the black tank (from toilet and to through hull exit skin fitting in sump) and a salt water in hose also from a skin fitting in the sump to the water maker. So in all there are 11 items passing through the bulkhead in this area, the 11th being the copper gas pipe for the cook top. Its busy! But all hidden.