Posted by lance_ryley (lance_ryley@…>)
I’ve been hemming and hawing about redoing the instrument package on
Bright Star, ever since an owl or osprey or something landed on the
wind instrument and broke the mount and the anemometer arm. Well,
Jack Rabbit’s clearance prices were too good to pass up, so Bright
Star now has a full set of tacktick wireless instrumentation,
including the nmea interface. Since one of the spring projects is to
replace the decrepit and non-functioning autopilot, the whole
shebang should come in handy. of course, nothing’s getting installed
until the spring when I can pull the boat, but it’ll be fun to start
the planning, including removing miles of wiring no longer needed.
In addition, now that my wife is living aboard, the 12 gallon
holding tank is no longer adequate. The easy (and cheap) solution
would be to just bypass it (yes, yes I’m joking). So instead, Bright
Star is getting a new 15 gallon holding tank (Sealand HTS15-HRZ
should fit without having to sawzall out my entire head
enclosure), transfer pump, Electro-scan (updated replacement for the
venerable Lectra San), and hold-n-treat. I know there are other
systems out there that fry your waste or compost it, but after a
couple months of hard thinking on it, I decided this is the way I
want to go. It gives a lot of flexibility to the system:
- The new holding tank has two outlets, one to the deck and one to
the electro scan. I’m going to plumb the system so that the head
goes directly to the tank. This eliminates the need for a y-valve
anywhere in the system, since the transfer pump will pump through
the electro-scan system. - Inside 3 miles, the hold-n-treat will take care of the transfer
of treated waste. - Outside 3 miles, the transfer pump can pump waste straight
through the the lectro-scan without treatment (the only advantage
here being one of power management - Bright Star plans to treat
whenever possible). - The hold-n-treat has a key system to shut it off entirely when in
a zero-discharge zone. While this doesn’t completely exonerate an
individual from responsibility, it does appear to be a well-designed
and well thought-out system.
By making these changes, I think Bright Star will not only become
better as a liveaboard, but also on extended cruises with more than
two people. We had four when we went to Maine, and getting pumped
every 3-4 days became a bit of an issue in some areas.
I’ll keep you all posted on progress as these projects go forward.