A below decks shower on an Alden Challenger?

[TomY]

I can't see a good configuration of the head to supply a shower, anyone have any ideas? I installed a 6 gallon HW heater which works well off the heat exchanger. It supplies H/W to galley, head as well as a cockpit shower. We use this to shower on deck or in the cockpit. We use a curtain of sorts but usually find ourselves alone. Marginal I know but my experience with below deck showers hasn't been much better.

I drew my boat on CAD showing small changes I have made as well as some that differ from the original Alden plan. This is the original head layout which I have not changed.

Any existing showers or plans, ideas?

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeofej4/site ... /cabin.jpg

 

[Whit]

Great job Tom! I have to rebuild my head and now I have another view. Yours is similar to mine, except that I don't have any type of vanity. Did you see the pictures of BlackStar?
I also have thought about a shower. I saw a nice one on Nigel Calder's NADA. He had a small bathtub for his kids with a tiled shower. I wonder if there is enough head room. The obvious spot would be along the forward bulkhead. Knock out that step that the toliet sits on, there may be enough room. Move the toliet to where your sink is currently. Maybe a folding sink on the aft bulkhead? I guess some kind of sacrifice would have to be made. I would want a pan under the shower so that the soapy water is not running through the bilge. Sure would be nice to take a warm shower and then sit by the fire.

 

[Dave Richardson]

Excellent drawing. Tom, thanks again. I've learned from every photo-or drawing posted. I'm also pondering a shower. Both Christmas and Black Star apparently have the door to the v-berth closed off. I don't see that as an option for me.
Essay's sink is in the aft-port corner, the toilet just forward of center and beside it, a little forward of center. No counter, no vanity. There are circular shower curtains available. It would be crowded but it might work. The problem is the drain. The existing drain into the bilge would be my first option, though obviously not a good one. But it seems that a pan, and a pump (I have a thru-hull available in the head) would still leave wetness.

 

[TomY]

Maybe a shower could fit? These ideas have me thinking.

I noticed the BlackStar photos did have a different arrangement. Is the door into the vee berth an original design?

If a seperate area could exist forward, could it be sit down? It's going to be small but many showers exist in smaller boats. Our head compartments are not that small.

Most are of the get the whole head soaked variety, they work but are kind of a nuisance to clean up and the constant dampness takes a toll. The question is which ones are really worth doing.

A pan would be a must but I don't see that as a real difficult project. We have the depth below the floor. In the future, I will try to draw the head compartment to full scale. Two cross sections as well, one fore and aft and one athwartship will help scale pan depth, deck , headroom, width etc. In the meantime, maybe some other ideas will be added.

 

[TomY]

Everyones ideas have me thinking.

I still have my doubts. I've cropped the floor plan down to better scale the head compartment. If the head were moved to the sink location and a shower set up along the forward bulkhead.

Idealy for me, it wouldn't serve as a shower or look like one except in it's rare use. In it's normal mode, could the basin be next to the head and forward?

Then it would close off enough to fully contain water in the forward half of the compartment, the basin would then be in the "shower" during use. It may mean sit down, sort of. A partial floor to ceiling bulkhead coming from forward of the mast and angled would partially close that end. Another shorter floor to ceiling between the head and sink basin? Maybe the half round curtain idea or could a folding door work?

The pan would be below the grate which would be at floor level. Curb?

I still have my doubts but there are good ideas on this thread.

Here is the head compartment-I'll try to put these ideas in there.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeofej4/site ... s/head.jpg

 

[TomY]

Here's one idea. It might work for small short people.

This leaves the compartment open still. New short bulkheads between head and sink and forward mast. Bifolding door stays against bulkhead, grate is at same level as floor for normal sink use.

For rare shower, pull bifold out, step in and fold second door to stop against curb around shower pan under grate. Sink is built for water spray, easy to clean and drain the small area, stays open for ventilation.

I've drawn a 10 by 20" block of shoulders. Head room may be a problem, its tiny inside. On the other hand, for the rare use(I would still use the deck shower mostly), it would contain the water and drain to seperate pump and out sink drain.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeofej4/site ... shower.jpg

 

[TomY]

This plan is not very exciting.

In the end, what bothers me most is the Challenger is all wood below. An "all wet all over the head compartment" type shower would require ripping all the woodwork out and building a fiberglass boat, typical head compartment inside. I don't find that very appealing as the head is used all the time onboard but not for showering. These all wood compartments are quite nice.

One improvement to this drawing would be to have the bi-fold doors lock with an angle out into the head increasing the shower area. You pull the set out to lock, then step through the small opening-close the other half of the door.

The grate at sole level would have to be shaped to this angle.This would allow alittle more elbow room but at that point maybe the whole head should be turned into a shower.

Any ideas out there?

I'll put the idea on the back burner for now. This excercise reminds me of why I prefer a deck shower.

 

[Anonymous]

Tom, we've got the shower in a wood-interior boat, original. I looked at the situation in Alarm (a clean slate there), and I've paid some attention to more recent boats. I think you'd be ill-advised to modify so heavy-handedly as to try to build a separate shower; there's insufficient room, and none to spare. Fatter, more recent boats like a Pearson 36x have nice separate showers which are marginally big enough, all fiberglass inside and so on. Brewer-designed Morgan 38s are bigger than ours, too, and the separate shower is miserably small and a tripping hazard at the sill. Our Le Comte has a lovely all-wood head and a shower; there's a fiberglass pan under a lovely teak grate which, I think, is piped to the deep bilge (which I don't think you have). In any case, that's a lousy detail since hair and soap sludge will not help the bilge pump; better to have a sump and accessible separate pumped into a handy through hull. The Challenger and the North East 38 share the unhappy detail of the mast running through the head (cold, hard to seal to).

Negatives to cure on the N E 38 and to avoid with whatever you folks decide to build: figure a way to shunt all shower water down the sump rather than down bulkheads and the mast; that stray water will ruin the maststep, the wiring, and find its way up into the wood through the endgrain in the bilge. I had been ruminating on building an upper pan, 'flashed' (as roofers say) to bulkheads and to the mast (like a deck collar). Adding to the problem is ensuring good ventilation under such a watertight floor, and access. We have a shower curtain which, if you use it, directs most water past the counter and the throne, but it's pretty yucky to touch and tough to grab something through it. We wipe all the surfaces down and that seems to be sufficient for what shows. One way to cure the ills of the wood in water is to coat the wood everywhere in epoxy; I did a bathroom floor in antique heart pine and it's perfect after 5-6 years. Two layers plywood subfloor with the top surface covered in epoxy, the pine bedded in that epoxy, then all sanded out and coated. The wood is encapsulated. Tough for you to do now, Tom; easy for David on Alarm.

 

[TomY]

Thanks. The LeComte38 and the Challenger have alot in common

and I appreciate having your experience on the board. I'm even more content with my 1958 design of the head compartment on my boat now after attempting an improvement. Outside of the cabin is the best place on this boat to take a shower.

 

[TomY]

One more possibility for a seperate shower stall.

Ted Brewer has a very interesting(for arm chair boat designers like me anyway) article in this months Good Old Boat. In it he studies several head/shower layouts used over the years in various boats from the smallest head arrangements up. A couple of seperate shower arrangements have me thinking. This is drastic but possible:

Many vee berths have been converted to doubles on one side. It may be possible to convert the Challenger vee to a double on the starboard side, they are huge vee berths. This could be an improvement in itself for some.
Entrance and sole space would be tricky.

Once that's done(no small task), the seperate shower stall could be added forward through the bulkhead into the forward cabin. Possibly following the bulkhead line and cabin line for a trapazoid space. It would have a small sole area and a seat outboard. This would be a contained-moisture proof-space-a bottle so to speak with a sump and pump to head sink?. Bulkhead entrance door oval shaped to stoop and step over with a simple curtain. Seperate port.

At any rate, this would allow the head to stay large and not subject to constant moisture. It wouldn't detract from the existing head and if the new forward cabin could be improved, an overall plus. No small task. At some point I may try to draw it in to see what the arrangement could look like. Not being a livaboard I have little interest in performing something this major but someone else may.