During the course of my research into replacing the sanitation hoses and upgrading the blackwater tank venting, I had read some posts where owners said that they did not replace the tank vent hose because of access issues. Well, in my case, I decided to rectify this by cutting an access hole in the V-berth because I really wanted the smell gone and the vents properly done. The vent hoses on the tank are undoubtedly original and pretty nasty.
Accomplishing this was not hard, but I could see why some folks might be intimidated by the idea. The V-berth bottom is a couple of layers of glass with a foam core and four foam ribs. One goes up the centerline and two others run parallel to the skin of the vessel. lastly, there is one that runs athwartships just forward of the after access hatch. The first thing I did was measure from the after access port to the forward edge of the tank and drew it on the painter's tape. This gave me an idea of where and how big the hatch should be. Next, I figured that the port and starboard edges of the new port should be about an inch inboard from the ribs. To detemine where the inner edge of the outer ribs were located, I used a tape measure and gauged the distance from the edge of the after port out to the rib. I generated three points and then used a straightedge to extrapolate this forward to where the port will be located, and offset this inboard about an inch. The forward and aft lines were just a guess to make sure I had plenty of access to plug the old vent port and cut the hole for the Uniseal.
The cuts are not pretty, but I wasn't concerned because no one will ever see this except me and it is about function. Also, be advised, that I wore out three jigsaw blades in the process.
One question I have is what does one use to clean out all the black nastiness in there?
Accomplishing this was not hard, but I could see why some folks might be intimidated by the idea. The V-berth bottom is a couple of layers of glass with a foam core and four foam ribs. One goes up the centerline and two others run parallel to the skin of the vessel. lastly, there is one that runs athwartships just forward of the after access hatch. The first thing I did was measure from the after access port to the forward edge of the tank and drew it on the painter's tape. This gave me an idea of where and how big the hatch should be. Next, I figured that the port and starboard edges of the new port should be about an inch inboard from the ribs. To detemine where the inner edge of the outer ribs were located, I used a tape measure and gauged the distance from the edge of the after port out to the rib. I generated three points and then used a straightedge to extrapolate this forward to where the port will be located, and offset this inboard about an inch. The forward and aft lines were just a guess to make sure I had plenty of access to plug the old vent port and cut the hole for the Uniseal.
The cuts are not pretty, but I wasn't concerned because no one will ever see this except me and it is about function. Also, be advised, that I wore out three jigsaw blades in the process.
One question I have is what does one use to clean out all the black nastiness in there?
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