Sailing and restoring #9874

Dec 2, 1997
8,708
- - LIttle Rock
because the MSD unit uses less water, I suspect that it's harder to get it pumped clean. After an initial pump-out, I usually add water to the tank, through the deck fill (with the water hose most pump-outs have), and pump another few times. It seems like it takes another 2-3x to get a mostly clear pump-out. I'm not sure how important that is, but it seemed like it might help avoid sludge buildup (@Peggie Hall HeadMistress might chime in and tell us).
Simpler way: Hold the "trapdoor" in the bowl open and pour a bucket of water down it during pumpout. Or use a hose unless getting a hose to it would be more trouble than it's worth. And use No-Flex Digestor Noflex Digestor as your tank product...it not only does a great job of preventing odor out the vent, but it also digests/dissolves sludge.
--Peggie
 
Dec 2, 1997
8,708
- - LIttle Rock
Sep 30, 2013
3,538
1988 Catalina 22 North Florida
VERY Odd: https://www.thetfordmarine.com/us/product/porta-potti-550p-msd/ I just clicked on it.
I'll give my Thetford contact a call Monday to find out whether the replacement 365 is, or will be, available as an MSD version.

--Peggie
Peggie, I would be very keenly interested in that information. I was getting very close to pulling the trigger on either a 550P MSD, or its little brother - I forget the model, but it is/was an MSD half the size of the 550. (On the Albin Vega, my feet dangle in the air when I'm sitting on the 550P.) :biggrin:

@AaronD, I apologize for this brief hijack. This is a great thread, and I don't wish to sidetrack it.
 

AaronD

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Aug 10, 2014
723
Catalina 22 9874 Newberg, OR / Olympia, WA
@AaronD, I apologize for this brief hijack. This is a great thread, and I don't wish to sidetrack it.
No apology needed. I've gleaned lots of knowledge from the collective SBO wisdom; I was hoping to contribute something back - and it looks like everyone's learning a bit. Success.
 
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AaronD

.
Aug 10, 2014
723
Catalina 22 9874 Newberg, OR / Olympia, WA
Wow, that is great information and will be extremely helpful for this project. Thank you so much.
Have a lot of projects planed as soon as I can get the boat out of storage.

Install Mast Mount Antenna and Cable
Mount Bimini
Install Second Battery under V-Berth
Install new Garmin Echomap 74CV with Transducer. (Transom mounted transducer mounted as in-hull)
Install Raymarine St2000+
Install ProMariner 20 amp Dual Battery Charger
and now the MSD...

Hope I get to go sailing.....
That's quite a list! I'll post pics eventually of my take on a couple of those. And I'll be a little jealous of your ST2000+. But for the moment, I have plenty of crew, so I'll probably wait on that for a few years - at some point, the kids will decide they don't want to hang out with us anymore, and then an autopilot might be in order.

Where are you planning to mount your chart plotter? I've thought a little about where I might put one, and never come to a conclusion. It seems like it might be hard to read a 7" on the bulkhead from a comfortable helming position. I'll be interested to see your choices.
 
Sep 30, 2013
3,538
1988 Catalina 22 North Florida
Where are you planning to mount your chart plotter? I've thought a little about where I might put one, and never come to a conclusion. It seems like it might be hard to read a 7" on the bulkhead from a comfortable helming position. I'll be interested to see your choices.
We have a 7" Garmin 740s flush mounted on the bulkhead. It is easy to see while on a port tack, although on a starboard tack you do have to lean and squint a little. It took a really deep breath to cut that hole, but we have loved it from day one.

The Lowrance Mark4 came with the boat. We kept it a couple years for a spare (it did come in handy once!) but it has been removed now:

 
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Apr 11, 2017
571
Catalina C22 Solomon's Island, MD
Where are you planning to mount your chart plotter? I've thought a little about where I might put one, and never come to a conclusion. It seems like it might be hard to read a 7" on the bulkhead from a comfortable helming position. I'll be interested to see your choices.
A lot of people use a "swing arm" type mount - like used for a small t.v. on a wall. Mounted just inside the cabin on the interior bulkhead, so it can swing out into the companionway. I have a 9" mounted that way, and it's no problem viewing - especially if you're steering from the head of the tiller. I don't think a 7" would be too small at all, as long as you're at the head of the tiller - it's all individual though of course.
 
Sep 24, 2017
59
Catalina 22 #14720 Cheboygan
https://forums.sailboatowners.com/i...ass-mounting-suggestions.185963/#post-1381484

At the above link, Gene posted a couple of pictures of a simple DIY swing out mount. For ease and cost purposes, something like this seemed like it would work for me. Not brave enough to cut the bulkhead like Gene did.

Yeah, the 7 inch is a little small but the prices seem to go up exponentially for every inch of display size increase. (Size doesn't matter...Size doesn't matter...Size doesn't matter)
The 7 inch was what fit my budget. Its sunlight visible and can drive the tiller pilot. Via the Wi-Fi feature, our larger pads will show the same info and can be kept close at hand although less sunlight visible. Hopefully the Bimini will help.
 
Apr 11, 2017
571
Catalina C22 Solomon's Island, MD
A disadvantage of the swing arm is it can block the companionway a bit. On the other hand, depending on the mount, you might be able to swivel it as well, depending weather you're sitting on the port or starboard. Both ways have their advantages really.
 
Dec 2, 1997
8,708
- - LIttle Rock
Peggie, I would be very keenly interested in that information. I was getting very close to pulling the trigger on either a 550P MSD, or its little brother - I forget the model, but it is/was an MSD half the size of the 550. (On the Albin Vega, my feet dangle in the air when I'm sitting on the 550P.) :biggrin:
If you like the 550P MSD and can still find it at a retailer, buy it! It's not like buying a discontinued chart plotter...It has no moving parts, so very little to wear out or fail. Make a nice little boarding step for your feet. If you're creative enough it could even fold down. You wouldn't be nearly as happy with its little brother...it only holds 25 flushes..a stretch for two people aboard even for a long weekend.
--Peggie
 
Sep 30, 2013
3,538
1988 Catalina 22 North Florida
A disadvantage of the swing arm is it can block the companionway a bit.
An even bigger disadvantage comes when the weather gets snotty and you need to put the crib boards in. ;)
 
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Sep 30, 2013
3,538
1988 Catalina 22 North Florida
Here is something we tried very early on, as I searched for an alternative to cutting the big ol' hole.

I found it a little cumbersome to use and to step over, so it went by the wayside. But here it is anyway ... someone else might like it. The good thing about it is, you can easily try the concept with any old piece of scrap wood:

 

AaronD

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Aug 10, 2014
723
Catalina 22 9874 Newberg, OR / Olympia, WA
Another good point. I'm limited to 1 crib board basically.
Thanks all for the thoughts on MFD locations. Thus far, we've just used iPads, but an MFD is on the 'maybe someday' list, so I'll keep those thoughts in mind. My 2012 iPad was getting painfully slow, so this year we'll try a 2016 iPad Pro; supposedly the Pro's screen should be a little more usable in sunlight too.

FWIW: I have really appreciated Navionics' crowdsourced 'SonarChart' sounding details, and refer to it constantly while entering and leaving a few skinny-water gunkholes. I can't quantify the accuracy of their soundings, but it seems to have matched my own depth sounder quite well, at least in our normal cruising areas.
 

AaronD

.
Aug 10, 2014
723
Catalina 22 9874 Newberg, OR / Olympia, WA
Bow Roller and Anchor

Here's one for Monday morning; it was a few years ago, but might be of interest to a few C-22 owners.

IMG_0763.jpg


Breezy came with 2 anchors, both unbranded Danforth-styles, one of approximately 7 lbs and the other of 9. And she had about 4 feet of chain and 75 feet of nylon rode. None of those seemed up to our intended cruising grounds - i.e., the South Puget Sound, where the bottom varies and the tidal range is often 15-20 feet.

Thoughts and Goals:
1) If I'm going to anchor out, I want to sleep soundly. So I wanted a larger anchor and one known to set reliably.
2) I felt like having a solid anchor ready to set quickly is an important safety feature; I didn't want to have to lug a bucket up from the coffin and attach it if we ever need to anchor in a hurry.
3) The existing bow roller was too small to hold even a small fluke anchor without dinging up the bow, and definitely couldn't handle a larger model.
4) We needed a lot more rode to handle 15+ foot tidal swings.

Anchor: I looked at Rocna, Mantus, and Manson models (all with roll bars), and settled on a 15-lb Manson Supreme - $185 from West Marine. I honestly don't recall everything that motivated that choice. All three have huge advocates. @Maine Sail had good things to say about all of them. In the end, I think a West Marine sale (with free shipping) was a part of my final decision.

Roller: I selected a Lewmar 66840008 roller, $136 (https://shop.sailboatowners.com/prod.php?12147). It normally mounts with 3x 3/8" bolts, but I needed to mount the stem fitting inside it, so I had 4x 5/16" holes drilled (off center, to shift the headstay a bit away from the shank of the anchor). So the 4x 5/16" bolts replace 1 of the spec'd 3/8" (as always, backed up with G10 inside). At the time, I didn't have a drill press, so I had a shop do this alteration for me. Even though I have a drill press now, I still might do the same. The slowest speeds on most consumer drill presses is marginal for 5/16" in SS. And it would require expensive bits; so unless you have plans for other projects that justify tooling up for big holes in stainless, this might be a good thing to outsource ($60).

The roller fits the anchor perfectly; the only problem is that the roller is wider than the space between the bow pulpit's front supports. I raised it up just a bit on a 'bowsprit' made of King Starboard - with cutouts to fit the Starboard around the pulpit mounts. See the close-up picture, and try to ignore all the mess of butyl tape I haven't cleaned up.

The Starboard isn't structural, just a lift to get the roller up over the pulpit mounts - the stainless holds all the load. If I were starting over, I'd probably use some G10 or structural FRP instead - I've since read @Maine Sail's admonition that Starboard is notoriously difficult to seal, as nothing (including butyl tape) sticks to it. It appears that mine is sealed OK, so I'm not going to remove it until I have to, but if I ever do, I'll probably replace the Starboard.
P3220101.JPG P3250121.JPG IMG_2390.jpg

Chain: Traditional wisdom seems to be that a small crusing boat should carry a short length of chain, followed by traditional nylon rode. Different sources recommended either 2/3 or 1 boat length of chain (or around 15-22 feet for us). In my normal paranoid fashion, I considered the recommendations for 2/3 - 1 length, and comprimised - on 1.5 :).

30 feet of 1/4" G4 chain: $96. G4 is stronger than G3/BBB/Proof chain in the same size, so I went with a longer length of 1/4" instead of a shorter length of 5/16". The weight is comparable, and we have a longer leader of chain on the seafloor, and thus (hopefully) a little better resistance to abrasion.

Rode: I didn't want to worry about an unknown manufacturer, so I went with New England Ropes (I also buy and trust lines from Samson, FSE Robline, etc., but I didn't trust a random eBay line). 250' of 1/2" 3-strand nylon = $177 - at the time $.71/foot seemed like a good deal. If I were starting over, I think I might be able to beat the price. And I'd go for 7/16" - 3/8" seems a little small to me (just over half the strength of 1/2"), but 7/16" is nicely between and should fit in the chain locker a little more easily. If I could find it, I might go for 7/16" plaited rope (like NER's Mega Braid or Mega Plait, although I don't think they make those in 7/16"). They're really intended for use in a windlass, but I think they might also slot more smoothly into the locker with less twisting and kinking. But the 1/2" is working for now, so I'll stick with what I have (I believe @thinwater had some useful comments here recently on his blog, but I can't find it now).

Notes:
As I noted in when discussing the bow rebuild, I went up from 6" to 8" bow cleats. They're rock solid, mounted through a half inch of G10. But there's not a clean fairlead for the anchor rode through the bow roller to the cleats alongside it. So I mounted a third cleat, directly behind the roller. The rode leads nicely through the roller to that cleat, and when the anchor is on the roller, I can wrap the chain tightly around it as a chain lock. It's a bit smaller than the bow cleats (to fit the available space), but it's easy to back up the connection to one of the main bow cleats as well.

When traveling, the cleated chain keeps the anchor in place, but I usually also support it with a couple bungee cords, to keep it from bouncing and rattling while trailering or sailing. So far so good (the bungees degrade in UV and have to be replaced every year or two, but they're pretty cheap).

I remounted the hawsepipe (if you look closely at the rear of the roller, you can see part of the original location, filled with fiberglass and with some really messy gelcoat over it. Someday I'll learn to do gelcoat right and clean that up.

I've read horror stories about using the bow space on an old-style C-22 as chain locker. It's worked OK for us thus far, but I'll probably someday glass it in, seal it with a waterproof hatch, and add a drain (making it a bit closer to the anchor locker on a new-design). That will also add a few cubic inches of space for our rode, and make it easier to get back into the locker. Maybe you'll see that project described someday, but don't hold your breath.

In the meantime, I have no complaints about the setup. The Manson sets smoothly; not that I have much experience for comparison, but I'm happy with it. The roller helps squeeze water out of the rode as it comes up, so we don't get quite so much water on deck or in the locker (for the moment, since our locker doesn't have a drain, I usually bungee the wet rode on deck to dry for awhile before stuffing it back in the chain locker).

With 30 feet of chain and 250 feet of nylon, we have about 275 feet of rode overall (after splices). That should be adequate for 8:1 scope in about 10-11 feet of water at low tide (+3 feet of freeboard to the roller) even with a 20-foot tidal swing (which would put us at ~33 feet including freeboard). And if it chafes a bit near the end, I can afford to resplice and lose a few feet without replacing the entire rode.

I learned that you always want to ensure that the bitter end of your anchor rode is securely attached to the boat. Thankfully, I didn't have to learn this lesson from my own experience - proving that I do (on rare occasions) learn from others' mistakes. But (you do remember that I'm paranoid, right?), I also wanted to handle a situation where we might need to disconnect quickly - e.g. from a fouled anchor. So I secured the rode with a short piece of sacrificial 3/16" line - in a pinch, I could cut that quickly, whereas the 1/2" line might take longer, even with a sharp knife. The 1/2" is secured to the sacrificial line with a large stainless carabiner - if we ever had to drop the anchor, we could quickly clip it to a fender as a float and cut the sacrificial line. At least, that's the theory - I hope never to test it.

Cost: ~$675
Anchor: $185
Chain: $96
Rode: $177
Roller: $136
Drilling: $60
Hardware: ~$25
 
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AaronD

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Aug 10, 2014
723
Catalina 22 9874 Newberg, OR / Olympia, WA
VHF System

@SV_GALATEIA : You mentioned that you have an antenna wiring project coming up. On the chance that you haven't done that already, perhaps this will help you a bit. As always, the safest plan is to read my description and do the opposite. :biggrin:

P3250118.JPG


It actually wasn't hard to choose a VHF - about the time we started looking, Standard Horizon introduced their GX-2200, with integrated AIS receiver and built-in GPS - the internal GPS receiver means it can do DSC and AIS without a separate chart plotter. To my knowledge, prior to this unit, you could choose a model with internal AIS or one with internal GPS, but not both. There might be a better option now, but we've been happy with the 2200.

Some previous owner had clearly mounted a VHF on the cabin ceiling, just ahead of the starboard bulkhead. That seemed like a reasonable place, so I stuck with that location.

Hailer Horn: Like many other fixed-mount VHFs, the GX-2200 supports a hailing horn. We'll never use it for hailing, but might someday want the automated foghorn functionality - it can do all the required fog sounds (horn, bell, etc.) I couldn't find a smooth place to mount the horn that wouldn't snag sails and sheets or interfere with stepping / unstepping the mast, so I wired it for quick setup as needed. It lives in the V-berth locker and will mount to the mast with a cinch strap if it's ever needed (with a little neoprene on the base and a trailer plug to connect to the VHF).
P3250120.JPG

Coax: I used Times Microwave LMR Ultraflex 400, primarily for its 1" turning radius. Admittedly, my inner geek was probably seduced by its incredibly low loss specs too (0.8 dB/100'), but that's actually not hugely important for a 25' mast. In retrospect, LMR-240-UF (which I didn't find at the time) would probably be a better choice for a C-22. Higher loss, but less weight up high, and about 2/3 the cost. For a bigger boat with a longer mast, the LMR-400-UF is definitely a good option. I bought coax, connectors, and a crimp die from DX Engineering.

See @Maine Sail's instructions on coax connectors at https://marinehowto.com/easy-vhf-terminations/. I ended up using Amphenol crimp-only connectors, but his crimp-and-solder recommendations are probably better.

P3260137.JPG P3260135.JPG

I used a Scanstrut deck seal to get coax through the deck. I did find a coax-specific through-deck. But if I recall correctly, it was designed for a thin deck, so I would have had to cut out a sizable hole in the cabin liner, mount the through-deck on the deck skin only, and use a PL-259 connector in the cabin. The cable clam sytem with a little pigtail on the deck seemed cleaner inside the cabin. Scanstrut makes both plastic and stainless models. In the PNW I've just used the plastic models, but down south, the stainless would probably be worth the extra cost.

Coax connectors are usually (perhaps always?) male, so there's a female-female adapter on that pigtail. When we splash for the season, I usually seal that connection with self-amalgamating tape or shrink tubing. Either is pretty easy to get off at the end of the season, but you wouldn't bother for just a daysail or a weekend.

Cost: ~$600
--VHF w/Hailer Horn: $363
--Coax: $75
50 feet of LMR-400-UF. I think I had ~10' left over. 40-45' would be fine for the
--Coax connectors + crimp die: $70
Ampenol AMP-182130-10 connectors (I needed 4, but bought 8, just in case)
I believe LMR-240-UF would require the AMP-182115-10 instead
--Scanstrut deck seal: $21
--Wire, crimp connectors, etc.: ~$20
--Antenna: GAM SS-2: $55 w/mount
 
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