Life Aboard: Upgrades to Escape

We have made lots of improvements and upgrades on Escape. Of course when I say “we”, I really mean Shay. He has been very busy.

Below is a list of some of the major projects he has worked on summer 2011.

Removed the 4 8D starting batteries so he can work on the outboard side of the engines.
Installed 1 8D starting battery just inside the port transmission, which starts both engines.
Replaced a failed salon heat pump.
Moved the fire extinguisher to the back wall to the right of the battery charger. He had to move the battery charger 2" to the left to make room for the fire extinguisher. All this was done to make room for the new house batteries and inverter.
Installed a new house bank of 6 AGM 8L16 batteries on the shelf where the fire extinguisher used to be. This gives us 1245 amp hours at 12 volts which translates to lots of power.
Installed new 2800 watt inverter/charger that charges the house bank at 130 amps. The old charger still charges the generator battery and starting battery as well as the new house bank.
Installed a remote house bank monitoring system, that can also remote control the inverter and charger.
Reduced the size of the generator start battery from an 8D to group 31.
Installed new dual Racor engine fuel filters.
Installed a fuel transfer pump with a Racor filter to make a simple fuel polishing system that can also be used to move fuel from one tank to another.
Installed a large raw water wash-down pump and plumbed it to the bow so we now have fresh or salt water to clean the anchor chain. The new pump does a very good job of pumping lots of water at a high pressure.
Converted all the interior lights to LEDs.
Installed a new WIFI amplified antenna and wireless router. We can now get WIFI from miles away.
Removed fluorescent light fixtures in the engine room and replaced them with very low profile fixtures. Lots of light and very low profile which means fewer things to bump into.
Put a piece of plastic lumber under the swim platform to make it harder for the dingy to get under the platform.
Installed a TV in the bedroom.
Installed a muffin fan that runs when the refrigerator is running to ventilate the cabinet housing the refrigerator.
Installed galvanic Isolator.
Installed 3 220 watt solar panels over flybridge bimini top for a total of 660 watts.
Reused cabinet from engine room to create new computer desk.
Installed a new bimini top and side curtains for our flybridge.
Finally figured out how to transfer waypoints and routes from Coastal Explorer running on PC to Raymarine chartplotter.
Got ready for a hurricane haul-out.

While the boat was out of the water for Hurricane Irene he did some more major projects.

Cleaned and sanded the bottom of boat and repainted with anti-fouling paint.
Compounded and waxed the hull from the waterline to the deck.
Cleaned old paint off props and recoated with Prop-Speed at $7500 a gallon. Luckily, we only needed 4 ounces!

When all this was finished we were exhausted and broke. All this work was for one reason… so we could start traveling again and head south for the winter.

This should have been posted when we left for Marathon, but I didn’t. That’s ok because now I can brag on some of the upgrades:

The solar panels have been fantastic. We went for 6 months without shore power. Usually when you tell someone that you also have to say, “but we ran our generator 2 or 3 or 4 or how ever many hours a day to charge the batteries”. We never HAD to run ours to charge batteries. We did run it just to make sure it worked and at first to heat water for showers. Shay did a temporary “fix” to we could heat water with solar, so after that, we only ran the generator every couple of weeks to keep it working. We’d plan something to cook in the oven those times to get the most we could out of the generator.
The new batteries and charger work together with the solar panels and made life on our boat great.
The fuel transfer pump kept our fuel clean and prevented fuel filter problems. We could also move fuel from the tank under our bed to another tank with a working site gauge.
The new placement of batteries made engine room work easier. We also got more storage space. He put removable containers where the batteries were.
The high pressure raw water wash down pump works great when bringing up the anchor. Most of the time when you bring up the anchor is has sand, grass, or mud on it. The old fresh water wash down pump had very low pressure, took forever to get the anchor clean, and used our fresh water. This makes the job faster and does a much better job.
Changing the lights all over the boat has saved money and in the engine room headroom.
The fan he added to the refrigerator space means the refrigerator runs less which means it uses less energy and will hopefully last longer.
The TV in the bedroom means if I want to watch something and he’s on the computer or phone I can go downstairs and not bother him.
All the cleaning, waxing, and painting made the boat move thru the water smoother and saved gas.

It was a long, hot, expensive time, but it looks like it was worth it.