Fitting out a powerboat.

[Hal Forsen]

I've only got a few chores left before starting construction of my first solo boatbuilding project (Simmons Sea Skiff) and have already begun to gather materials and am looking hopefully at an early spring start.
I've read most all of the books recommended for boat BUILDING and have total confidence in my woodworking skills but as far as fitting it out I need a little help.
What books do you suggest for info on fitting out?
Stuff like lighting, motors and their mechanicals, bait tanks, that kind of thing.

Edited 12/18 for another chance.
Come on people!
Hey how about a little help here? There's not one decent book on this subject?

HF

[ 12-18-2004, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Hal Forsen ]

[Hal Forsen]

A Little Help please!
HF

[Alan Peck]

Boat catalog reading is a great source of information. Try Jamestown Distributors, West Marine, Boaters World, etc. They not only list products but give information on systems as well.

I also found that Teleflex Marine and Blue Sea Systems catalogs have great information on steering and electrical systems. I know you can download a Teleflex catalog and you can request catalogs for all the others through the internet.

Happy reading.

[Donn]

http://www.amazon.com/covers/0/07/009/618/007009618x.l.gif

[Steve Miller]

Hal, most guys opt to have the shop they buy the motor from install it and the controls. It can be tricky to do for a novice and bigger motors are heavy! You can usually get a deal on the installation when you buy the motor too. Check the shops in your area. This time of year they should have time to talk. The outboard motor mfrs should have installation manuals available too - check the websites or ask at the shop to see if they can order one for you.

[Alan Peck]

Forgot to mention. Perko has a very good catalog on navigation lighting and marine fittings.

[rbgarr]

Defender Industries has a catalog and may be online... also Coastal Marine.

[Bob Perkins]

I haven't seen a book on all of the topics, but I have this one.

Motor Installations (http://www.glen-l.com/books/b.html)

I just ordered my new inboard - Mercruiser this AM.

Book was a big help.

Good Luck,
Bob

[mmd]

Hi, Hal;

I compiled a fit-out list for your boat with the following assumptions:

* You will occasionally keep it on a mooring
* You will keep a battery on-board for starting/other electrics

The fit-out gear you will need, or is the law (L) for motorboats that go faster than seven knots and are between sixteen and twenty-one feet LOA, or that I recommend (*) is:

Anchoring & mooring
(L) 8-lb Danforth anchor or equiv.
(L = 50 ft) 100 ft. x ½” cable-laid nylon anchor rode
* galvanized steel 3/8” anchor swivel
* 10 ft. ¼” galvanized steel BBB chain
* two 5/16” galvanized steel shackles
* ½” galvanized steel eye
two 25 ft ½” braided polypropylene mooring ropes (ends whipped)
* three 5” x 20” fenders
* three 6 ft x 5/16” braided polypropylene fender ropes (ends whipped)
four 4” standard cleats (stern quarters, midships – pop-ups are nice, but spendy)
6” standard cleat (midships on bow – alternate is 5” bollard)
two 4” bow chocks
* 4 ft floating gaff
3/8” stainless steel U-bolt bow eye

Navigational lighting
(Lets be clear here – the legal requirements are one thing, what is reasonable is quite another, IMHO. I have two beefs, both stemming from my sea-time and not from any design considerations. Firstly, fashionably small lights placed low on the boat are legal, but their visibility is compromised. After all, the whole idea is to be seen before it’s too late for that huge trawler to take reasonable evasive action. My recommendation is therefore to mount the required lights as high as reasonable on your boat. Secondly, though it is legal for motorboats under 21 ft LOA and traveling at less than seven knots to only show an all-round light, it is damned difficult (especially in a crowded anchorage) to determine if your boat is moving or merely at anchor. C’mon, be spendthrift and spring for those side running lights and make it easy for everyone else to understand what the hell you are doing out there in the dark!)

(L) all-round white light (* mounted on pedestal on roof or on windscreen frame)
* red side light (mounted at top of side windscreen frame)
* green side light (as above)

Convenience lighting
* Two livewell courtesy lights (mounted up under forepeak and under aft deck)

Misc. electrics
Battery switch
* Two 12v dash-mount receptacles
* 12v plug-in gooseneck map light
* 12v million-candlepower search light
waterproof 3-circuit fused switch panel (Blue Sea Systems makes a good ‘un)
* splash-proof six-switch panel (all-round light, running lights, courtesy lights, bilge pump, accessories, spare)

Bilge
* 500 gph bilge pump
* float switch
(L) hand-operated bilge pump or bailing device

Command & control
* Illuminated compass
Steering system – cable or hydraulic; SeaStar sells a full hydraulic package with everything except wheel for outboards
Steering wheel
Engine control (if not included with engine) I’d suggest a single-lever type with clutch lock-out

Emergency & firefighting
(L) 5 lb ABC fire extinguisher
* runabout first aid kit
(L) floating waterproof flashlight
(L = one) Pair of oars
(L) Six hand-held flares
(L) Sound-signaling device (aerosol horn, whistle, etc.)

Lifesaving
(L) Lifejacket that fits for every person aboard
(L) Boarding ladder (if freeboard is over 20”)
(L) rescue throw bag
* thermal survival blanket

[Bruce Hooke]

I think the book(s) you are looking for really break down into a number of very different categories of books. For example, for electrical systems the book Donn recommended would probably be excellent, but this book will not, of course, help much with the mechanical aspects of a motor installation.

Many of your questions might best be addressed through a book on seamanship. "Chapman's" might be one place to start. This will provide more detail on the kind of gear MMD recommended. Chapman's and other good books on seamanship and boat handling should cover most of the topics that someone who did not build their own boat would still need to deal with routinely, which would include much of "fitting out."

[mmd]

Oh.

You wanted a "how to install" not a "what to install" reply.

Oh my.

Where to begin?

Most of the mechanical stuff comes with installation instructions. The electrical stuff is pretty simple, so a book such as the one Donn illustrated is pretty good. For mounting deck hardware & such stuff, the WBF archives and the oft-bumped FAQ threads are good resources.

[rbgarr]

"Where to install" as well as "how to install" is important, and that seems to be part of the equation we're being asked to help with.

Things to consider in something like a Simmons are secure/accessible storage of safety equipment, weatherproofness/visibility (of gauges, electronics) in sunny/bad conditions, unobstructed deck areas (for footing), seating/standing areas for fishing/maneuvering/general comfort, cleat location for mooring/docking/towing. The list goes on.

I've never seen a book (or magazine article) address those topics comprehensively, and it may be because boats and owners vary so from one to another. Cardboard mockups can be helpful, though.

[Bill Perkins]

Hal , nothing as good as looking at the boats and talking to the people that own them . You can do this at a symposium that happens every fall in South Carolina .Dozens of the boats are shown in the water there . They mostly have been used for decades and the outfitting has been thouroughly figured out .

Here's pics from the year I went .

Simmons Skiffs (http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4291376151)

MMD , I grabed your fitout list , so it won't go to waste .I was unclear on how the two switch panels mentioned interact .

[ 12-19-2004, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Bill Perkins ]

[mmd]

Bill, I'm a fool for fine control. Referring to the schematic below (basically, the system I referred to in my monster post above), discrete items or systems are controlled by switches at the helm. The switches are grouped by system and each system is controlled by a fused curcuit breaker on a breaker panel located in a dry, out-of-the-way location. The whole electrical system is controlled by the main breaker at the battery. If you want to shut down the whole electrical system, turn off the battery switch. If you want to leave the boat on a mooring overnight, switch on only the bilge/all-round light breaker, making it impossible for a short in one of the other systems to disable your bilge pump and light. In the morning, row out to the boat and switch the all-round light off but leave the bilge system powered by merely flicking one switch. Power up everything at the breaker panel and you have fine control over what is powered via the switch panel. As a bonus, a three-breaker panel plus six-switch indicator panel is about fifty bucks less expensive than a six-breaker panel only.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid150/pa384362caa89a86e051f8b4d2755551a/f5daffa5.jpg
.
.
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P.S. - would any of the 'how to post pictures' gurus care to instruct me on how I can control the size of the images that I post here from ImageStation? The above diagram would be much clearer is it were a bit bigger.

[ 12-19-2004, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: mmd ]

[Bruce Hooke]

mmd,

I think your best bet in terms of sizing pictures is to size them before they even get to ImageStation. If you open the image in pretty much any image editing program there should be some way to change the size of the image.

Also, changing to black lines on a white background would, I think, make that image a lot easier to read...

- Bruce

[Donn]

It's a fairly simple matter to size your pics as you post them, with HTML 'img src' tags instead of UBB 'img' tags. You can specify height and width with HTML, and you can even post a thumbnail that can be clicked for enlargement.

<IMG border= "0" SRC= "http://www.cojoweb.com/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg" width= "200" height= "100"> ("")
<font size= "-10">(click image to blow up thread)</font>

[Venchka]

I saw no mention of Hamilton Marine, Searsport, ME. Printed catalog, online catalog, online ordering, best of all, toll free ordering when you get to talk to the nice folks in Maine.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[mmd]

Bruce, the picture is as it comes off my AutoCAD screen. I'm not going to go through the bother of changing my screen settings, line settings, and colour settings to whip out a simple illustration.

As far as picture sizing, the uploads to ImageStation are all over the map, size-wise. The above one was uploaded as a 926 x 536 pixel (12.86 x 7.44 in.) 72dpi jpeg image. It gets re-sized somewhere between me and the ImageStation file. I'll noodle about with HTML imaging to see if I can find a solution. Have patience, I'll probably mess up a few times. redface.gif :rolleyes:

[Donn]

A concise primer on HTML tags can be found here. (http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/master.html)

[Noah]

Let's try this

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid150/pa384362caa89a86e051f8b4d2755551a/f5daffa5.jpg

Hmmm, it looks like the image was uploaded at a smaller resolution, or at least that's what image station is saying...so when I used html to blow it up it gets pretty fuzzy.

[ 12-19-2004, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: Noah ]

[mmd]

Noah, you have discovered what I have been bitchin' about for some time now, though it is unrelated to ImageStation. I have yet to find a procedure to enable me to convert AutoCAD graphics (.dwg or .dxf files) to a format sutable for e-mails, insertion in word processor documents, etc (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, and so on) that retains the level of clarity of the original AutoCAD image. What you see is the best I've been able to come up with so far.

[Bruce Hooke]

MMD - It's obviously not that important for this, but if you are looking for a solution for emailing drawings in professionally important situations I would be inclined to try the following:

Option A:
Get Adobe PDF (the full version not the free reader) and "print" your drawings in PDF format. This is very effective and while it does not allow for direct posting on the forum, if you can get the file up on the web somewhere you can link to it from the forum. Of course you may already be using this solution.

Option B:
Export the file from AutoCAD in a vector format such as EPS or DXF. Bring this into another software package that is more oriented towards images (PhotoShop would be ideal, but other lower cost solutions would probably do the trick) and then from there save the file in GIF format. One key point is that good image software is much better at rendering readable text at low resolutions than other more average software tends to be, or at least that has been my experience.

Option C:
If file size is not a big issue, such as with insertions into Word documents, then I would definitely try using either EPS or TIF formatted drawings.

[Noah]

BTW, Bruce is right on with the saving of the file as a .gif, not as a jpeg.

Basically .gif's are a simple vector formula. The compression format looks at each line, and simplifies it as much as possible. IE if an image is 128 pixels wide, with each pixel a different color the .gif formula would have to mention each color separately.

If 127 of those pixels are black, it will just say 127 black, one white, or something like that. This leads to much faster and smaller file sizes.

For picture images .jpg's are much better, because they don't have to list every pixel, they establish gradients.

Anyway...back to boat stuff. And I hope that I explained this so it makes some sense. Bruce is also correct that using Photoshop you can open up AutoCAD drawings and export them in higher rez renderings. I would think that AutoCAD should have a better export function built in though. Can you export at 300dpi?

[mmd]

Guys, you're ringin' the right bells, but the tune is still out of key...

The procedure that results in the currently unacceptable results is as follows:

1.) In AutoCAD, use the saveimg command to save the screen image as a .tiff file (options are .bmp, .tga, and .tiff; I tried saving as a .bmp file, but there was no appreciable difference in image quality in later stages).

2.) In PhotoShop, open .tiff file, crop as necessary, and saveas a JPEG (to cover multiple application insertions, such as ImageStation, MS Word, e-mail attachements, and MS Excel) at maximum image quality setting. At this stage, the JPEG file image quality is as good in PhotoShop as the original AutoCAD display.

3.) Upload JPEG file to ImageStation. This is where the image resolution deteriorates.

4.) Link file to WBF posting so all can see the fuzzy image.

[Noah]

Hmmm, I haven't ever used image station, so I don't know how it uploads, but here are a few other ideas:

1: With Photoshop you can open .dwg files, which I believe are AutoCAD files. When opening them I'm pretty sure Photoshop will ask you at what dimensions you want to open the file. For screen stuff do it in 72 DPI, and a reasonably screen size, 800 X 600 or what ever.

2: Keep importing the image the same way. In Photoshop go to "Image" then "Image Size" I have a hunch that it is already a 300 dpi image. When you are uploading it to image station it is making it smaller because they will only show 72 (screen rez) images. Try converting the image in Photoshop to 72 DPI, and the size you want, and see if Image Station will take it.

3: Do the above, but in Photoshop before you save the image use "Save for Web" which will apply the compression algorithm of your choice to the image. In this case .gif, but you can use .jpg as well. Maybe the file is too large uncompressed, and ImageStation is trying to do it for you, and being stupid.

Good luck!

[Bill Perkins]

Well in any case I've been able to print out a (barely) legible diagram .I clicked on Noahs enlargement, but it printed as the original small posting . I had to resize it at this end before it would print big ( used up all the black ink in my printer-damn ).

If the separate switch panel is significantly more compact than a fused switch panel I would go this route on aesthetic grounds .I've got a ground plate for my plastic fuel tank .Should I ground the battery to that as well ?

[Bruce Hooke]

MMD - It sounds like ImageStation is the problem, and I can't help you there -- I don't use it because I have my own web site.

I would suggest trying a GIF in the future. All the things you are doing with a JPEG should also be possible with a GIF, and for line drawings there is a good chance that the file size will be smaller too.

For what it's worth, in my experience line drawings are one of the hardest things to deal with in digital raster formats. So, you are not alone in this! My father was running into lots of problems trying to get good results when scanning printed graphs.

[mmd]

Maybe I'll just go back to the old stand-by...print the durned thing out, lay it on my drafting table, take a photo of it with my digital camera, and post the photo.

But there has to be a better way.... :rolleyes:

[Bruce Hooke]

Yes, there MUST be a better way. :D I've found that trying to photograph line drawings and get good results is a real pain in the neck!