Plumbing is Done

June 28, 2016   Hours spent building to date:  2,665

Between work for the Connecticut River Museum, the WoodenBoat Show and a fantastic lecture at Mystic Seaport Museum on the great Polynesian navigators, I haven’t clocked that many hours on the Tardis, but I did manage to finish all the plumbing.

The plumbing stretched out longer than it should while waiting for parts, but the actual work wasn’t bad, although it was the usual stuff of plumbing — contorting your body into tiny places to connect mysterious pieces with strange names.  As I’ve said before, I used Sea Tech press-together fittings that are sanitary and efficient, but hard to put together.  By using a lot of soap and chamfering the edges of the pipe, I was able to decrease the level of effort from Incredible Hulk to mere Superman levels, but I am still suspicious of the final result.  There are probably 60 connections on the boat, and there must be a leaker somewhere.

Recognizing that plumbing pictures are not the most visually exciting, I took the opening picture  of the Lieutenant River while visiting the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, home of the American Impressionists.  I had a brigade of plein air painters in back of me capturing what is perhaps the most painted landscape west of Giverny.  I thought, “Now why am I building a vessel to leave here?” and had to have an extra glass of Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc to perish the thought.

Final pipe runs up to the head and shower, down to the holding tank.

Head ready for the head.  Device on the left is the toilet flush mechanism. Box on the right is the shower. I’ll show you how it works when the head is in.