The pilot house is heated with the diesel furnace, and a blower unit with five ducted outlets. Three of those ducts go to the front windows, as heaters/defrosters. When we got to the boat, we found that the factory had hooked up both of the remaining ducts to the grill you see on the right. I wasn't sure that the unit could force all the air it puts out through that grill, plus I'd rather have more places where warm air can come out. We talked through the possibilities and decided that it would be possible to duct across the back of those drawers and add a grill as you can see this tech getting ready to do. The interesting part is that shortly before this area was taped off, the techs were having a heated discussion, pardon the pun. The first decision was to put the grill (and box for the duct behind it) at the floor level. When the guy that built this cabinetry arrived to cut the hole, he flat out refused to cut it there. Because then it would be at a different height than the one on the right. The other techs remarked that the ducting would require a lot more work in order to accommodate his location. (I'm getting the translation from Chinese, right?) He continued to refuse and then the other techs realized they had lost and had to figure out how to do the ducting, which they did, and he proceeded to cut out the hole. At left you can see the completed new duct. The blower unit I mentioned is shown inside this cabinet on the right. The added a false floor there to protect the duct when someone has to climb in there to work on electronics. (It's much larger than it appears in this image.)
I'm so thankful the HYG techs care so much about the boats they build.
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Following yesterday's post about storage. Recall a few days ago I said the factory had put a shelf all the way across this space. This is where we intend to have a waste basket, so that shelf wouldn't work. And, the factory had thoughtfully made us two teak cutting boards, that fit exactly in the sink space above. It's a great idea (why didn't we think of it?). But we didn't want to cutting boards to just sit there and then to get at them you have to move the other kinds of things you have under a kitchen sink. So they built this awesome unit so that each cutting board has its own space. And we don't lose any storage. Above the pressure washer real is a nice little space. With a new shelf there I think it's the perfect place for some cleaning/washing items. This cabinet was always part of the plan. Great little unit in the cockpit in space that would otherwise not be utilized. Plus we have a nice little countertop.
Everyone knows you cannot have too much storage on a boat. With Mahalo being a large boat, both length and volume, of course we are fortunate with storage. But hey, more is more! This is a cavernous space underneath the VIP bed. Yes it has some ducting and AC equipment, but there's a big space too. One of the other owners gave me the idea of adding storage there. I wanted to have them build kind of a grid thing which would just sit on some tabs. It would be easy to lift out to service the equip. But I wasn't really able to get that across. So they built a large box and screwed it in place. If (when?) we need to service that equipment, removing seven screws allows us to take the box out. I don't have a measurement for you, but that's a queen sized bed so you get the idea. In the third stateroom, there are two twins. One of them can slide over to the other to make it like a double. This is the sliding bed, with the two drawers. Our Hampton rep Scott Hauck noticed that we could utilize the storage space there, even with the bed sliding, if they added some bases. At the factory, say it and it is done. I didn't know how they make these beautiful shiny pieces. They start off as marine plywood. And then get seven coats of poly urethane paint. Visiting the paint shop for these parts. When they are done they look more like a block of Corian than how they started as wood. Perfectly smooth and shiny.
BTW, a lot of people assume one reason to build boats in China is that they can just pollute the environment and use a bunch of toxic materials. China is in the business of shutting down all polluting industries. Tens of thousands that can't meet new EPA (that's what they call it) regulations are being leveled. HYG has invested huge sums in scrubbers and all manner of VOC containing equipment. I really believe in 10 years Shanghai will be nearly pollution free. I have shown our beautiful doors in a previous post. They call this "diamond pattern" and our Endurance model will be the first with this particular style. Pretty incredible to see how they are made. At the factory, there are just a few women that have the patience and skill to select the veneers and make these beautiful creations. She cuts the pieces with a press, then fits them together with tape. When this outer layer is completed, it is bonded to further layers of marine plywood (in that press you see in the back) to create the main element of the door.
Each veneer layer takes an ENTIRE DAY to create. NAt last year's Trawlerfest, we attended a "Safety at Sea" seminar, given by Mark Bunzel of Waggoner guides. He told a harrowing tale of a PNW cruising couple. The husband fell into the water. He was able to make it to the boat's swim step. But he wasn't able to crawl out. (You would have to be like a college athlete to accomplish this.) His wife wasn't able to do anything to get him out of the water. Eventually hypothermia took over and he succumbed. I decided when I had a boat I would make sure this would not happen to anyone on our boat. We would have to have a swim ladder that can be deployed by someone that wasn't expecting to go swimming. Hampton boats have built in swim ladders. This is the first one I saw. To deploy, you twist that lock, lift up that hatch, then lift-pull the ladder and put it in the water. I judged the success of doing this from an in the water position as less than zero. We wrote it in our contract that the factory had to provide "a swim ladder deployable by a person in the water." Factory owner Jeff Chen said we would review the options and design our ladder while at the factory. This was the first iteration, and is how they used to build them before the "hatch" version. There are two small hooks which slide over posts. Then you put your fingers in that recess to pull out. Another owner had already told me he lost one of the hooks. The whole thing looked a little too delicate to me. Keep in mind this is constantly being splashed with salt water when underway. So all of us put our heads together. Of course I'm the only one that doesn't speak Chinese so there were lots of drawing and motioning. We looked at all the other latches on the boat. We decided that anything with a spring just wasn't going to work as it would rust and become fixed. After about 3 or 4 tries we had a design I thought was pretty good (was actually my idea). Also, I wasn't happy with the process of pulling the ladder out. Inside the frame you see is a box. There were two nylon blocks to kind of keep the ladder in place, but it was clunky. I asked them to add a long nylon blocks the entire length of the box, so that the ladder would slide better. I left them to go to work. A short while later Jeff Chen caught up with me and said "that one is not good enough, I have something better in mind." He showed me his idea and sure enough, much more simple and foolproof. A while later we visited the stainless shop to see the progress. They decided to take the idea of nylon blocks a couple of steps further and built channels with blocks into the box so that the ladder would remain perfectly oriented when sliding. Check it out in the video. Finished implementation. That teardrop shaped piece holds the ladder in. No springs, just gravity keeps it in place. To deploy from the water, you would get your hand on that big handle. With a finger, you swing the teardrop clockwise until it hits the stop. Pull out that ladder and climb on out. That's the idea anyway. I plan to try this out so I can see what it would be like should the unthinkable happen.
Factory owner Jeff Chen has engineering degrees from USC and Stanford. He loves to problem solve and make every boat better. I appreciate his commitment to building the boat the owners want. And in this case, a life may depend on it. |
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