Lithium Upgrade

I alluded to this project in an earlier post back in March, but it's finally completed and fully tested and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  When I first bought the boat I thought I would keep things simple and stick with lead acid for the house and starter batteries with a magnetic latch combiner for charging (came with boat), but the price of reliable Lithium Phosphate Iron (LiFePO4) kept going down and after a lot of research I made the decision to upgrade back in February.  

The battery bank was one of the last pieces of the puzzle for getting the engine going and testing all the systems I installed and it wasn't until 2 weeks ago that everything finally came together and got it all installed.  The heart of the system is a WattCycle 300aH LiFePO4 battery that would be responsible for powering all the house loads while I kept a sealed lead acid battery to power the engine.  As a general rule, you don't want Lithium batteries managing the engine because if the battery management system (BMS) has a fault, it can disconnect the battery from the engine and fry the diodes in the alternator.  So the Lithium and lead acid batteries are effectively isolated from each other.

The problem with this is that if the batteries are isolated, how do you get the alternator (or other charging source like solar or shore power) to charge the lithium bank?  The answer is a DC-DC charger.  I chose a Victron Orion 50 amp DC-DC charger that connects the 2 banks together and detects when the lead acid is being charged.  When it does, it starts charging the Lithium bank with a proper charging profile and manages the state of charge.  This way if the Lithium bank's BMS decides to shut the battery down, the lead acid battery will continue to take a charge from whatever source is charging and will protect the alternator.

The first step was to figure out how to fit all the components into the battery compartment underneath the quarter berth.  It needed to house both the Lithium and lead acid batteries plus the bus bars and fusing to support all the incoming connections and the DC-DC charger. I also added a Victron Smart Shunt that has a bluetooth protocol and accompanying phone app so you can see the state of the system from my phone.  It shows all the current loads, state of both batteries and the DC-DC charger reports if and how much charge is incoming.

After some careful measurements I built the entire system in my office with all the fuses and bus bars mounted to a piece of plywood to make sure it worked.  This all happened back in early March and at that point it was still too cold to actually install anything so the project was put on hold until warmer temps showed up in NH.  

When the temps finally warmed up I was able to move the whole contraption over to the boat.  I mounted the plywood board with all the bus bars and switches to wood cleats in the compartment and started hooking up incoming wires.  It's sad that even though I labeled everything really well, I didn't quite trust myself and retraced all the wires back to their respective sources to make sure the labels were correct.  This consumed way more time than was probably necessary, but I wanted to make sure I got it right and didn't fry something because I was being stupid.  I also added additional ventilation to the compartment with some passive holes and a temperature controlled fan that turns on at 104 degrees F.

After I got everything installed, I re-labeled everything with proper tags and made a laminated diagram that sits in the compartment for future me, because I will forget everything and when it comes time to troubleshoot something I will be confused.  I hope this will help me.  After the installation, I was able to test every single circuit in the boat including the shore power and last week, I fired up the engine for the first time since it was reinstalled late last summer and I was able to confirm that the alternator started charging through the DC-DC charger.  

In other news, I contracted with a hauling company and the plan is to pick the boat up on June 24th and deliver it to Mattapoisett Boatyard.  After that I have a day or so in the yard to get the mast stepped and then the boat will be launched.  So the clock is ticking.  I have a huge backlog of projects that I've been working on and hope to get those posted in the next few days.  

Hot Water (I think)

This project has been weighing on my mind ever since I decided to locate the IsoTemp 20l water heater underneath the starboard settee.  I really liked the location because everything is easily accessible and should actually be fun to service (type A fun), but running the coolant hoses from the engine was a bit of a head scratcher because despite of the easy access, getting the hoses into the compartment and ultimately to the tank to heat the water with excess engine heat is not easy.

I've spent the better part of 2 years since I installed the tank (Water System - Check (almost)) thinking about it, but ultimately holding off because I wasn't sure. Well, I don't have much time left and if I want hot water this summer when I launch I had to figure it out.  

The first problem I needed to overcome was the fact that the coolant ports on the engine (in and out) are located in such a way that they would need to basically turn 90 degrees.  After a ton of searching online I found prebent (90degree turn) 7/8" silicone coolant hoses at an automotive performance shop near me.  From here I added 2 7/8" couplers and found a 20 foot roll of 7/8" silicone coolant hose on amazon.com.

I fitted the prebent hoses onto the engine coolant ports sending them down toward the transmission, then added the couplers and after some searching found a decent route to the hot water tank. I ran the hoses down alongside the transmission and under the floorboards over to the nav station.

At this point I drilled 2 -1.25" holes with my holesaw in the bulkhead between the starboard settee and the nav station.  The bulkhead is 1/2" marine plywood with a layer of glass mat on both sides and was pretty sharp, so I needed to come up with a gland/grommet for each hole that would allow the hoses to pass through without chafe.  

I fired up the CAD system and designed a pass through grommet with rounded edges so the hoses wouldn't rub on the sharp fiberglass.  I printed them up with the 3d printer in safety orange (mainly because that was what was loaded into the machine) and printed them up.  Once finished I took them over to the boat, fitted them and then glued them in with 4200 sealant.  

I left them overnight so the sealant would cure and the next day came back and snaked the hoses underneath the nav station and through the holes into the water heater compartment.  The coolant hose ports on the water heater are 1/2" male npt, so I had to come up with a solution to make the connection to the 7/8" ID hose.  I finally came up with the following: 1/2" female npt to 3/4" female npt followed by a 3/4" male npt to 7/8" hose barb (I really hate pipe connections, it's never simple).  

Anyway, I taped and installed the fittings on the water tank side and finally connected the silicon hoses with hose clamps.  The last thing to do was fill up the hoses with coolant so there is no air in the lines to create an airlock. I did this by taking the hoses off the couplers just after the 90 degree elbows and pouring coolant in on one side until it came up to the top of the other hose and then reconnecting everything.  All told, the full circuit from the engine to the water tank is about 14' and should be within the limits of the coolant pump.  Hopefully this will work, but I won't know until I run the engine for a bit once it's in the water to see if the water heats up.  Crossing my fingers, but I can cross this job off my list for now.

Tides Marine Sail Track

Putting a new main sail track on the mast wasn't really in the original plan but because I used heavy duty triplex wiring for the mast, the original wire channel covers (see green circle in schematic) were going to be a really tight fit. Additionally, the existing track was a bit banged up and knowing that the sail is hoisted from the cockpit, there would be a lot of friction in the system that could make it hard to raise or lower the sail.  My previous boat (Alberg 35) had a very old external sail track and a wire halyard and the effort involved in getting that sail up and down was exhausting. Not something I want anymore and a new sail track would give me less friction and more space for the wiring since it would effectively replace the existing cover.

I spent a fair amount of time researching, and most of the low friction systems on the market are just insanely expensive and way out of my price range. A friend of mine told me to take a look at Tides Marine and after reading many, many reviews and speaking with one of their technicians for over an hour, I decided to pull the trigger.

In a nutshell, the Tides Marine track is a extruded HDPE plastic track that slides into your existing track (or over depending on track type).  The first step in the process is to request a fit kit from Tides Marine.  It's free and is a clever way to get exact measurements for your particular mast with a series of plastic discs to capture the proper width and depth dimensions so the track can be created.   The first set of discs are for the slot width and uses the letters A-R to set the width (mine was N). The second set of discs are for the slot lip thickness and uses 1-8 to determine the thickness (mine was 8).  The only other thing to measure is the track length in feet and the distance from the distance from the gooseneck to the top of the mast gate (6.65").  I gave myself a little extra wiggle room and ordered 40' of track even though the luff on this boat says 38'.  I put the order in online and less that a week later a big hexagonal box showed up at the house with the track and nice stainless steel sail slugs (I counted the number of slugs on the mainsail including the headboard).  

The next step was to get the gooseneck off the mast because you need the space to slide the track into place.  This proved to be quite a challenge because the gooseneck was connected to the mast with stainless steel phillips head machine screws (maybe #14) and it probably had never been removed since the boat was first launched in 1986. Stainless steel and aluminum don't mix very well and they were locked together spectacularly.  I tried a big screwdriver with zero luck then hit it with PB Blaster (also no luck). I spent 3 days giving it regular squirts of PB Blaster and tapping the fittings to introduce some vibrational stress and still they wouldn't budge. Next, I hit them with a torch and more PB Blaster and finally got 2 of the 8 screws to back out, but the other 6 were stuck. I considered using my impact driver that I had good luck freeing up engine bolts, but my concern was because phillips head screws can easily be stripped out and once the are, the job becomes a total nightmare.  

What I did find was a manual impact driver online that you hit with a hammer and it rotates a quarter turn.  I ordered it and with the help of more PB Blaster and the propane torch I was able to free up all the screws without destroying anything and once I got the gooseneck off, I was free to proceed with the rest of the job.

I waited for a reasonably warm day (65degrees F) so that the plastic track was a bit more pliable and my wife and I got to work.  She held the new track like a hula-hoop and I fed it into the old track gate.  Initially the track was hanging up on gate, but I took a metal file and smoothed out the edges and after that it was just a matter of sliding it up to the top of the mast and fixing the bottom (new gate) section onto the old groove with a t-nut (or something like a t-nut).   

I'm excited to see how smooth this track is (I've heard good things), but the few tests I did with the new sail slugs were incredibly smooth and 'slippery'.

Mast Wiring Complete

It's finally starting to warm up a bit, although not as much as I'd like but sufficient to get back to work on projects.  One of the final projects to tackle before the launch this summer is the mast and although the bones of it are sound, a lot of work needs to be done before it's ready to stand up.  All told there are 5 mast projects that need to be completed (or are completed).

1. Masthead removal and rebuild - completed: here
2. Wiring - this post
3. Mast track - Tides marine sail track
4. Rigging tang installation
5. A good scrubbing

When I bought the boat, the wiring was in sad shape and need 100% replacement. I left a lot of it in place after I dismantled the masthead so I could use it as a guide when it came time to replace it all.  Also, the original fixtures were incandescent which drew significantly more power and consequently, heavy gauge wire.  The good news is that the new fixtures I'm installing are all LED and can use 16 gauge wire instead of 12 gauge in the original, giving me more room in the mast tunnel for robust wiring (it's tight, see schematic with tunnel circled in green).  In total there are 4 fixtures that need wiring in the mast: the VHF antenna, the anemometer for wind speed, a combination tricolor/anchor light at the top of the mast and a combination steaming/foredeck light located mid mast. 

Since the VHF and anemometer cable have already been determined (Raymarine for the anemometer and radio antena physics for the VHF), I needed to find some robust 16-18 gauge wiring to send power to the tricolor/anchor and steaming/foredeck lights.  I could have gone with 18 gauge to keep things smaller, but I only want to do this once and I want it to last so I purchased a spool of 16 gauge triplex bilge wiring that should satisfy my needs. The reason for triplex wiring is that each of the fixtures has 2 positive leads and 1 common ground so that each function on the fixtures can be controlled independently.  The final reason for choosing the triplex bilge wiring is that is it beefy and should stand up to many years of abuse hidden in the mast.

Installing the steaming/foredeck light was pretty straightforward and the mounting holes were a perfect fit with the original fixture (including the genoa guard).  The tricolor/anchor was slightly more complicated and I'm glad I pulled and rebuilt the masthead unit last year and hadn't reinstalled it, because I needed to find a slightly different mounting location for the tricolor/anchor (the mast never had a tricolor on top before, just an anchor light).

I found a good location on the masthead where it was out of the way of other equipment on top and allowed me to use the same hole to pass the wires through so that they didn't interfere with the halyard sheaves.  after I tapped new screw holes and mounted the light, I decided to test it before reinstalling the whole assembly and while I had tested it when I pulled it from the box and everything worked fine, once it was mounted, only the tricolor worked unless I tilted the whole masthead at an angle. I decided I must have caused a short or loose connection when I mounted it, so I took it off and pulled the whole unit apart and re-torqued all the connections, but it was still intermittently turning on and off.  Next I put the tricolor light in the anchor socket and the anchor light in the tricolor socket and the anchor light was still acting funny.  I thought, "Ah, it must be a bad LED bulb" and found the serial number online and was just about to order another one when I noticed in the specs that this bulb had a light sensing diode on it, so it only turns on "Dusk to Dawn".  Duh... 

Sure enough, when I located the diode and put my finger on it, the light turned on and back off again when I took my finger off.  As it turns out, when I initially tested the fixture out of the box it was nighttime. When I tested it after I mounted the whole fixture and thought it was related to the angle it was tilted, it was actually because I was tilting it away from a window causing it to darken enough to turn the light on...  Moral of the story: "I am an idiot", but it was nice to find a new feature on the light that I hadn't expected.  The fixture as sold does not come with the "Dusk to Dawn" diode, so the previous owner must have replaced it and put it back in the box.  

With that revelation finally understood, I remounted the fixture on the masthead and took both fixtures over to the boat to get them installed.  I ran 2 lengths of triplex bilge wire from the base of the mast to each fixture and crimped the connections with shrink connectors.  Then I heated up all the connections with my heat gun to shrink the connectors over the wire until I could see the little squirt of glue coming out around the wire.  

The final part of the installation for the tricolor/anchor light was to run the halyard chase lines through the sheaves in the masthead (2 jib, 1 main) and tap the masthead back into place and bolt it on.  To test it all, I brought over a smallish 12v lithium battery and stripped the tricolor bilge wire at the base of the mast and powered up each function. I'm happy to report that after the silliness with the "Dusk to Dawn" diode, everything worked as expected (as long as I cupped my hands around the anchor light because it was still bright out).  

It's Been a Minute

It's been quite a cold and snowy winter here in NH and actual work on the boat has pretty much ceased until conditions improve a bit (it won't be long now).  I haven't been idle though; my office has become the official Velorum Skunk Works lab until I get back on the boat and I don't want to share everything yet because I want to get everything installed before I report back on it.  The office closely mimics the messy madness that resides between my ears. For now though, I'll just say that it is lithium related and includes a bunch of monitoring/charging goodies. More on that soon. 

I have been working on another project that I wasn't entirely sure I'd get to this year, but finding myself idle after the project mentioned above was finished I decided to go ahead and install the Maxwell RC8-8 windlass with capstan.  By install, I really mean get ready to install because there was (and still is) a lot of planning and design work to do before I start cutting holes in the boat.  After a lot of thought and careful measurements, I came up with a plan where I could build the entire mounting base for the windlass so when the weather finally does warm up I can essentially drop it in and wire it up.  

After a lot of research on other Niagara 35s with windlasses, it was clear that I would need to elevate the windlass up off the deck to be able to meet the correct vertical angle (+/- 6degrees) between the windlass and the bow roller.  I could have just glued a few pieces of plywood together, epoxied it up and called it a day, but I wanted something that looked like it belonged there, didn't stub toes too bad, and still allowed me to keep both hawse pipes on deck for an additional rope rode that could be hauled on the capstan.  

As always I like to incorporate CAD designed parts where I can and the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking of creating a 3d printed mold that would follow the shape of the windlass. Initially, I was going to use the dimensions of the holes from the mounting template that is supplied with the installation manual and create a shape that approximated the windlass base in Autodesk Inventor, but my son (who is much better at Autodesk than I am) reminded me that you can import a scanned image of the template, scale it so the dimensions are correct in Inventor and then build the shape off that. So, that's what I did.  

I ended up sizing the inside dimensions of the mold 1/2" larger all around than the actual windlass base and then extruded the shape up 1" to make a mold that I could then use to make an epoxy and 1708 biaxial fabric part that could be machined.  Once I was satisfied with the dimensions, I added a bottom layer and sent it off to my 3d printer (Bambu 1PS) to make the mold. About an hour later, I had the mold in hand and went over to the shop to make a sticky mess.  

Because of the size of the part, I didn't want to fill the entire mold up at once to keep the part from going exothermic and cooking itself, so I did it in 3 separate sessions allowing each layer to partially cure before proceeding with the next.  During each layup I added 4 layers of 1708 biaxial cloth along with a healthy dose of West System 404 high density filler. I expect it will be plenty strong and much cheaper than 1" thick G10 plate.   Once I finished the layups, I let it cure for a few days before starting the machining.  The first step was to round over the top edges so there would be no sharp edges that I would invariably kick and stub my toes once installed.  I used my router with a 3/8" radius roundover bit and did it in 2 passes to make sure I didn't get any tearout from trying to remove too much material at once.  

Next I taped the template onto the routed out part and drilled out the three 3/8" bolt holes so the windlass could attach.  For the two big holes, I needed to use a hole saw.  Unfortunately, I have been using Lennox hole saws for years and have accumulated at least 12 sizes and a variety of collets over the years, but to my knowledge, they don't make metric so I had to settle on a 4" bit for the motor cutout and 2-7/8" for the chain cutout.  They were both about 1mm larger than needed, but shouldn't be a problem.  

With the main part completed except for sanding an paint, I took a template (actually the gasket) over to the boat and used it along with a piece of carboard to use as a template for the second part of the base.  This will serve 3 purposes:

1. The base plate (I have some leftover 1/2" G-10 plate) will be epoxied to the deck to spread the load across more area of the deck.
2. It will cover the old hawse pipe hole.  I will fill this hole with epoxy and cloth, but since it will be covered I won't have to make it pretty and paint the filled area.
3. It will raise the entire assembly up another 1/2" and make the vertical angle to the bow roller more fair.

I used the carboard template to cut out the shape of the G-10 plate and then rounded over the top edges with the same 3/8" roundover bit.  I gave it a rough sanding and then epoxied the molded part in the same orientation that I marked with the gasket template.  After the full assembly cured, I used the drill and holesaw cuts on the molded part as the template to cut out the holes on the plate.   

I was happy to find that my measurements were spot on and was able to dry fit the windlass on the part without any modifications.

After a thorough sanding with 80 -> 150 grit sandpaper I primed the assembly and followed up with a few initial coats of 1 part topside paint.  I won't do the final painting until its fully epoxied onto the boat, but I wanted to get some of it done so I can just apply a few finish coats once it's on the boat.  

I'm hoping we will start to get some warmer weather in the next week so I can start working on prepping the deck for install.  Think spring!

The red are the sharpie marks I used to trace the template onto the 1708 biaxial cloth

 

  

 

Government Silliness (Warning: Contains Bureaucratic Nonsense)

For six months or so I've been attempting to get Velorum federally documented with the US Coast Guard.  It's not a requirement, but I've always documented the larger boats I've owned for a few reasons:

• The boat needs to have the documentation numbers permanently affixed in 2 places and it makes the boat a little easier to identify if stolen.
• You don't need to sticker with state numbers (although you generally still have to pay for the state registration).
• Makes it easier to check into customs when arriving in another country. I currently only have Canada on my radar, but dare to dream!

So the process is just slightly more streamlined now than when I last did it in 2007 or so, but only because you submit paperwork online instead of through the mail.  Unfortunately, it still takes them up to 60 days for each submission (and each subsequent re-submission and re-re-submission).  It's a whole lot of waiting around.  

My attempts began last June when I submitted the original application.  The application included all the general boat specification details along with a bill of sale and title.  I paid my ~$200 and hit submit thinking how easy it is now that you can submit online.  On August 20th I received and email from the National Vessel Documentation Center (NVDC) and found no Letter of Documentation and only an attached 'Letter of Deficiency'.  Apparently, I submitted a new application, but what I didn't know was that the boat had been previously documented as 'Morning Star' in the 1990s, so I had to submit a transfer application, pay another fee (just for documents this time) and reapply.  

In September, I got another email from NVDC.  Another 'Letter of Deficiency'.  This time they rejected the application because the title did not have clear chain of custody from the originally documented owner to me.  Since the previous owner who was listed on the title had passed away and had willed the boat to his friend, the NVDC needed something legal that showed that the boat was 'willed' to his friend (who sold the boat to me).  

Fortunately, the previous owner's widow was kind enough to supply me with her husband's Last Will and Testament so I submitted that as proof that the boat's ownership was transferred legally (along with another filing fee). Wishful thinking, because about a month later I received yet another Letter of Deficiency.  The new reasoning for denial was because and I quote:

Our office is in receipt of the Last Will and Testament of xxxxx; however, a will by itself does not transfer property.  If the will went through the probate process and an executor or personal representative was appointed by the court, please provide a copy of that document. The document must be certified by an official of the court.

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV, so I really had no idea what that even meant.  I asked the previous owner's widow and she couldn't find any probate documentation.  And just to really stick it to me, the NVDC needed the bill of sale to be notarized as well (why didn't they tell me that after the first submission).  At this point I thought I might be reaching a dead end and would have to settle for state registration and give up on federal documentation. Except....

In the last paragraph of the three page Letter of Deficiency there was the following sentence:

Please note if the vessel is state registered or state titled in the name of (Me) you may forgo submitting the above document and submit the state registration to start the chain of title. 

So as a last ditch attempt, I contacted the friend (of the deceased owner) who sold me the boat and asked if he could meet me and re-sign the bill of sale and get it notarized.  He was more than happy to help and we met up at the Hanover NH town hall on an afternoon in late October and had a notary witness our signing. 

The next day, I went to the NH DMV and registered the boat under my name with the bill of sale and paid another fee (~$150).  The clerk at the DMV was confused as to why I would want to register a boat with only a few month left in the year when the boat wasn't even in the water. I just told her it was a legal thing and I had to do it. She really didn't care as long as I paid my money and showed identification.  I went home and uploaded the notarized bill of sale along with the new NH registration on the NVDC site and hit submit thinking that I had probably wasted close to $500 for something that was never going to happen.

Fast forward to January 5th, 2026 and low and behold, I got a real letter in the mail from the NVDC.  Before I opened it, I figured they were just sending me a real letter telling me to stop bothering them and to stop submitting things to them.  However, when I opened it, there was just a single page... The Federal Documentation! No explanation, just the actual document.  Anyway, it's all just silly that the NVDC allowed a state registration to trump everything else even though it really didn't prove anything other than the fact that I drove to the DMV and paid them money, but I'll take it.

 

Odds and Ends

Happy winter solstice!  It has been too cold and windy to do much work on the boat over the past few weeks, but I did manage to knock one small project off the list.  When I purchased the boat there was no sole in floor of the head.  It didn't matter for most of the refit but with the launch date getting closer (next spring/summer) it was time to put in a proper sole.  

I only needed a small 16"x21" piece of 3/4" teak and holly marine plywood, but I couldn't find anything that small and the thought of purchasing a full 4x8 sheet for $350 was just not an option.  Fortunately, a good friend of mine happens to own a boatyard and had some extra bits lying around from a recent project and gave me a nice chunk that would be perfect.  

Since there was a seacock and strainer in that section that would need quick access, I had originally planned on cutting an access hole in the panel, but I ultimately decided to have the whole panel lift out once I found some nice snap latches that would keep the panel in place until I needed access.  This ended up saving a ton of time cutting, fitting, and finishing an access panel in the sole and only required me to use a hole saw to cut out the latch mounts.  On the other side of the panel would be 2 'lips' that fit underneath the fiberglass so once I un-do the latches the whole panel hinges up.  

I cut the panel to size, installed the latches and 'lips' and brought it over the boat for fitting.  After a bit of work on the edges to round over the underside of the panel I brought it back to the house where it was warm and started varnishing.  2 coats on the bottom and edges followed up with 10 coats on the top.  On the top, I sanded between every coat with 220 grit paper.  All told it took me about a week to build up the finish to a silly level of shine (and protection).  

So that's about it for this year, but I'm already working on the next and almost the last project.  The battery power project where I tie all the systems together so I have a starter battery for the engine and a lithium battery for the house bank that will power all the circuits in the boat.  I had a system design in mind, but I decided to hire Owen Murphy from Meridian Marine to vet (and improve) my design.  He has been really great to work with and seems to be a happy medium between fully designing and installing a system (lots of money) and helping a DIYer with good design best practices so I can confidently install the system myself.  The really cool thing about Owen's business is that he is currently sailing in Fiji on his 34 foot Crealock, but he is very responsive and easy to get a hold of.  Stay tuned...