Other projects... Marine toilet

So while I wait for epoxy on the hard dodger to kick...

The composting toilet so far is working well and while I have a couple of ideas for improvements it is most certainly a success. On the other hand I'd love to have learned about the Gardiner CH4 (LooWatt) project by Virginia Gardiner which takes the idea of a composting toilet and hits a home run!

Buckminster Fuller was all about getting the most from materials and resources so it is not a real surprise that the LooWatt project was a finalist in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge.




This is the way we all should be thinking...

On the subject of a better toilet...

Something interesting about Cuttlefish, on the subject of essential workers, and a much missed Hunter S. Thompson discussing gonzo...

I recently noticed that Separett has recently introduced a non-composting toilet that makes a whole lot of sense and is getting a lot of buzz in cruising and van-living circles.

Tiny Installation from Separett on Vimeo.

As it's pretty much the same design as the toilet I built for "So It Goes" more than a decade ago, I'll vouch for the fact that the simple system works just fine. On the other hand, with a price tag of over $1000 it is way more expensive than it needs to be and, as such, brings P.T. Barnum's most famous quote to mind. 

Seriously, $1000.?

The basic system is just a bucket, a bottle, a means of separating the feces from the atmosphere, and a method of  diverting the urine into the bottle. which could all be put together for around $100 and the cost of whatever box you'd choose to house it all in,

As it happens, Sail Delmarva (always a good place for excellent information) has a great post on his new non-composting desiccating head which you really should check out.

Listening to Tenacious D

 

So it goes...

What thirty used toilets for sale can tell you...

The problem with creating crime, an interesting read, and, just maybe, a glimmer of justice in the works...

I used to work in a marine consignment store... It taught me a lot.

In the main, people brought us gear that they were replacing and, for the most part, people don't replace gear unless it is problematic, has issues, or is defective in some way or other.

That can tell you a lot about equipment...

For instance, we had a lot of marine toilets but the lion's share were toilets of the macerator sort. Folks were always bringing them because they were tired of owning a toilet that failed on a regular basis with expensive parts that needed replacing so they'd bring in the toilet and buy a LAVAC.

Of course, we never ever had any LAVACs on consignment because they actually worked so well nobody ever wanted to replace them...

I expect there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Listening to Flogging Molly

So it goes...

A quick note on DIY composting toilets...

Chuck Wendig saying the needful, some nuclear insanity, something of interest to anyone with Garmin gear on their boats, and just another link in a chain...

The only difficult/pricey part of a DIY composting toilet being the urine diverting bowl as everything else can be put together for next to nothing. The two urine diverting options everyone tends to use are the Privy and the urine separator by Free Range Designs.I recently noticed that the Free Range Designs unit now ships free to anywhere in the world bringing the cost of the urine separator to somewhere around $36 (compared to the Privy at $129).

Good news. Now it's possible to build a better than commercial composting toilet for less than a hundred bucks total.

So, maybe it's time to get rid of that MSD, a couple of through hulls, and the nasty holding tank?

Listening to some excellent covers from 2016

So it goes...

I am so tired of TLC and new frelling toilets...

Simply heartbreaking but hey all's fair where profit is concerned, how drug money greed justification mirrors the gun industry, and stuff from/about ten years ago...

The worst part of looking for a boat is how, in the parlance of Dr House, everybody lies...

"Sure, the boat's ready to sail away. All it needs is just a little TLC..."

The boat in question had a price tag that implied it was ready to go but a few questions to the owner about what TLC might actually entail it became obvious that my definition of "TLC" and the seller's were woefully far apart...

"So, what's it need?"

"Nothing it's ready to go...maybe some varnish"

"How's the engine?"

 "Oh, there isn't one but its got a brand new toilet..."

"How about the sails?"

"Well you'll need to get a jib but it has brand new running lights and wiring"

"OK, how big is the battery bank?"

"No batteries, I guess you'll need to get those"

"What about the rig?"

"It's great... but a rigger I know mentioned that you may need to do something about the chainplates..."

Hell, maybe it's just me but whenever I hear the words "Just a little TLC"  and "It has a brand new toilet" I begin to expect we're talking about the boat from hell...

Listening to Johnny Cash

So it goes...

A bit more on making money...

Anyone check out the Eurovision song contest (Romania had me the moment they picked up those angle grinders), on being screwed, and another cool Simmons...

Since we were speaking of making money while cruising....

Admittedly not everyone is going to want to make handlines or fishing lures and some might eschew the whole manual labor thing because it doesn't fit their self-image or are less than handy... What to do?

Well, a lot of folks gravitate towards doing the charter gig. What's not to like... The whole charter captain gig or charter chef has a certain romantic appeal plus you get to sail and someone pays you lots of money to do it!

As it happens, we have a charter business and we book and have booked charters for over a decade. We don't do charters on our own boat but we're an agent for boats that do... In other words, we're boat pimps.

It is a good job as it goes. We get to sell our clients fun and a great vacation but it is hard work because the charter industry, on a whole, is pretty seriously screwed. So, while we pimp boats the hard part is more of a match-making and keeping our clients away from the bad boats and crews exercise. Sadly, the charter biz is a great example of "Sturgeon's Law" (ninety percent of everything is crap.).

Of course, not everyone is cut out for the charter business and, for example, if you think being a charter crew is "romantic" well, you're already excluded from those who should. For a quick reality check think about the romantic appeal of rebuilding a marine toilet in a head that has had repeated incidence of projectile vomiting recently. Then factor in that the clients have managed to take down every toilet on the boat so you need to fix them all amidst a group keen on projectile vomiting...

A quick hint to charter chefs everywhere... BEWARE THE FROZEN SHRIMP!

Yep, and that's not even a worse case scenario...

There are a lot of reasons you should consider anything else but charter and they range from the simple (you may not be a people person) to the mundane (you're useless around boats) on to the very real fact that the charter guest from hell really does exist and they are legion (see Sturgeon's Law).

Listening to Boz Scaggs

So it goes...

Something about my other blog...

In the can't-say-I'm-surprised department, a dead simple composting toilet that anyone can build for nearly nothing, and something on the science of political polarization...

For anyone who's been paying attention, it's pretty obvious that I don't quite conform to the status quo on boats and cruising. I'll be honest, some days it just gets tiresome...

For instance, the new SAIL magazine has an article about refitting an older boat and preparing it to go cruising and I happily sat down with a cup of coffee to enjoy it. But, my enjoyment was short lived.

The article was more of the how someone spent $50K to make an $80K boat better with the underlining vibe that an $80K boat is a budget boat and not blue water capable. In other words, not my kind of article at all...

Sail and Cruising World magazines used to have a lot of articles in times gone by about fixing up old cheap boats on a budget and sailing somewhere interesting but it would seem that sort of article is no longer on the menu.

From where I sit that's a bummer.

Which brings us around to VolksCruiser, which is a place I can rattle off about interesting boats, rigs, and a sustainable lifestyle that folks can afford whether they work at jobs that preclude the ability to plop down $80K for a fixer-upper and $50K to make it seaworthy.

Over at VolksCruiser we won't be talking about boats that will cost more than $25K all fixed up and ready to go and the emphasis will be doing it even cheaper whenever possible in a sustainable manner.

So, if you have not had a chance to drop by and check out VolksCruiser please do and, if you are already visiting consider dropping us an article, some ideas, or what you'd like to be reading...

Listening to Smith

So it goes...

At the ass end of the supply chain...

Seriously bad news, apparently not an isolated incident, and just a little slice of the American dream in 2012...

Pretty much anytime we go to a store down here in the Caribbean there is a shortage of one sort or another... Sometimes it's the brand of cat litter our cats Buffy and Willow prefer, sometimes a food product we like or something needful like toilet paper. It's a normal part of being near the tail end of the supply chain...

Anyone who has been on the wrong end of a supply chain tends to pick up the habit of stocking up on stuff that is needful. For instance, the last time we were at the local NAPA store they only had three spark plugs that fit our generator and as it was the only source on island for said spark plugs we bought them all. More than likely the situation of no spark plugs of that size will continue till after summer when the store makes their end of hurricane season  order.

Of course, when a store makes an order for something they are out of it won't make it down here till all manner of things fall into place (and it's best to remember that just about all cargo containers tend to transit the Bermuda triangle on their way from the mainland)... Which means, if you happen to need a spark plug for your Honeywell 2000i, it could well be 2013 before it shows up on island.

So, when you see something you need or want, the standard operating procedure is to buy it when you see it... I've lost track of the number of times I've seen something at a store and unable to make a decision whether to buy it or not went back to the boat and then decided to get it the next day only to find that it was no longer available.

That's in the USVI which is near the ass end of the supply chain but not the ass end of the line so it's better here than a smaller island further down...

Just saying...

Listening to Sons of Bill

So it goes...

Death of a thousand cuts...

Waves for Water keeps on fighting the good fight, a must read if you don't want to start paying $35 (or worse) every time you need to mail a letter, and why does this ad for a car make me think about the core difference between sail and power boaters?

The other day I was reflecting on something Jay Fitzgerald said about the whole sustainable thing and as always, he seems to make a lot of sense...

Use less.

A lot of us on boats get hooked on a vicious cycle of thinking we need more and as a result you find folks on small boats with energy demands and production that would keep a medium-sized village going, and every last one of them seems to want MORE...

On "So It Goes" the biggest draw on power is our three Apple computers which surprises people as most assume it is the electric propulsion. You might want to reflect on that for a moment.

Electrical budgets are a lot like monetary budgets... We tend to budget for the big stuff and at the end of the month wind up getting poleaxed by the little stuff we did not quite think through or keep track of. For instance, if you decide to buy something that costs a couple of hundred dollars you give it some thought and work it into your budget. While on the other hand, you don't quite factor in the $3.50 cups of coffee at Starbucks and at the end of the month a couple of cups of coffee a day add up to $210... How'd that happen?

With power systems on boats it is always the little things that get you because they add up. That little muffin fan in my composting toilet that has been running 24/7 for over two years while only drawing milliamps does add up and combined with the fridge at 2.5 amps per hour plus the ipods and... and... and... and all of a sudden twin wind generators, four 100 watt solar panels and a 6KW genset start seeming like a really good idea.

Or then again, maybe you could simply use a little less...

Listening to Southside Johnny

So it goes...

A good cause...

Big business in court (well sorta/kinda), obviously a smart move entrusting the Affordable Care Act to the insurance companies, and as long as shareholders profits are OK...

I'm not a big fan of yacht racing in general. I do however, really enjoy various long distance races but the element of rich people behaving badly is enough to keep me from being a fan. As for the old adage of sail racing being good for developmental design, I think it's more along the lines of a disease masquerading as a cure that has mostly set design back or killed off promising avenues.

As bad as yacht racing can be, it is nothing compared to sail racing media which is mostly a lot like something I'd find in my composting toilet... Of course, there's one exception that jumps to mind and that's Sailing Anarchy, which while not perfect, does make sail racing both interesting and thought provoking.

I mention this because Sailing Anarchy needs some help and as it is such an important resource for racers and non-racers alike, the world would be a much worse place without it.

Give them a hand...

Listening to Bailey Cooke

So it goes...

on things being different...

tRump with a telling question, Badtux has a good suggestion, and EBM offers some good advice...

A very long time ago I was once accosted by a fellow cruiser who took exception with the fact that I would, from time to time, do paying work for other cruisers. Apparently, he thought, that asking to be paid for (let's say rebuilding a toilet) was counter to the whole cruisers "we're all one big loving family" vibe. I'm pretty sure that he also said I was a greedhead exploiting and ripping folks off. It still rankles...

In my defense, when working for other cruisers I always used a system of sorts which boiled down to that if someone just needed some help or advice there was never money involved but, if they were perfectly capable of doing the job themselves, then a reasonable payment for the work in question would come into play.

Of course, back in the day, things and cruisers were a whole lot different (Hmmm, I just channeled my dad)...

For starters, most cruisers were a whole lot handier and had a lot more experience in the manual arts. Which is not to say that there are not a lot of cruisers today who know how to fix and build stuff but they are a much smaller percentage of the overall cruising community than they used to be.

Boats were a lot smaller as well. Offhand, in the early 90's, I'd hazard a guess that the average cruising couple's boat was right in the 30-32 foot envelope. Sure you'd find the odd couple  on a 50 foot or larger boat but they were few and far between.

And, maybe the most important difference in cruisers today and in days of yore is there is a huge difference in the amount of money in play. So much money in fact that it's hard to imagine how anyone on a blue collar budget could manage at all.

Which, sorta/kinda, brings us back to the whole working for or marketing to cruisers and being a greedhead thing...

"Huge chunks of money seldom bring out the best in people"

                                                               -My dad may have said that

Back when I was doing jobs for other cruisers no one was awash with lots of cash and, as a general rule, you might say that cruisers as a group were a pretty penurious lot. Truth be told, working for other cruisers was just about the last thing a greedhead would be attracted to as there was just not that much money for the effort.

But, times do change. In a world where a sailing magazine recently referred to a half-million dollar monohull as inexpensive, you're going to find that whenever there are those kinds of sums involved mixed with folks who're not all that knowledgeable or handy...

Well, someone's going to take advantage.

Be careful. Do your math.

Just the other day I noticed someone selling 100' hanks of Endura single braid for $135 which seemed somewhat overpriced. As it happens, I really like Endura single braid and have been buying 100' foot hanks for various rigging projects from Hamiliton Marine at $86 for quite a while.

Just saying...

Listening to Coverville (always a good listen).

So it goes...

Crap...

Wrong/stupid on so many levels, a film you'll want to see, and in the "theft on a grand scale" department...

I've been meaning to write something regarding the recent decision of the powers that be in and around Annapolis to sorta/kinda prohibit use of "composting" toilets for long term (over a week) cruisers. Like most problem issues it's complicated and made worse by the fact that most of the people discussing it don't seem to have a grasp of what they are talking about.

For starters, just the fact that most so-called "composting" toilets are not really composting toilets is all kinds of problematic from the get-go and, as "composting" toilets become more and more popular and too often misused, it's only going to become a serious issue.

So, I really do need to write more on the subject because no one else seems to be doing it. I don't blame them because MSD's are not a fun and frolicsome subject at best and sorting out some sort of solution to the problem is akin to beating your head against a bulkhead.

But, being that I have been a long time booster of "composting" toilets and still think that used correctly they are the most effective and least polluting toilet available to us, I feel honor bound to give it a try.

More soon come on the subject.

Listening to Willie Nelson

So it goes...

Too many holes...

Some time back I recall reading about the sinking of a boat in Lectronic Latitude where the couple aboard had a leak but could not find the source...

Most folks wanting to cruise tend to be obsessed with the idea of storms and collisions but hardly break a sweat over such things as fire aboard or the possibility that you could lose your boat to a badly installed toilet or the failure of a bit of hose. Actually fire or sinking due to simple plumbing problems are far more likely to sink your boat than a storm or being rundown by a ship.

You might want to keep that in mind...

On "So It Goes" we have two thruhull seacocks for plumbing (one unused but kept simply because I may get around to building that watermaker one of these days the other is a sink drain) and four cockpit drains that are badly designed and are on the must redo in a sensible manner ASAP list. Of course, compared to a "modern yacht" we have hardly any holes in the boat to inspect if we happen to notice that our floorboards are floating around the galley which some might (I certainly do) consider a real advantage over the numerous seacocks and thruhulls that most boats sport these days.

Worse, if having thirty-three holes drilled into your boat is not bad enough, for ease of building and cosmetic reasons many of these thruhulls are placed in locations that are only accessible by very tiny contortionists or folks heavily into Kundalini yoga or, even worse, simply walled off behind stuff and forgotten.

In the consumer yachting world the answer to the problem of all those holes in the boat is selling you alarms and sophisticated systems that phone up your iPhone to tell you that you are sinking... Now, I'll admit that the idea of an alarm that calls me up in the middle of the night to let me know that I'm sinking is kinda cool (especially if it were to use Majel Barret's silken voice but with my luck it would more likely be Robby the Robot) but it hardly addresses the fact that you are... ummm.... SINKING!

Pumps, of course, make a lot of sense (I happen to be partial to the Henderson MK5 and have several) but they do not address the problem at its source and stop the flow of water in...

There are some cool foam plugs these days as well as the old standby wooden ones to stop up a hole/thruhull when needful but how do you use one when you can't reach behind the 6KW genset whose seacock may be the source of the water ingress?

So here is a quick and handy test to see if you have a too complicated (spelled unsafe) boat...

1. How many seacocks and thruhulls do you have?

2. Do you know where they all are and how to get to them in a hurry?

If the answers to #1 and #2 requires ponderation of any sort exceeding ten seconds you have too many holes in your boat.

Listening to the always great Pousette-Dart Band

So it goes...

A most excellent composting head...

We've had our home brew DIY composting toilet for almost a couple of years now and our opinion is still that composting toilets on boats make a lot of sense...

On the hind-sight front, there is very little I'd do differently as everything works, smell is a non-issue and there is nothing involved that needs service or repair. What's not to like?

Over at The Tiny House Blog guest blogger Walt Barret talks about a very simple DIY system that would work quite well in most boats and includes an A to Z detailed account of how to build it as well as all the materials involved.

Fact is, Barret's system has has a couple of tweaks that will improve my composting head so I expect I will be incorporating them into my system in the not too distant future.


Check it out...

Listening to a still much missed Warren Zevon

So it goes...

After the storm...

Some awesome boards from Wooden Board Day 2011, a very cool project for those of us who like our drinks fizzy, and as bad as things look the Long Now blog points out that a lot of stuff is getting better...

Being that it's "H" season we tend to follow the possible weather on a regular (though some might use the word obsessive) basis. Right now, as I write this, two potential storms are barreling across the Atlantic in our general direction...

Invest 92

Invest 93

There's always a lot of talk about how to prepare for a storm but very little information on preparing for the aftermath of a big storm. If you are unlucky enough to get hit by a hurricane the aftermath can often be worse than the actual storm and trust me, it is something you want to give some serious thought to.

For instance, down here in the Caribbean we take certain shortages as something of the normal state of being... Just recently, here on St Croix, there was no cat litter (of the clumping sort) available anywhere on the island. Before that it was toilet paper and last time we were in St Martin the McDonald's had run out of Big Mac buns... It's all part of being at the ass end of the supply chain...

When something as nasty as a hurricane comes along it is hardly surprising that shortages and suchlike get even worse, and when you throw in the fact that communications go down and such things as ATM's don't work... Well, it does tend to get messy and not in a good way.

So, throughout "H" season we tend to keep the boat well stocked, water tanks full and a reasonable amount of dollars on hand just in case it takes a couple of weeks to get back to normal after a storm.

Listening to Jackson Taylor and the Sinners

So it goes...

Shit happens...

It's not like the list of boat jobs on "So It Goes" is so short that I have to cast my nets to find yet more jobs to do but that is exactly what I seem to be doing these days...I need more cunning plans!

Of course a lot of this is simply avoidance...I really need to go out and find some schedule 40 pipe so I can install my new wind gen but the prospect of actually coming up with a final design to mount the whirlygig and find a clever (even cunning!) way of making sense of SatPhone hockey pucks, AIS antenna and other such ilk has me doing the "there must be some other job that needs my talents" two step...

... and just this morning while (well you really don't want to know) I decided what "So It Goes" really must have is a new toilet system so I can dispense with holding tank, thru hulls, pumps and other less than green plumbing systems.

If I were someone else and a whole lot brighter I'm sure I would buy one of the already built tried and tested composting toilets that are available for in and around $1000 but nope I am not that guy ( You can spell that CHEAP and DUMB)...The need to build it from scratch and make all my own mistakes appears to be a needful operation which I will cover here throughout the design and building process.

And who said boats were not FUN?

on the subject of building a boat...

A Caribbean voice of note, don't forget your flu shot, and a depressing tale of greed...

Back when I visited a boat builders coop in a hanger at the old (as opposed to the NEW) Charles De Gaulle airport to see if they'd allow me to join and build what was to become the first Loose Moose, everyone wanted to see the plans and the big question was: "How long will it take you to build it?"

At my answering "Six months" I was met with silence for about a minute which was then followed by the group bursting into boisterous laughter and a lot of variations of "No one builds a boat in six-months". For instance, Jean had bought a hull and deck for a 12M Meta design and so far he had been toiling on the interior for going on a decade. Another builder, Pascal, was twelve years into his strip planked and cold molded ketch. The rest of the builders in the coop seemed to be on the same sort of timeline where their builds were concerned. You could see that they had adapted to an unhurried boat building experience.

That being the case and the fact that they seemed interested in my strange (spelled sharpie) sailboat design, the ensuing entertainment value of watching me get bogged down by the various aspects of boat building, and that they needed a tenth member for the rent/expenses, they allowed me to join the coop.

The hanger was a pretty good place to build a boat as there was electricity, a room full of stationary tools (jointer/planer, table saw, band saw, shaper, lathe, air compressor, drill press, etc) which saved me a lot of money and, as most of the members only worked sporadically or on weekends and vacations, I pretty much had the place to myself except for one other builder, Jean the Meta guy, so there was very little time wasted waiting to use a machine when needful.

The next step in getting organized to build the boat was joining another cooperative the FIUA (Fédération Internationale l'Unité Amateur) which was a French organization that lobbied for the interests of boat builders/cruisers, helped with legal issues of boat building, and most importantly provided group buying clout that saved us thousands of dollars on pretty much everything we needed for the boat from basic materials (wood/plywood, epoxy, glass fiber) to boat systems (instruments, anchors, rope, winches, engine, pumps, toilet) even including the galley sink!

 

All in all this combination made for an excellent situation to build a boat quickly. My plan was to put in solid 8-10 hour days until the sucker was finished. Being part of the FIUA allowed me to put together a kit so I had pretty much everything I needed to build the boat without having to spend days shopping for stuff. Since I had a plan that I intended to follow, no time was wasted second guessing the designer or asking folks how to do stuff. All I had to do was just build the boat.

Where most folks have problems building a boat it's not about the amount of work at all. It's more about the amount of time they're not working that's the problem. Now, having worked in a boatyard where I installed interiors in boats, I quickly learned that installing a galley took X amount of labor and there would be hell to pay if the galley took longer than that. The thing is when building or rehabbing a boat, you really need to treat it just like a real job; because it is.

Having set up the build in a way that I could put 95% of my effort into actually building the boat with little or no distractions meant that when I arrived at the hanger at 8 AM I could get nine or ten hours of productive labor every day. 

Better yet, since I worked Monday thru Friday, I kept in work mode and kept to a plan with set goals. I did not waste time getting my head into the game. During the work day I'd have a cup of coffee before getting started, a quick lunch in the afternoon, and a coffee or two in the late afternoon. You know, pretty much like a real job.

My observations on the important points which result in a quick build are:

• Choosing a design that you can build and refrain from making changes to it. Or, in other words if you want a different boat buy a different plan.
• Create a kit with all of the materials you need to build the boat as this will save you a large amount of time and money. Building a boat on the installment plan never works to your benefit.
• Build the plan in your head until you're ready to build in reality. This allows you to avoid "surprises", prioritize work, and develop a plan of action.
• Avoid distractions. Build the boat. Don't talk about building the boat and ignore anything that gets in the way of finishing your boat.
• Have a firm goal in terms of when the boat needs to be finished and make that goal a reality.

Of course, there's a lot of other bits I could talk about but I'll do that when I muse on the subject of how I'd set up for building the Argo catamaran.

Oh yeah, on whether or not I launched the finished Loose Moose in six months I'll admit I didn't. It only took a couple of months.

Launch day

Listening to Coverville

So it goes...

One cubic foot...

A couple years back we bought a cubic foot of compressed peat moss for under ten dollars. Peat moss being our chosen composting medium for our composting toilet...

This morning we just finished the last of that peat moss and had to buy another cubic foot for just a kiss over ten dollars... All set for a couple more years!

and in the "who can write with this stuff going on" department...

An antifouling for your toilet that saves water, a reasonable assumption, and what's going on in Alaska...

Watching history being made so, hopefully, some interesting boat stuff tomorrow.

Listening to the newest Iron Leg episode

So it goes

Just thinking...

A good cause, Dmitri Orlov is doing something interesting, and it may have escaped your attention but today is World Toilet Day...

This picture has me thinking...

But more about that soonish.

Listening to Sons of Bill

So it goes...