Okay, I have FINALLy finished the tap installation. Well, sort of, I just have some my gel coat to apply to fill in the hole left by the old tap.
But, I have running, pumped water. Not a mega-install, just a submersible pump in a water container under the sink, but the time it's taken shows how you have to do thing in little hourly bites and unfortunately the weather gets involved when you're on a half-tide mooring.
Here's how I started:
It's a manual pumped tap, that swivels over the sink. Sadly positioned such that when you step into the cabin, you can catch it with you foot. Which I've done a few times and had to glue the spout back on.
There has to be a better way, so as in my last blog, I bought a used tap (£4.84 inc Postage), Some hose (£8.18 inc Postage) and a Submersible Pump (£12.95 inc Postage). So for just over £25 and a bit of work, I will have running (cold) water.
First was to remove the old tap, and fit the new one. The old one came out easily because the wood it was on, just fell apart. I hate wood on boats.
Then it was a case of positioning the new tap. I needed it under the companionway step out of the way, but needed to be in a position to pass the "Fill the kettle for a brew" test. Which it did.
Here's the new tap fitted and the (huge) old hole filled with epoxy and fibreglass tape:
After that, I Connected the hose up to the pump and routed the electrics to join up with the supply to the other accessories behind the radio. I have a couple of spade junctions there, so adding power to an accessory is as easy as crimping a couple of insulated spade connectors on the ends of the wires and plugging them in.
Currently the gaping hole is on it's second layer of gel coat:
You can't see from the picture, but the gel is still lumpy and needs a smear to make it all level.
As you can see the tap is positioned well back under the companionway step, so it won't be crushed underfoot.
The neck of the tap swivels upwards out of the way:
So I now have electric water. It's a bit of a diversion from the windows that really, really need new seals now.
