It’s amazing just how much space water can take up on a boat. Our Islander has two twenty-gallon water tanks in the salon area and it’s a bit frustrating because it’s the space I’d choose for tools and camera gear.
I’ve been thinking of moving the two tanks elsewhere but it’s a good location for ballast. While my tools might make good ballast, they are not as heavy as the same stowage space filled with water (333 pounds). Which pretty much makes the argument to keep the tanks where they are.
When we filled the tanks the other day, their screwed-down top panel leaked so today we unscrewed the top and scraped away all of the goop to see what was what.
The tanks were in surprisingly good condition which, considering the tanks had been built in 1973, was kind of impressive. The screwed-down top panel had some issues but nothing that $20 bucks or so of epoxy wouldn’t sort out. The screwed down panels were more problematic but the decision was made to get rid of the screw element of the design and simply epoxy down the top panel. The addition of a couple of inspection ports to each tank makes a lot more sense and gives us the ability to inspect and clean the tank interiors when needful.
As far as inspection ports go, our our favored purveyor is Duckworks in Port Townsend who always seems to have quality needful bits for excellent prices and don’t have any issues with shipping stuff down to us in the Caribbean.
Tomorrow is going to continue in the plumbing zone, as I rip out some stuff to make room for the new toilet and our watermaker…
Only owned one boat with a built in tank, 50 gall galvanized steel right aft in the lazzarette, pumping orange water. Angle grinder took care of that issue. No baffles? Crewed on a friends boat that had under berth tanks, the sloshing made sleep harder than needed. Nothing a bleach wash wont cure by the look, and a carbon filter before the tap.