Just a word of tanks.

One of the biggest joys of boat ownership is when you start a project thinking “well this won’t take long”, only to be reminded “Dude, what is wrong with you? This is a BOAT!”

So it was with our plumbing. It started as “the toilet doesn’t work”. Well that wasn’t really a problem; we wanted to put a composting toilet in anyway, so simple enough.

Original marine toilet, with its broken valve.

But then things progressed to “the holding tank smells bad” and “sure would be nice to free up that space for storage”, with a side trip to “those water hoses don’t look so good”, reaching its final destination of “maybe I should clean the water tanks”. On boats, mole hills aren’t made into mountains; they grow into mountains all by themselves.

New composting toilet, in its new home.

The toilet replacement was the easy part. Four bolts, two hose clamps, a bit of lifting and it was out. In its place now lives an OGO composting toilet. I know there are pros and cons to composting toilets, but for our use case, and the limited number of pump out stations in our area, it works for us.

Holding tank seen in original location, under v-berth. Lots of wasted space in there.

Removing the holding tank wasn’t much worse, just fiddly. I have notes from a previous owner where he installed a holding tank in 2011.

Interestingly, the plywood access cover has hand written instructions for how to position the Y valves to route effluent to the tank or overboard or pump out. Those valves were removed by that previous owner who had to make the system legal for Georgia lakes. But finding that bit of history was amusing. The location of the fittings, and the remaining gallon or so of effluent that the pump-out didn’t get, required some careful jostling to get it out of the offset opening. Happily, we utterly failed to make a mess. And the new storage space - totally worth the trouble. All that remained was to remove the hose from the deck pump-out.

The fresh water hoses were at least thirteen years old, and probably more. Checking the maintenance notes from that previous owner who had the boat from 2010 to 2018, showed new no hoses. So before departing for some extended retirement cruising, we decided to replace them.

Plumbing under galley sink, just above main water tank.

Routing the hoses wasn’t a big deal. Figuring what went where from the main water tank to their respective faucets took a bit more thought. There are two manifolds under the sink, one routes cold water from the tank to the pump, then to the galley and head faucets. Another routes water from the first manifold to the water heater then to the galley and head faucet. And then there is the foot pump, with its own line to a two way valve and…

Wait a minute, where does that hose go?

Kotona has two fresh water tanks. The factory brochure mentions the 45 gallon stainless steel tank that lives under the cabin sole. But our boat has an additional stainless tank under the v-berth. I can’t be sure if it was installed as a factory option, but its welded shape matches the hull shape and it seems of that vintage. Unfortunately, for me, the forward tank has the outlet on the bottom and because its shape matches the hull, you can’t reach the bottom to fit a new hose. So it has to come out, at least partially.

Neither water tank has any inspection ports; and the one under the sole really has no way to install one, short of pulling up the floor and cutting one. Assuming they are both factory tanks, they are well over 40 years old. Pondering that age, and not knowing how well they were maintained, I was very curious about their insides.

Over the years I’ve read comments on different boating forums about drinking water and how many claim that “I’d never drink water from a tank” and “we only drink bottled water, I wouldn’t even brush my teeth with water from a tank”. But, I’m of a generation that grew up riding bicycles all over the neighborhood and other parts of town, without helmets. And played at recess on welded steel playground equipment built on a packed gravel base. And rode in the third row, rear-facing seat of the family station wagon, without seat belts. And among all the other horrors we somehow managed to survive, we would, on a hot summer afternoon, drink water straight from the garden hose, or as they were referred to in the South, the hosepipe.

So drinking from what I believe to be a clean tank doesn’t bother me. And since I have to at least partially remove it anyway, might as well take the time to cut an inspection port. That will let me clean this one and give me a pretty good idea of the condition of the other one. It would be nice to begin our retirement cruising with at least one clean reliable water tank, wouldn’t it? Shouldn’t be too difficult.

Forward tank, after epic struggle.

Or so I thought. Well okay, ultimately it wasn’t, once you removed the steel holding straps. And then removed the wood trim around the opening; trim that was put in place after the tank was installed. And then wrestled it out from between the bulkheads, one of which was apparently also installed after the tank was in place. Bulkheads that were, shall we say, snugly fit, to prevent fore-aft movement. Oh, but before you could do that you had to lean it up on its side, just enough, to detach the hose from the fitting on the bottom of the tank. When I say detach, I mean cut, because the likelihood of getting a tool on the hose clamp, in that position, was quite low.

Exactly how many gallons this holds, I’m not sure. I’m guessing between 25 and 30. And being stainless steel, its weight makes it almost unwieldy in the limited space one has in the v-berth of a 31 Independence. But after many lifts, tugs, curses, beer breaks, and boat yoga poses, it was free. With the tank out I could now route the new hose up through the cutout in the plywood base, leaving plenty of slack to reattach.

I chose to bring it back to the garage at the house so I could stand up to work on it - that v-berth space thing again. Installing the port was relatively easy. A cobalt alloy drill bit and jig saw blade(s) made it through the stainless. The access port I chose is made by Vetus, and has a backing ring shaped to fit through the cut opening, allowing a tight seal. Partially filling the tank and turning it upside down, revealed no leaks at the port. Yay! A thorough soap and water cleaning was followed by scrubbing with baking soda to remove some of the minor rust stains. A final rinse and dry, then it was back to the boat.

Reinstalling was the reverse of removing. I attached the new outlet hose, while I could reach it. The extra hose length could be pulled out from the space formerly occupied by the holding tank. Setting the tank back in place involved the same boat yoga poses, but fortunately no new ones. Once firmly seated, the support blocks on the port and starboard sides were bolted back in, and the wood trim, with new longer screws, was replaced. Instead of the thin metal straps, I decided to add wood bracing and through bolt it to the bulkhead.

Attaching the new inlet hose to the deck fill required removing the anchor chain, as the hose fill is routed through the back of the chain locker. This is also where the pump-out hose lives. Or did. It now lives in the marina dumpster, though it may be at the land fill by now. Funny how my dock neighbor remarked, as I passed him on the path to the parking lot, gloved hands holding a rather mildewy length of hose, “you must be working on the head”.

With the pump-out hose gone, all that remained was connecting the new water inlet hose to the deck fill and the water tank. Why the fresh water inlet and sewage tank pump-out are right next to each other is a curiosity. And yes, I was careful to choose the right one. A little more boat yoga inside the anchor locker to tighten everything down, replace the chain, and done.

New hoses, new toilet, clean tank, all secure. One step closer to retirement cruising