New Head for S/V CarolMarie

Work has been too busy recently to go out.   But the final touches were done to the head over the weekend, and I think it's finally there.

When we first took ownership of the boat the head was placed sideways in a small closet, on a elevated platform forward of the captain's bunk.

Original Head

Appart from being oddly placed ladies don't care for pumping for some reason.   So we decided to move the head to a better location and convert it from a manual to an electric flush.  We hired Gary from our yacht club to do the work.  We aren't all that good with wood, and he's a master.

The first step was finding a place to put it.  Most Han Christian 38MKII have the head in the bow of the ship.   Usually the head is in a small locker of it's own and shares the space with the shower.   We liked the idea and had ours moved there.

The second step was to pick out the toilet and get a plan to build the box around it.  

As you can see there was a good fit and plenty of room on the shower floor to back the head into the bow of the ship inside.

Once the plans were made, Gary built a platform for the head of marine plywood, that was level with the shower floor.  He cut the gate to match the remaining area of the shower floor.

The next step was to fit the toilet into to the bolts as shown below.

With the toilet in place Gary constructed the box around the toilet.  He used the batteries as weight to keep the pressure on the pieces as the epoxy cured.

Finally a lid was built for enclosure, and the last item of a brass plaque reading W.C. was added.

Several coats of epoxy were added to the box to keep it waterproof with the shower being in the same room.    

Numerous people said that it wouldn't be useful at sea because  you'd bounce around to much to use it.   After traveling to Barkely Sound and back I would have to say they were all wrong.  it worked out very well.   Also sitting on the box while showering was also helpful, and comfortable, both at anchor and at sea.  I am extremely happy with the way it turned out.

The nice thing is now we also have a large closet on the boat!!

Closet were the head once was located.