Engine seacock location – NC33

[Anonymous]

2nd technical question following ownership.

The seacock for the engine on my boat is only accessible by lifting up both engine hatches – am I missing something or is that perverse? It would be bad enough having to lift one hatch but because it is under the port side I have to lift both.

Is this the normal layout?

Has anyone designed a good modification so that the valve is accessible without lifting everything up?

Many thanks for your help, as ever.

Regards

Nick

[Anonymous]

I have had the location of the engine seacock changed  to starboard, close to the stairs leading to the aft cabin.

Then a hole has been made in one of the steps to allow me to insert my left arm/hand and have direct access to the seacock lever without opening the engine hatches. 

Regards,

Ilkiva

[Anonymous]

Hi Ilkiva,

That sounds a very sensible solution. I was hoping to avoid cutting yet another hole in the bottom. I seems to have dozens.

Has anyone any experience cutting through the soundproofed wheelhouse floor? I assume it is a sandwich of some sort but was wondering if there is anything nasty as a filling.

Thanks

Nick

[Anonymous]

I’ve just been going back to my O level physics. I am going to investigate extending the seacock lever to gain additional mechanical advantage then have a series of blocks and cable to a single small winch. It should be possible to set it up so that as the winch winds and pulls in one direction it opens the valve and then turned in the other direction it closes it. I think mine opens in a plane roughly fore and aft so I could put the winch on the port side of the wheel with the cables going beneath the floor to the port side of engine box.

[Jean]

Not sure what you hatch configuaration (ours is a 78 hull no. 570) is but we had the same problem. We just swapped the hatches port to starboard – still a pain but half the pain now. We have thought about putting an electrical servo on but haven’t got round to it yet.

The soundproofing in ours wasn’t particularly well encapsulated and it was (in the absence of a technical descriptio) a yellow crumbly fibeglass type of insulation. We removed it all and changed it to Halyard soundproofing. See photo of old “stuff”. We renewed it when we changed the engine mounts, rebuilt the engine and fitted an Aquadrive in the prop shaft.

[Anonymous]

That’s brilliant Siftasam – swapping them round I mean. It will make it a lot easier until the winter. I was talking to Vetus today at a boat show about fitting one of their actuator / ball valve combinations. Sounds a good option but I have read cautionery tales about needing a manual override which I need to enquire about.

In my last boat I used thinsulate which was brilliant. I think that will be another job on the list but one that doesn’t have to wait until haul out.

Rgds

[Author]

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