Welcome Aboard!

These pages will cover the restoration and upgrades I have done to a 1979 Choate 40.
I acquired the vessel in poor condition at a reasonable price and so far have put twice that amount into her.
From the evidence I have found, she had been de-masted, run aground several times, slightly flooded, run hard and put away wet.
Fortunately, she had new standing rig with a used mast from a Catalina 40 and a recent head job on the motor.
The rest of the info I'll segregate into pages for detailed information.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Head/Shower & Hanging Closet

This turned out to be a real challenge! To start with there was only 5'8" of head room with the present decking. So to add a drain and keep as much head room as possible I went with a preformed shower base with an electronic drain/pump assembly.

This is the hanging locker side...................


The hull was only 4"below the old decking and the old thruhull was sealed off. The hoses on the right goto the overboard discharge valve under the settee next to where the old holding tank was.

 I purchased a preformed shower base and cut and ground many times to get it to fit in real nice and level


 The ancient knot meter wasn't working and had been cut off years ago. So it was pulled and a plug put in. Some day I may reuse the old thru hole, if I can find a transducer that will fit. In the mean time I place in a board and deck fitting to access it easily.

 A pre assembly to get measurements........

 Looking forward with the head on the right. The deck and large cover has been epoxy/glassed over.

Now for an enclosure.A view fwd.

A view aft................................

 Placement of a sink and the 3-way valve

 Skipping ahead here a bit. This took a lot of engineering to figure out, what to put in and the angles involved.


 I used the left over counter top material from the galley to go under the sink.

 Adding a storage cabinet above the sink and temporary assembly.



 Another problem I had was the wire from the fish finder thru the bulkhead and around the shower base. If this were all sealed up and I tried to pull the wire through for a replacement it would have hung up under the shower base. So I epoxied in a track for the wire to guide around the base.

Now going back to the plumbing, this is where the water comes in and goes out. The yellow pump is for the electronic drains. The black pump is for fresh water to the shower and sink.

 I T'd into the down side of the overboard discharge hose for the shower and sink drains.

 The electronic drain is T'ed together at the lowest point for the shower & sink drains. The hose coming thru the bulkhead is the raw water supply for the toilet. The wood blocks are supports for the shower base.

Here I'm starting the final assembly. Glued down the shower base and sealed up around the edges with marine sealer.

I've covered up the hoses with this removable box panel, which also supports the shower head. I put a weight and roller assembly on the hose to help in retraction of the shower hose back into the box.

Starting the white paneling work and added a shelf above the sink. Later will cut hole in for sliding doors.


A view looking forward with the hanging locker on the port (left) side

Views looking into the hanging locker looking fwd.


Cut out for sliding doors and added an extra shelf.


Added edge moldings............

Matching trim moldings at multiple angles is a bitch.


Added water tight access doors.

And here it is to date. I still need to add the sliding doors in the cabinet, lacquer the trim, add more trim and install sliding doors on the head and hanging locker. But it was functional for this summers cruise.















Forward Bulkhead


 When I bought this retired racer all it had up forward of the main bulkhead was a toilet mounted on a box and the sail loft.

Looking forward.........................

The first thing I had to do was strip 3 layers of old paint to get to the FG so the epoxy would adhere to and make a good bond.


Using a heat gun and a one sided chisel the paint came off fairly quick. Some places I had to grind off the rest using a carbide forming disk.




I had to cut away a couple of the upper stringers to make room for the new bulhead.


Then came the patterns. Using light weight paneling they were temporarily epoxied to the overhead and hull.





And using a form stick to layout points of intersection. By drawing a line around the stick and numbering it with either a side A or B it maintained real close distances and angles.


 Other forms were made to go around stringers and hull angles.



After getting the Stbd side laid out it was time to transfer it to some 1/2" marine ply.

 I put little finishing nails in the transfer points and used a thin 2' scale as a french curve.


 And then used the forms to for around the stringers and deck shapes.


After the plywood was cut it fit in pretty good.

 One problem I ran into was that the plywood was 48" wide but the biggest access hole to get it in the boat was only 43", which happen to be the main entry. So I had to cut off a small section up by the hull/deck joint and splice it back in once the panels were in place.

Then came the tabbing process after filling in the outer gap with a sealer.

 Another problem was the thru hull/inlet valve for the head was in a bad location.


 Since the fish finder transducer was just forward of the new bulkhead, I installed a new thru hull just outboard of it.

Once the bulkhead was all tabbed in place it was time for a new holding tank. The old holding tank was aft of the main bulkhead under a settee, which will eventually be where a watermaker will be installed.

I ordered a custom tank with the fittings placed as needed.

 Also put in a new pump-out fitting, replacing the old mis-marked one over the toilet. Also put in a vent, which had never been installed for the old one.

 The thru hull supplies raw water to the head and the anchor washdown pump. I cut myself short of room when I installed the new thruhull but was able to get it all in place with a few street elbows.

 Then came the cover and fittings



 I put a water proof/protection box around the thruhulls and tabbed that all in.


 Everything is a bit tight but what boat isn't? I can get my hands in to work on the hoses/clamps, but if need be I can still pull the tops off of the thruhull and holding tank boxes.

As well I needed a place to hang and store all the gear. On the port side I epoxied in supports for a rigging board. I plan to put in storage shelves on the Stbd side, but I've moved onto the head first.



Adding a little more storage space over the new holding tank.

The face has about a 5ยบ angle so the doors stay shut on their own while at the dock. But I'll be adding twist buttons later. The upper compartment doors fold down and the bottom one folds up. I figure the top shelf will be good for the life raft and ditch bag since it's right under the big hatch.  I found too that by using the holding tank corner and the lower shelf as steps, that I can get out the big hatch fairly easy now. It makes a great emergency escape now.



The upper shelf is where the life raft and ditch bag goes along with some other supplies.

The center section is where the tools go................


And the small door at the bottom will be for soft supplies since the sewage hoses are in that area unprotected.


That's it!