When we purchased her, the boat had only 3 proper seacocks installed: one for the head intake, one for the head overboard discharge, and one in the hanging locker which is not attached to anything(!) presumably put in place in anticipation of adding a sink to the hanging locker area.

Although we haven't decided yet if we want to remove that seacock and through-hull in the hanging locker, we are postive that we will be adding seacocks to the other four through-hulls that are below the waterline. Three of these through-hulls are simply fiberglass tubes with aging hose attached with rusting clamps. The fourth is for the raw water intake for the diesel. That through-hull at least had an inline ball valve attached to the seawater intake strainer. Still inadequate, but a step up from the cockpit and galley sink drains.

A Plan of Attack

I picked up 4 seacocks, and their associated through-hulls, fasteners, nipples, adapters, and bedding compound at Hamilton Marine in Portland. Its amazing how quickly $400 disappears at a marine store! I left with a much thinner wallet, but carrying a very heavy box in exchange. I picked up a 3/4 inch seacock for the raw water intake, and 1 1/2 inch seacocks for the three drains. After taking all the seacocks etc out to the boat, I made the decision to head back to Hamilton and exchange the 1 1/2 inch seacocks for 1 1/4 inch ones with full flow hose barbs which would still accept a 1 1/2 inch hose (see below).

The plan of attack was simple, and basically follows the standard installation procedures for a seacock. The first step was to cut away the old fiberglass tubes, which I did using a hacksaw. A Sawz-all would have been pretty helpful here, and probably would have prevented me from skinning all of my knuckles in the process of trying to cut the tubes. ***Since writing this, another Triton owner suggested simply using a grider to cut the tubes. Duh! Thanks Jeff!*** However, with a bit of cursing and perseverance, I was successful. After cutting away the tubes, I ground the areas around the openings down with a 4 inch grinder. I wasn't really able to get the areas very flat with that tool, and I may need to go back with a sander to try to fair the areas a bit more before installing the backer blocks.

During this process, it occured to me that it was going to be awfully tight in the bilge with those relatively large 1 1/2 inch seacocks, especially in the area under the sink. So I brought one of them out to the boat and test fit them into the areas where they will eventually be installed. And lo! the 1 1/2 doesnt fit under the sink at all (or, it will fit, but only with the handle turned to the open position) and they are really pretty tight under the cockpit too. So, I'll have to head back to Hamilton and exchange them all for 1 1/4 inch seacocks, with the "full-flow" pipe to hose adapters which will still allow me to connect the 1 1/2 inch hose from the drains to the smaller seacocks.

Preparing The Parts

Update, 2/26/2002: Ok, it has taken a while.... The next step was to build some backer plates for the seacocks. I did this by cutting some circles of plywood, shaping them to conform to the hull as best as possible, and coating them with epoxy to help waterproof them. I toyed with the idea of laying up fiberglass pads, as was suggested by a friend, but ultimately, I decided to go with the "traditional" wooden pads, mostly for convenience. To shape the pads, I first cut appropriately sized holes in the hull and backer pads with a hole saw. I then temporarily fit the thru-hull fitting in place and slid the backer plate over it. Using a combination of eyeball, feel, guessing, lots of marking with a Sharpie, and numerous trips from the bilge to the basement, I was able to approximate the contour of the hull by grinding material away with a rasp and a grinder. The fit isn't perfect, but its pretty good, and I think will be fully sufficient after they are installed with 5200.

Now that the backer pads have been finished, the installation should be relatively simple. Hopefully happening this weekend...