Quick Update

 Just a note:

My boathouse was too cold to work in over the winter. After much research and education, I have figured out the least expensive and lowest effort method to get more power into the boathouse so I can have enough electric heat to keep it comfortable thru out the year so this should not be a problem this winter. Even if I finish this boat over the summer, I already have thoughts and hopes to build another perhaps smaller boat as soon as Unicorn is launched!

For the curious, I have purchased a 50' 4 wire twist lock extension cord rated for 30 amps. This will plug into the existing 30 amp generator input (turned into an output) on the house. This provides 30 amps from each phase (like an electric clothes dryer) from the house's breaker box. I buried the cord about 6" underground. It comes up out of the ground at the boathouse and goes up the outer wall and in thru a hole in the wall. It ends up right over my workbench.

...and now for the cool part...

It turns out there is an adapter that has a 4 prong twist lock plug on one end that plugs into the extension cord, and on the other end it has 2 molded outlets, one for each phase of the 2 phases from the house! Theoretically I can get 120V * 30A (per leg) * 2 = 7200 watts into the boat house! That should be enough to keep it warm even on the coldest days. In fact I have no plans to draw that much power. I'll start by having a couple 1500 watt heaters. (Remember our house is 100% solar powered so electric heat is "free".) 

The weird, elegant, and perfect-for-my needs plug.


Next steps are (with the boat still upside down):

  1. Install the lower rudder components.
  2. Clean out the prop shaft hole and epoxy it.
  3. Install the outer prop shaft components.
  4. Decide about painting all of the hull or up to the waterline or leave it all "bright" (not painted).
  5. Make a cradle to hold the boat when upright.
  6. Turn hull right side up!
  7. A million things to do inside the hull.

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