Tag: Hemispheres

It struck me as we headed down the ICW past Southport that since bringing Hemispheres home to Oriental from Noank, CT back in 2010, she hasn’t left the state since. Almost 15 years of sailing in the local NC waters. Lots of daysails, weekends,, week-longs and multi-week trips though always in NC. Finally, she’s crossed the state line as we entered South Carolina. Then bypassed Georgia and info Florida. Here’s Hemispheres crossing the state line of NC/SC 😉

The Blu3 Nomad DiveBuddy. Great for snorkeling and especially for cleaning the bottom of the boat. Saw it at the annual pilgrimage and was immediately sold on the idea. Battery operated. The entire unit floats, just put the dive flag on it and throw the whole thing in the water.

I ordered the Nomad Mini which had a great boatshow special, additional battery and a couple of hundred off. The battery time is about 45 minutes and you can dive up to fifteen feet. After ordering at the show and getting home, I get a call that because of the popularity of the Mini and the amount that were sold at the show, the batteries were back ordered till late December. We worked it out and I took the offer to upgrade to the larger Nomad for a shockingly nice price and still included a free second battery. The larger version last over an hour on each battery, depending on my breathing and can dive up to 30ft. Think I’ll test it this weekend in the bathtub 😉

Been on the fence lately regarding a composting toilet. Currently, Hemispheres’ toilet has a y-valve that can pump overboard directly or into the holding tank. But the tank has to be pumped out, no macerator to dump the tank offshore and there really isn’t pompous locations in the Bahamas.

So options are installing a macerator for the tank and re-plumbing just about everything cause I’m not adding another thru hull. NO more holes in the boat below the waterline. Or…rip it all out and go with a composting head. Pretty much a lot of sailors I know have already gone that route and rave about it. So, it was time to explore. Was at the Annapolis Boat Show, aka the annual sailors pilgrimage and looked at AirHead and NaturesHead. Had decided on the Airhead IF I decided on that route.

Heard about OGO Origin Composting head and David put me in touch with Monty who’s an affiliate dealer here in Oriental and happens to have a demo unit. He was kind enough to let me borrow it for the day to visualize it on Hemispheres, to make sure it’ll fit and work out right. As the molding is rounded from the floor to the wall, need to raise the toilet three inches so it can slide back a further three inches and it works out nicely. Will be building up the base with starboard and add a couple of inches for a lip to rest your feet.

So why the OGO over Airhead. I’m a gadget guy, it has a powered agitator, push the button and it runs for 45 seconds. But still very simple. Next is the aesthetics and retains al the needed functions. One of the biggest features I like is the compost resides in a small bucket that you take out, unlike other brands where you have to take out the entire composting head. That may be fine for an RV on land, but at anchor, don’t think I want to have to take apart and remove the toilet, take it up on deck and dump it in a bag. Definitely not doing it down below. With OGO, a small bucket comes out and put just put a four gallon bag over the top and flip it over. Can do that inside the head.

So, on order and will tackle that project shortly. But before putting it in, I’ll be handling that shitty situation of ripping out all those hoses and the holding tank. So what’s going in that big, cavernous space where the tank will no longer be? Can someone say…Daewoo Mini washing machine?

As I prep for the winter trip south this season, I wanted to add more battery capapcity to Hemispheres. As the days are shorter in the winter, there will be less daylight for solar, or cloudy days so….swapped out the single 300ah lithium for a pair of Epoch 460ah batteries. Yup, literally trippled the capacity, now up to 920ah with the ability to discharge up ot 400amps at a time if needed (they’re in parallel), though would never need that. Max of pushing anything based on current stuff on board has never been over a 150amp draw. I have the charger set to 100amps and the inverter is set to 1800 watts, there’s nothing on board that would draw anything close. Had new cables made, sized 2/0 as I’m sitting just under 20 ft. with the runs, perfect.

It was a full day, overall about eight hours with most of that time being a contortionist running and pulling and pushing, yes, pushing cables. Took apart the aft berth, took out the floor in the lazarette, extended the platform underneath the berth to hold another battery. In reflection, glad I did it all myself, learned a lot and mostly, saved a lot of money. Could have hired various services to do it at one of the yards. I’d estimate two techs @ $100/hr for five hours. I pretty much saved myself a boatbuck 😉

Got some zip-tying and general cleanup and presentation to do early next week to satisfy my OCD. The old Rebel Batteries 300ah Lithium-Iron, group size 6D will be hitting Facebook Marketplace in a couple of days.