What I learned from Ed McChain, Thistle #47
By Dave Howell, Nellie D. #63
1. By rotating the Dutch door's exterior escutcheon 120 degrees, the door handle can't vibrate itself open--and thus the door hooks aren't required. This not only makes the doors safer but easier to use too.
2. Getting aboard an LNVT from the water is problematic. Using the engine room's ladder on the bulwark's exising pintles is not really satisfactory because (1) the ladder doesn't go far enough into the water and (2) it's hard to climb the ladder's negative slope. Ed bought a marine ladder and then made a PVC adapter to mate the ladder to the existing Pintles.
3. To cool the engine room Ed installed a ducted fan near the ceiling and then vented it by drilling a new hole in the cabin side just aft of the existing portside engine room grille. He could have used the existing engine room vent but feared he'd diminish the little natural airflow that already exists. Using the ducted fan reduces the engine room's ambient temperature by 20F.
4. If you want to know what dinghy handling systems really work, talk to a pet owner that likes to anchor out. Ed takes his two pups ashore regularly using his 8' sailing dinghy and 2hp (?) engine. I watched him singlehandedly stow the dink, with the engine attached, on the O2 deck, in a total of two minutes, using an electrically powered davit. The davit is mounted to the port, aft corner of the salon. it's tall enough to lift the dink over the O2 deck's lifelines. Ed estimates the dink weighs around 200 pounds. The dink sits on chocks just aft of the companionway hatch. There wasn't any noticeable heeling of Thistle as the dink was lifted.
