Unused through hull question.

[Davidhoy]

I have several unused below-waterline through hulls, as a result of replacing the aft head with a composting toilet and upgrading my refrigeration to an air-cooled 12 VDC system. So what to do now, short term and long term?

Short term is relatively easy - shut off the valve, and secure a soft wooden bung as a backup. Long term, should I keep these fittings in case I need them for something else, or remove and re-glass the holes next time I haul the boat?

-David

[Sailor647]

Keep them. The next owner might have different ideas. For example, a composting toilet might be useful near land where you can get the composting stuff, but would be a pain in the butt for someone wanting to do the Puddle Jump.

[Davidhoy]

Originally Posted by Sailor647

Keep them. The next owner might have different ideas. For example, a composting toilet might be useful near land where you can get the composting stuff, but would be a pain in the butt for someone wanting to do the Puddle Jump.

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts!

I'm setting the boat up for me, not any future owner, I hope to have this boat for many years to come. I'm trying to weigh the benefit of ease of future use against a potential failure point. It's not hard to install a new through hull when the boat is out of the water, but it's pretty tough and time-critical to seal the hole left by a broken-off fitting when you're floating.

Out at sea, you just dump the solids tank overboard, no muss, no fuss. And if I run out of peat moss or coconut coir, I have an Electroscan system in the forward head, best of both worlds

-David

[evm1024]

I have a number (3 actually) of unused through hulls due to a vacuflush system install.

I've done what you have, close valve, wooden plug handy. But also capped them off.

You can find caps that match the threads of the through hull. Screw them in and then if the valve opens for come reason or if the ball valve starts to leak the cap prevents flooding.

[flee27]

A little off topic but a question regarding the response from Sailor647 . Wouldn't one be able to just take extra composting material when going on an extended cruise. I don't know how much you go through on a composting toilet. Maybe it is too bulky to practically take enough????


Just curious from those that have composting heads.


Thanks

[Copacabana]

Originally Posted by Sailor647

Keep them. The next owner might have different ideas. For example, a composting toilet might be useful near land where you can get the composting stuff, but would be a pain in the butt for someone wanting to do the Puddle Jump.

I don't agree.

First, glassing over the through hulls is safer. If the next owner wants to install a wet head, it's a minor task to drill a new hole (and invevitably, they'll find a better place to do it than the manufacturer!).

Second, a composting toilet is great offshore (or inshore), and you can fit a few years' supply of coconut coir bricks in a small box. It's also not hard to find it around the world, and there are even alternatives, should you run out somewhere.

[s57ra]

On my last two sailboats i re-glassed the holes for which i knew they will not be used any more. It reduces the risks linked to corosion, it is not so hard to do and in the worst case if you need them again you drill the hole again...

[Tessellate]

This all depends on how confident you are in the unused thruhulls. If you have no concerns with them (and you shouldn't, for any thruhulls, used or unused, on your boat) then I would keep them. Glassing them over is expensive (if you don't do it yourself) and time consuming (if you do it yourself).

One additional consideration is if you have a cored hull - you probably don't on a Morgan 462, but I do. We had an unused thruhull that we recently had removed and glassed over because a prior owner had installed it in a cored location and not sealed the core. Fortunately core was dry.

Having the yard properly taper and glass over the hole was about $600-700. Some people here will say that's an easy job, but I disagree. I'm not a fiberglass expert and would much rather have the experts deal with holes in the boat.

The other advantage of glassing over an unused thruhull is it frees up some bilge storage space. This is a relatively minor benefit though. If your unused thruhulls aren't leaking and you trust them, I would leave them in place (capped).

[AJ_n_Audrey]

Answering on composting toilets.

One can easily carry enough composting medium (coconut coir or peat) to last months, in my experience. In fact, on my trip to the Bahamas last year, I found I had way too much - I had about 1/4 of a full-sized bag of peat, and I still have about 2/3's that left over, if not more. That's with two people aboard, and granted, we were stopping at islands, but still....

[Davidhoy]

Originally Posted by Tessellate

This all depends on how confident you are in the unused thruhulls. If you have no concerns with them (and you shouldn't, for any thruhulls, used or unused, on your boat) then I would keep them. Glassing them over is expensive (if you don't do it yourself) and time consuming (if you do it yourself).

One additional consideration is if you have a cored hull - you probably don't on a Morgan 462, but I do. We had an unused thruhull that we recently had removed and glassed over because a prior owner had installed it in a cored location and not sealed the core. Fortunately core was dry.

Having the yard properly taper and glass over the hole was about $600-700. Some people here will say that's an easy job, but I disagree. I'm not a fiberglass expert and would much rather have the experts deal with holes in the boat.

The other advantage of glassing over an unused thruhull is it frees up some bilge storage space. This is a relatively minor benefit though. If your unused thruhulls aren't leaking and you trust them, I would leave them in place (capped).

Some very good points, thanks! Glassing the holes is something I feel confident in tackling myself, especially as my Morgan 462 has a solid glass hull. As to the existing through hulls, they are definitely older, but look generally OK. If I don't glass in the holes when I haul next, I may just replace them out of an abundance of caution. I had a scary situation with my previous boat, a Hunter 30, when I put a wrench on a through hull only to have it crumble. Fortunately I had hauled out just minutes earlier, but it taught me to never mess around with holes in the hull. If in doubt, replace or remove! In the case of the Hunter, I replaced every single through hull before relaunching. Now my situation is different, so may make a different call...

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by s57ra

On my last two sailboats i re-glassed the holes for which i knew they will not be used any more. It reduces the risks linked to corosion, it is not so hard to do and in the worst case if you need them again you drill the hole again...

Yes I think it best to reduce the number of thru hulls to a minimum as it is an increase in safety. I think many boats are lost due to mishandling head and engine cooling through hulls.

I've already done one, actually I paid a guy to do it so I could learn what to do, and I plan on taking out 4 more when the boat is next hauled out.

I'm also planning on a composting head, my present head has no holding tank so its going to be relatively straightforward.

[bcboomer]

I kept the 2 that were abandoned when I went to a C-head and replaced them with Trudesign composite through hulls and valves. Much easier than glassing and no corrosion to worry about. I'll use 1 to add a sea-water manual pump and save the other in case I add a water maker.

[Copacabana]

I have glassed over a few through hulls on my boat (and just did another in January). It's not a terribly difficult task. Check out the West System site; they have a tutorial on how to do it. Epoxy and cloth are very forgiving and it's well within the abilities of a novice. It's a few hours of work (over a few days though).

[Cthoops]

You mentioned that you're setting up the boat for you, not the next owner. That's how we make decisions on our boat, which is why we chose to glass over the unused holes when we replaced our head with a composter. We prefer fewer holes, but that's just us.

[evm1024]

Let's see:

- we have the fewest holes in hull is safest viewpoint
- the not very hard or expensive to do viewpoint
- the future possible use viewpoint

And a few more.

One thing regarding costs that is overlooked - You need to haul the boat to do this job. So tack in (at least for my boat) another $1200 for hauling, blocking and lay days.

Of course you will want to schedule this work to be done with other work so that the cost to haul is spread out over a number of jobs.

Till then....