Keeping my cool

BCC Forum
1

Several questions:

Unlike the older BCC’s, my house batteries are under my port dinette seat. I have a gap below the engine bay panel which allows a lot of noise into the cabin. As I recall, many of the earlier boats have the house batteries behind the ladder and, I assume, that space is completely filled. Sumio is concerned about cooling if I fill and insulate the gap. Anyone have any problems?

On a related topic, has anyone found aftermarket oil pressure and water temp gauges that plug in to the Yanmar 3 GM 30 senders or replace the senders without a bunch of adapters? Yanmar is anxious to sell me a complete new control panel but I’m not anxious to buy one. I’ve never been comfortable relying on the stock warning buzzer but had more interesting projects to play with up until now.

Finally, will our boats go to weather in biggish winds with a couple of reefs and just the staysail flying? I’ve been lucky the last 3 years as most of the 25KT+ winds I’ve been in have been reaches or runs.

Thanks for the help…Tom

2

Hi Tom,

I remember the later, not the earlier versions of the
BCC having an added option of the battery box under
the companion way stairs; I was contemplating a
similar move of batteries as ours are under the
quarter berth, could use the extra storage space,
except we have 3 Group 27 AGM batteries and the
staircase will only hold 2 batteries.

Most boats builders tend to leave the engine sucking
dead air from the bilge to run the engine, not the
preferred option, would rather run aft deck cowls and
run vent hoses to the engine room, fresh air is good
for the engine.

The stock Yanmar control panel and warning buzzer have
been working fine for years. Only weak point is the
temp switch, top has a brass post bedded in green epoxy
where the screw and wire attach, not very strong,
sight bump to the post will shear the post off.

Typical Yanmar control panels have tachometer and
warning lights only, no provisions for temp/oil
pressure gauge sender on engine; using a T-fitting to
add a temperature sender in conjunction with the
temperature switch is not recommended, as the “T”
fitting pulls the switches away from direct contact
with the head and give a false temperature reading,
subsequently requires higher temperatures to set off
the alarm.

Adding a “T” fitting in conjunction with the oil
pressure switch to add a oil pressure sender will work
without ill affect.

You can get real cute with these gauge/warning
circuits; in our Pan Oceanic 46, we have dual steering
stations, with independent alarm circuits for oil and
temp, we even install red led to direct us quickly to
which gauge the alarm affects. The custom panels took
several days to build, if you had to pay someone to
build them for you, you could have bought 4 of the
Yanmar panels for a similar cost.

Truth is we are sailors, couldn’t give a hoot for
gauges, to busy sailing to watch gauges, we only look
at them when an alarm sounds or when we get board.

Our BCC sails to weather like a witch, 25kts no
problem, staysail and double reefed main, wet and
wild, we love it.

Marty Chin, BCC Shamrock.

3

Tom: re: battery placement: for better or for worse we moved the batteries on Sentient from their location below the quarter berth to the well under the floor hatch, just forward of the ladder. We built a hanger for the batteries which are now lower in the boat, easily accessible and also ventilated.?Subsequently, placed the?refrigeration unit in the now vacant quarter berth space which is immediately adjacent to the cold box. All of this has worked nicely.
?
Richard Smith

4

Hi Richard,
?
Read your post regarding batteries under cabin sole. FYI we just repaired a 47’ trawler last year in Alameda with batteries under cabin sole?and between engine stringers. The Boat Brokerage was moving boats to make way for the boat show; Neither brokerage or captain did a visual check of the engine room to check fluids, condition or running operation.
?
The engine seawater pump developed a static leak, when started, the pump shaft seal blew and pumped the bilge full of water;?the bilge pumps continued to work until the water level had risen above the batteries, subsequently shorting out all batteries. With no DC power the bilge pumps stopped. Being a diesel, needing no electrical power to run, continued to fill the bilge; the water level was half way up the engines before anyone noticed.
?
Naturally we received a frantic call from the boat owner.
?
By the By, how did you get batteries under the cabin sole, must be missing a water tank?
?
Merry Christmas,
?
Marty Chin, BCC Shamrock

5

That’s the problem with batteries in the bilge. Just when you need them most they are underwater
Cheers to all,
Jim