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The Scupper & Galley Drain Valve on the Christopher-Jin was the old style twist-knob-type valve. I wanted to update it with a ball cock type valve. The trick here is that you do not want to brake the drain pipe away from the fiberglass hull of your boat.
I place the biggest pipe wrenches I own on the drain pipe and old valve. I wanted maximum control to give me the best opportunity not to crack the lower drain pipe free from the hull. Very carefully I began applying pressure to the pipe wrench on the valve being very careful with the pipe wrench on the drain pipe. The valve broke free fairly easily.
I took the old valve with me to Lowe's and found a bronze ball cock valve to replace it. While at Lowe's I discovered they carried clear plastic tubing, connectors, and plastic ball cock valves. While there I purchased about 10 feet of tubing, a tee, a plastic ball valve and hose clamps. I replaced all of the plumbing for the Scuppers and Galley Drain in about an hour.
Now all I have to remember is to CLOSE the Galley Drain while under sail!!! (Click the Link to read about my mis-adventure!)
It is recommended that you replace the Scupper & Galley Drain Valves with ball-cock type valves due to their higher reliability. While I was at it I replaced the Scupper Drain Hoses as well.
In this photo you can see the new galley drain ball-cock valve and the starboard scupper drain hose.
In this photo you can see the new main ball-cock valve and the "T" from the Port Scupper as well as the "T" from the galley drain and Starboard Scupper.
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One of our readers, Tony from Oregon, had some interesting insites.
Howdy Zig,
As I say to family when we talk on the phone, how's life in the flat state? (I was born in Marine City, but I've lived in the Northwest for the last twenty years).
I saw a link to your site on the C-22 yahoo forum and took a look. Lots of good info there and even a few ideas I hadn't come across. I'll be trying a couple on my C-22 next year when I pull it for maintenance. I love your self-tending jib, I don't know why I never thought of that since I've been a fan of it on other boats, and I'm thinking of building the guts of a refrigerator like yours into a cabinet somewhere in my boat. Cold storage would be nice.
I wanted to comment on something you mention in your through-hull valve replacement writeup. The text makes a big point to the reader to take extra care not to break loose the original pipe that is "embedded" in the hull to preserve it and I assume avoid replacing it. I'm not sure if you've actually seen this pipe with your own eyes, but I'm guessing not due to the extra effort made to not replace it. One of the first maintenance items I did on my boat when I first got it in 2008 was to replace the rotten gate valve with a more reliable bronze ball valve. Just messing around, I reached back and grasped the whole assembly after cutting off the hoses and to my shock, the whole thing simply unscrewed from the hull with no more than light hand strength! Now, I come from bigger boats, so perhaps I'm just used to a better build, but I remember sitting in my boat just dumbstruck as I looked at what Catalina had put in the boat and I'm continually surprised that more boats don't sink. That "pipe" is just a short (1.5-2 inches) bronze (maybe) pipe nipple with NPT threads. The threads are blunted as well. There is no nut or mushroom outside the hull to hold it. This means the whole thing is held into the hull with only the lightest of threads and a bit of 30 year old polyester glue that doesn't stick well. In addition, because it is NPT threads that are angled, only a few of the threads actually engage in the valve (old or new). Just to play a bit more, I pushed the whole thing into the hole to see how strong the threads actually held it in and without a lot of force, the whole thing popped right back in. I wouldn't trust an installation like that in any boat. I replaced it by getting the same size (1"?) bronze mushroom through-hull and installing it in the same hole with a backing nut inside against a built up glass mound to make up the width of the nut. I did have to file the sides of the mushroom into an oval to fit into the keel slot.
Where I to do it again, I would fill in the original hole entirely and put in a proper seacock and 2" through-hull on the flat hull next to the keel slot. It's a lot harder to clog a 2" drain and a proper seacock secured to the hull with through-bolts isn't subject to shear forces if a battery or other item slides around in the bilge.
Overall, I'm very impressed with the level of some of the work you've done, but I would urge you greatly to revisit the through-hull installation in your boat and revise the text of your write up to replace the original installation with a safer mushroom through-hull.
Hope this helps,
Fair Winds,
Tony
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