Keeping our SAILBOAT WARM – Insulation | Sailing Florence Refit Ep.176

over the last 7 years we have sailed Florence to lots of hot tropical locations and even found ourselves stuck on the equator for a year struggling to stay cool under the Relentless Sun but now we are preparing to take Florence to higher latitudes a very different environment where we will face the opposite problem of trying to stay warm the first step in our battle to stay warm is to add insulation to Florence's hle where there currently is none but doing that proved to be a much bigger job than we [Music] anticipated we are Matt and Amy and this is Florence our 37t sailboat on which we have sailed over 50,000 M around the world now we are repairing and upgrading her in preparation for the next adventure and that means as a 6mon refit in the Boatyard Welcome to our beautiful bedroom on Florence which isn't looking too beautiful at the moment and that is because we are starting one of the biggest jobs we've got to do this winter which is to prepare Florence to go into colder Waters now Florence is an old boat she was built in 1985 and she was built out of solid fiberglass on the sides which means we don't have like a balla cor like some of the more modern boats do the fact that we don't have a bore is good in a lot of ways because there's less problem of having it damaged and it soaking up water but it means that we don't have as much insulation because that bore does provide a fair bit of insulation so because we're going to go somewhere cold we need to a put some insulation in to keep us warm when we're sleeping in here but also be the big problem we're going to going to have is going to be condensation and because the sides of the hull don't have Insulation at the moment there'll be a cold surface and so our warm moist breath is going to create you know water vapor and that's going to go and condense on the cold surfaces and we're going to get a lot of water on the sides which is going to make everything wet damp we normally store our clothes here they'd be wet and we'd get a lot of mold so that's something we're going to try and do as best we can to prevent that happening and that means adding insulation we already know that condensation on the hull is going to be a problem if we're in colder Waters because when we were down in South Africa with fur seals and penguins swimming around in the cold Waters there we did experienced condensation down low on the hull where the the cold water was causing the hull to be really cold so we know it's something that we need to deal with we've already spent a few days in here stripping everything out stripping the headlining out this is the fiberglass molding that goes around this piece here to make it all look nice and stripping the panels out here and the shelves out that normally hold our clothes here just so we can see how much space there is behind the panels to put insulation in so in some places cuz we've got these big thick ribs which are Florence's strength and structure it's actually 50 mm of depth here and where we've got a panel going over those between jumping between ribs there's also plenty of depth and plenty of space to put insulation in so that's great not too much of a worry there but in some places like here in order to create more space on the Shelf the Shelf actually all goes all the way back to the hull so we've actually just got headlining which is stuck onto Florence's actual fiberglass hull so there's no room for insulation there behind this piece of headlining we'll put something nicer back so what we're actually going to do is have to put a panel in here so we can actually fit some insulation behind it we'll lose a bit of space on the Shelf but we'll gain some insulation and then on the roof here the deck as it is above there is actually a core in the deck so it's the the hle the sides are not C the deck does have a Bolsa core so that provides some insulation and there is some space not as much space there is some space behind these battern that hold the headlining panels so we're going to be using different types of insulation in different areas here and we're going to learn from doing the four Peak here and how well we can insulate it and how well and easy to use those materials are and make a choice for what we use down the rest of the boat so space wasn't the only consideration when we were looking at insulation we also needed to make sure that we chose something that was waterproof because we're inevitably going to get condensation and being on a boat there is a chance that we might get some leaks in the future so we wanted an insulation that wasn't going to Wick moisture and create problems for us in the future so we've gone with a close cell foam and we've been able to get it in two different thicknesses so we couldn't get the 50 mil thick that was just too expensive and uh too difficult to work with and didn't come in in big areas so we've managed to get some 30 mil close cell foam which is quite flexible it actually has a sticky back to it but uh one of the really important things is that we get a really close addision to the side of the hole and that there is no air gap so no moisture can get between the hole and the insulation in the future so we also have some trim fix adesive and this is primarily used for like the interior of cars and um and vehicle we actually used it to insulate a uh converted camper van uh that we did just before we left and um and that's still looks okay it's not ours anymore um but that still seems to have have stuck well so uh that's what we're planning to use to stick this to the hole and then in the places where we have no space so like in the ceiling we'll just put either one or two layers of the thin and then in the places where we have more space we're actually planning to to layer it up up so that we have the reflective side on the inside of the boat which is going to hopefully reflect the heat back uh back to us inside Florence and then over the top and around all of the edges and any of the gaps uh we're going to stick this Silverback tape to the hole and that's going to hopefully create a seal around the insulation and make sure that no water can get between the insulation and the hole lots of people use camping mats or yoga mats or even gym floor mats as closel in insulation but when I looked online I actually found that this insulation was better it's more effective but also cheaper and we did look very carefully also at the R value which is basically a a way of measuring how effective the insulation is so this is the the best that we felt that we could find so whilst we're ripping the four Peak apart to fit the insulation we thought we'd also fix some of the problems that we've had been having with our headlining so this here is actually Florence's we think original headlining 1985 I think the color is probably called something like nicotine stained yellow and we replaced it with a much fresher cream headlining before we left um but that's obviously now 7 years old and we were in such a rush at the time that we didn't fully take apart all of the trim and kind of Tu it in properly and fit it properly we just stuck it the best we could over the top and so in some places that's obviously not lasted very well so we're going to rip it all off clean up the glue and start fresh so this is the old headlining and the much fresher cream and LU for us we bought such a big lot of it and Matt's parents kindly stored it in their Loft whilst we've been aw way so we've already got some of this it's a bit like a sauna here in the for Peak today because we're finding that the only way to get this contact adhesive off is to use heat and then to rub it so that it sticks together so we've got my old hair dryer and a small fan heater and we're just heating it up and then actually rubbing it with a bit of old vinyl cuz that seems to help it sort of stick together and and come off but the scrapers were getting us nowhere so finally starting to make some progress and we can hopefully stick on the new insulation and headlining once we've got all this off I'm really happy with how effective that's been because I was expecting this job to take us the entire day and we're not quite finished yet but between the two of us uh We've pretty much got this bulkhead clean and ready for new headlining in Just 2 hours it's a shame that it's not just this bulkhead that needs doing [Music] [Music] okay back before [Music] mhm I cut that across there that was definitely a two person job though to try to maneuver that big bit of fabric without getting it to stick to itself so with the insulation you can do the calculations you know roughly what the tempat is going to be outside you know you want the temperature to be inside and you know what the due Point's going to be and you can calculate how thick insulation you need to maintain that and then you look at the boat and you go there is nowhere near enough room for that much insulation so essentially what we got to do is just do the best we can and some areas we can fit more some areas we can't do the absolute best we can and then head up to somewhere cold and see how we go and if we can't do if we can't fit enough insulation in as we are with the existing design of the boat if we do want to carry on going in Coal places then we have to go to the DraStic steps of uh reducing the head room in the boat and putting panels in that are further off the sides of the boat so we can fit more insulation in we don't want to do that just yet cuz we might hate going to cold climates and just want to go back to the tropics this is proving to be a very fiddly job but it's very nice to be sticking something on rather than ripping something off Florence's structural ribs are already filled with foam we actually drilled in and checked and that would provide some insulation in that area although we are aware that the fiberglass around them will make a bit of a thermal bridge and could cause a problem so we finally finished with insulating the four Peak and this has been a mammoth project because we've had different thicknesses that have been needed in different places and then lots of things like the wires that run through to uh the anchor Locker that we've needed to work around but I feel like it's already making a difference I've um I found that in the mornings when I've been coming in here it's so it's been warming up a lot quicker than than it used to before but the job isn't yet fully finished so we need to cut back the headlining panels and change the sizes of those because now we've got the insulation in place they might not fit uh also the shelves that sit on here and I need to recover all of the headlining panels as well so that we can't actually see this insulation um we've actually even had this fiberglass combing down we did that right at the very start and we've insulated behind here as well and all in the roof so we can put all of the headlining panels back there too before we could recover the panels for the four Peak we had to remove the old headlining and the old glue I found that the orbital sander with 60 grit sandpaper managed to remove the glue but it was slow going I wish that I could have speeded it up like this in real [Music] time then finding a large enough clean and clear space on board to glue the new headlining onto the panels was a challenge so after this one we took the panels home and glued them on Matt's mom's kitchen floor so our four peek is finally back together this is the first part of Florence that we have fully finished insulating and also put all of the headlining and the side panels back and we've actually changed what we've put on the side panels these are the the panels that go uh beside our bed because we previously had the plastic uh vinyl type material which is really good because it's easy to clean but it becomes a really cold surface and when we go north we feel that that's going to condensate um it's also really not very nice when you stick an arm or a leg uh out of bed and and it touches that so this is going to be harder to clean this um it's like a car and Van trim four-way stretch carpet that you can stick on but it should also provide a little bit extra insulation as well Amy's now insulated on this side all between the ribs on the side of Florence and sealed that all in but because this is a cupboard where we Chuck loads of stuff in we don't want to be putting things in and then puning through and damaging the insulation so we're going to cover it with this PVC sheet which is 1.5 mm thick flat sheet which we've cut and of course nowhere on a boat is square so we had to make cardboard templates and cut but now that we've done that we should be able to slot this in in cuz it's nice and flexible and you see we C out V's to go around the ribs and stuff that one should sit there we can't do it all in one piece because it's got to fit in through these holes so we just going to have it a bit like a clinker boat where they overlap one will nicely go in there and then when we put things in the cupboard they won't damage the insulation we'll just put a couple of screws in to hold those and we'll be done that's turned out a lot neater and better than I thought it would before we didn't have any backing in here at all it was just the bare hole so there was more space cuz it wasn't taken up with insulation or back tring but when you put things in there CU they're up against the bear hle the be hle will be a cold surface when we go north so it could condensate and we'll get water drops on it so anything in here would have got wet now hopefully we can use the locker although it's a tiny bit smaller things will stay dry in there insulating here in the saloon on the roof we have got a problem there is not really enough room on the sides there is a decent amount of thickness and we've managed to get 40 mm of insulation in but here mainly because I'm Too Tall there is not enough head the ceiling panels actually just screw straight onto the fiberglass here so we got to make a decision between dropping the headlining panels down by putting some batters behind and actually getting a decent thickness of insulation in and kind of making do with what we've got now the roof does actually have a Bola cor about 15 mm thick Bola core which does give some insulating properties which we don't have on Florence's sides the sides of Florence are solid fiberglass glass but it's probably not going to be enough so where we can fit some insulation in we've put this 10 mm stuff through and there are areas where we've managed to get a decent amount in but where the headlining panels just go straight up against the fiberglass we're just going to put in some of this foil back bubble wrap which I think does rely on there being a gap between it and the headlining panel to reflect the heat uh which we're obviously not going to have in a lot of places so this is kind of better than nothing we hope and we just see if next winter we need to come back and put some battern in drop the height of the headlining to allow for some proper insulation but for now we'll just see how this goes we're also just going to take this bubble wrap in place rather than stick it completely with spray glue in case we do decide we need to take it off next winter and do something better once we had all of the panels off adding the insulation to the roof was much faster and easier than insulating the sides because we could actually put in large sheets rather than having to make intricate shapes to fit around Florence's structure it was also easy to cut around the hatch once it was in place feels really good to have the ceiling panels back up on Florence and that probably look like a really easy job and the reason for that is that in comparison to the insulation that we've been doing on the sides of Florence the insulation on the ceiling was super quick and super easy because it's just such a big flat area where whereas the rest of Florence has taken a huge amount of time we've had to make templates to try and fit insulation in all of those intricate areas and also dismantle all of the cupboards and all of the side panels and um extra kind of shelving and stuff uh to get to the insulation in the first place so that's the reason really that it's taken so much longer than we anticipated and even at this stage in the refit we're not finished with the insulation although we've now insulated down the boat pretty much all the way back to the galley and we've actually done some of the panels behind here in the chart table and the quarter birth there are areas back here that are going to be a real challenge like this for example this is just some Hessian cloth stuck directly onto the fiberglass and the other side of this panel which is only about 4 mm thick is the cockpit so here we're probably going to have to rip off all of this material stick some headlining on or stick some insulation on sorry and then some headlining carpet over the top of that but that's going to eat into the space here in the quarter birth and also that's going to be a huge job which we're not sure we're going to have time for in this refit so this might be a job for another day next time we address the other side of staying warm on board Florence heating we'll share what we chose and why along with the process of fitting it onto Florence for extra updates in between these bi-weekly videos and to find out what we're up to in real time head over to Patron and join the crew of course don't forget to subscribe to make sure that you don't miss the next episode here on [Music] YouTube continuing our Voyage on Florence would not be possible without the support of our patrons thank you to all of you and especially to our star [Music] patrons [Music]

Channel: Sailing Yacht Florence

Views: 81,436

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Id: jyqHnMENUNM

Length: 21min 8sec (1268 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024