We just got back from 8 days on board our new to us '81 Stevens 47 in St. John. Love the
boat (she
sails GREAT) but the showering situation was, lets say.... interesting.
The prior owner and his wife apparently believed that sudsing off with Joy liquid in
salt water was all that you needed and thats all they did. The heads in the
boat have sinks and showers (they are "wet heads", no separate
shower stall) that drain straight to the
bilge. They did not use the showers at all and they put bowls in the sinks and poured the
water into the toilets to be pumped
overboard.
Well, we like fresh
water showers! This was an immediate problem...
I refused to use the showers below as I did not want the
bilge to become a foul mess.
The boat came with a fresh water
shower on the aft
deck. This consisted of two
stainless steel round covers over two fittings. One covered a
bronze gate valve and the other a simple pull out shower
head. Ok, thats good... BUT, the fitting had long since corroded off the gate valve and the shower hose and
head was the most foul looking thing you have ever seen.
Ahhhhh boat
project number one: I got a new
bronze gate valve, a length of hose and a new shower head plus some
hardware and I replaced the old stuff. So we had a rudimentary fresh water shower on the aft
deck. The only problem is that the only gate valves available had a much shorter neck that the one originally on the boat meaning the opening/close fitting barely protruded above deck and was VERY hard to turn on and off AND we only had access to cold water. But so what, it worked fine for a week.
Still, I have to have a permanent solution. I will post a separate thread on the bigger picture solution for the heads below, but for the immediate
project we want a really nice hot and cold water aft deck shower.
I have been looking at this:
ATTWOOD AFT DECK SHOWER SYSTEM - Shower Equipment by Discount Marine Supplies
I have concerns. I would not mount this on the transom and it would be to hard to reach and would weaken things. If I wanted to mount it flush on the aft deck through the aft lazerette this would
work, and it could probably go where the existing fittings are located. BUT... it would require a much larger mounting hole in the deck to install and this entire thing is plastic. That scares me. What if it UV degrades and falls apart when a large wave breaks over the stern in heavy
weather? Now I have a big hole in the aft deck. Is that realistic?
I searched and tried to find something similar in 316 stainless but no luck. I have also though about having a stainless mounting bracket made with a lip and a stainless cover plate for use when going
offshore.... this may
work.
Or I could mount this thing on the aft side of the
cockpit coaming (boat is center cockpit) perhaps?
Ideas? Comments? Solutions?
Terry