Integral Tanks - What To Do, What To Do?

[Billy Buck]

Happy New Year Forumians. You are my favourite people in the boating world. I appreciate you.

I'm recommitting to the refit of my Cheoy Lee Perry 35. We were stopped up by the pandemic and she has been sitting patiently on the hard for a couple years. Just before wrapping her I removed the engine as we are repowering with electric propulsion. We are also putting in a compost toilet. All this to say I have some room in the boat now that I'd like to be smart about reconfiguring.

The integral water tanks, under both settees in the salon, are unusable. I either have to rebuild them or move them. The diesel tank, under the starboard aft quarter bunk, is also integral.

My question is about structural integrity. I would love to turn under the settees into storage and relocate water tanks elsewhere. The space under the aft bunk would also be useful storage. The new battery bank will likely go in the engine compartment to replace the 550 lbs lost when the VP MD11C came out.

What would you do in my situation? Refurbish the water tanks or put in plastic tanks and use the remaining space for storage?

[tkeithlu]

Hmmm. From here it is hard to say whether the designer was figuring on the "box" of the tanks for part of the hull rigidity. In the general case, the less radical the change, the less likely you are to do something with unforeseen disasterous consequences.

That brings me to ask, particularly in the case of the water tanks, why they are unusable. A leaking tank can be lined with epoxy, with other repairs for other problems.

LOts of unanswered questions here, and I'm not about to say that the best solution is not the first one that is in your mind. Instead, I suggest backing up a moment and looking at less radical changes before rejecting them.

[Billy Buck]

tkeithlu - not sure if my thank you note got through so I'm sending it again here. A couple days before posting this inquiry and your response I read through my ship's log. On some other matter I noted that I must approach the refit as I was taught to approach first aid first responses - do not take away from the situation, only add things. So thank you for this note. Much appreciated.

And because you mention structure and rigidity and both those things are important to me I'm going to keep the water tanks where they are. They hadn't been cleaned in years when I took over the boat so they just need a deep clean, new access ports, new plumbing, and, potentially, a new coat of food grade something or another. Epoxy? Do you have any recos for what to recoat the insides with? Someone in another thread mentioned a product called Microseal.

Happy New Year tkeithlu. Fair winds.

bb