Faro Blanco - Solar Panel Wiring

Sunday 2/4/2018 - Tuesday 2/6/2018
Solar Panel Prep Work

Sunday 2/4/2018 - Day 1

When the technician, Chris, from SALT came to get measurements to give us an estimate for the cost of solar panels, Clark and he scoped out a planned route through the boat for running the wires. To get the four wires from the very top of the boat, where the solar panels will sit, to the house battery bank in the bottom of the boat, requires a lengthy and circuitous route.

Knowing we would be paying by the hour for installation work, Clark decided we should get ready for the install by running line / rope through the path the wires must take in preparation for pulling wire through on Monday. I knew it would not be easy, but I was definitely all in for saving money.

The planned route started at the top of the boat, went through the pilot house to the galley, along the starboard side of the boat through to the salon, and then down into the battery compartment.

Start at the top and feed wires down a metal, hard-top-support pole;
(Clark checking out the starting point on top)

Pass through the upper helm console to the starboard side of the boat;
(Clark with his head inside the upper helm console)

Drop down into the pilot house
(Clark with hand in behind the wall feeling for wire space.)

Wires to pass through wall behind galley cabinet 

to behind the drawers where Clark is standing.

Then along the starboard side of the boat from the galley to the stern.
(Clark checking out the access space behind the sofa in the salon.)

Final destination - compartment under salon floor.
(Clark looking to see where wires will come through to connect to batteries.)

Laying out and feeding the line / rope through the boat took about 3.5 hours. We segmented the lines so the wires could be passed from one spot to the next in stages. Because four wires will be passed together and will take up quite a bit of space, we had to be careful selecting the path to be sure the wires will be able to pass through the sometimes very limited available space.

Monday 2/5/2018 - Day 2

Chris from SALT said he would come on Monday at 10:00 a.m., and I was pleased to see that he appeared promptly at 10:00 today as he said he would. Having crawled all over the boat yesterday to prepare for the wire pulling, I was happy to see him and hoped that I could disappear from the scene while he and Clark did whatever needed to be done.

As I listened to Clark and Chris talk, however, my smile turned upside down as I began to see that the day would not go as I had foreseen. Very quickly Chris made it clear that he had no intention of staying. He spent about a half hour talking to Clark about the work to be done. Then he handed Clark a large spool of wire and said, "I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of what needs to be done here. Call me if you have any questions."

Little did I know that with those words today would be the beginning of two days of utter misery. The weather could not be more perfect for playing outdoors with warm temperatures, no rain in sight, and cool breezes. To make matters worse, as we prepared to spend the day crawling into every nook and cranny on the boat, I saw other boaters going out for dinghy rides, taking a trip to Key West to explore the area, and getting together to enjoy lunch at a local restaurant. I pouted! I wanted to go out and play! I did not want to be trapped on board the boat all day!

Knowing that doing this work would save us lots of by-the-hour installation dollars, I sucked it up and went to work helping Clark run the wires. To begin, we took a long piece of string, and starting at the top, ran it along the designated route to see how much wire we would need for each of the four wires to be cut. We marked the line at the anticipated length and set that to one side to begin the hard work. Clark wisely decided not to cut any wire until we had the path ready to go.

Clark started today's endeavors by drilling the hole in the top of the boat where the wires would drop down from the solar panel connections.

Clark drilling a hole in the top of the boat.

Clark started drilling at 11:00 or so. He finally broke through the stainless steel plate at the top of the metal tube to be used as a conduit into the boat three hours later. Although I was not out there drilling, I was held captive as I had to be available to assist - get this, do that, etc.

Finally, we moved to the next step of feeding the fish tape into the post to pull a line through to the area behind the upper helm console. Clark pushed the fish tape into the hole and had me with my head in the console area looking for the end.

Wire needs to go down the tube on the right to the upper helm area.

Sadly, it did not appear at my end. With the inability to find the end of the fish tape, the light bulb lit, and Clark realized that the wire traveled down the wrong tube. Instead of going down the tube into the console, it went straight down to the port side. Useless!

The two tubes are welded together to form a V. We found no way to gain access to drill a hole in the angled tube without turning the supports for the hard top into "Swiss cheese". Three hours drilling to a dead end! Time for Plan B!

When Jim from Third Degree visited our boat and Clark outlined our plan to him, Jim suggested that it might be better to put the line down the stern post instead of the forward post. Consequently, Clark explored that option and thought it too hard to access for drilling. With our new revelation, suddenly Jim's suggestion became our only option.

Plan B - drill up into the metal post in the stern
as well as down from the top of the boat.

We pulled out everything from the area under the bench seat on the upper helm in preparation for Clark crawl into that space to drill. I cannot think of a less favorable place to drill a hole through stainless steel. He had to climb into a space only someone as thin as he could get into, lie on his back, and drill a hole pushing hard against the metal with his arms straight up in the air. The first time he climbed in I had stepped away, and he had a moment of panic as he realized he could not figure out how to get out of the hole.

Clark climbing into the storage space under the bench seats on the upper helm.

Taking a ruler to mark the spot that needs to be drilled.

Because Clark would be drilling through who-only-know-what (wood, fiberglass, stainless steel) in a compact chamber, we had to come up with some protection for his health. First, we put a fan in the chamber to circulate air and relieve some of the heat in there. Then we added a running vacuum cleaner to suck up particles floating in the air from the drilling. Finally, since he had no shop glasses, he wore his swim goggles to protect his eyes (that was my suggestion).

Clark removing his watch, putting on gloves, and
wearing swim goggles in prep to drill.

Clark spent the remainder of the daylight hours on his back in that chamber drilling with a heavy drill over his head. When he finally called quits around 7:00 p.m., he had hardly made any progress toward the ultimate goal of having a hole large enough for 4 wires to pass through.

We pulled things together in a makeshift cleanup effort and went to see what we could figure out for dinner. Fortunately I found a variety of leftovers in the fridge, and that became our meal. As we ate, we discussed our "next steps". We thought we would be done with the wiring hours ago, and in reality we were still at square one with hardly any progress made.

We made the decision over dinner to walk to the Home Depot and buy more drill bits. As Clark struggled to break through the steel, he found that he could make slow progress using very small increments in drill bit size. Any attempt to jump in size by more than the smallest increments resulted in abject failure.

Because it was late and dark, we walked the 1.5 miles to Home Depot and the 1.5 miles back. The store closed at 9:00, and we got there a little after 8:00. We bought a Ryobi all-purpose drill bit set with bits in increments of 1/32nd and a Milwaukee "hard metal" drill bit set with increments in 1/8" sizes. Because Clark's shoulders and hand were bothering him from the stress they received through the day, I carried our "treasures" home.

Tuesday 2/6/2018 - Day 3

After a quick breakfast it was back into the "torture chamber" for Clark. We laid out our drill bits in incremental sizes, so that I could give them to Clark in the proper order. Lying in the chamber, Clark passed the drill out into the open where I removed the used drill bit and replaced it with the next size up. Since he could not see the drill while I changed the bits, each time we did it, he felt around with his hands to use the key to verify the tightness of the bit to make sure it was secure.

Stainless steel hardens when heated. With too much friction the steel could become so hard that it could not be drilled. To avoid overheating, Clark drilled slowly and oiled each bit as he used it. Consequently, when I took the used one off, I had to clean off the oil and metal particles before I could return it to its case.

Through experimentation and struggling, we found that the Ryobi drill bits far surpassed the Milwaukee bits in their ability to cut through the steel even though the Milwaukee said they were for "hard metal". That being the case we went through all the Ryobi drill bits starting at 1/8" and progressing to 1/2" in 1/32nd inch increments.

As he labored to make a hole for the wires, Clark decided that even with all the drill bits we purchased last night, he still needed more. The ones we purchased ended at 1/2", and the next size up he had after that was 5/8". He took a break from drilling and hitched a ride with Jim Paddock to the Specialty Hardware Store at the other end of Marathon to buy additional drill bits at the sizes between 1/2" and 5/8".

In record time Clark returned from the store with three more drill bits and immediately climbed back into the uncomfortable space to recommence drilling. When he finally finished drilling and had a 5/8" hole, he was not convinced that four wires would fit through the space. He cut four lengths of wire to test and found that, sure enough, only three would go through. He needed more drilling. He needed more drill bits.

Jim from Evermore had offered to take Clark to Specialty Hardware earlier, so Clark contacted him and begged a ride to the store. On the first trip, this morning, Clark bought 3 drill bits and paid just over $60. The second trip, he came back with three more drill bits and a receipt of over $90. With the $125 we paid for drill bits at Home Depot, this was rapidly becoming a bit expensive, but still less money than paying by-the-hour for the professionals to do it! With the additional drill bits and a whole lot of patience, we got the hole up to a size of 3/4" and the wires fit.

Great! At this point, it is afternoon on the second day, and we have one hole drilled and no wires run. Time to start drilling the second hole -- this time from the top into the same steel tube. At least now Clark knows what works, has all the sizes he needs, and gets to be standing up outside.

Clark took out the 1/8" drill bit and started drilling. I heard clunk, tinkle tinkle tinkle, and "Oh no!" The drill bit broke! He worried he would have to drill through the drill bit. He was clearly relieved when I told him I heard it drop down. After that issue, however, drilling went well and reasonably fast as we progressed 1/32" at a time to make the hole bigger and bigger in manageable increments until the hole measured 3/4".

Having now cut three holes in the boat with only two usable, we decided to remeasure the length of wire needed using our long piece of string and to cut the wire. Fortunately we had a long dock to run the wire down. It's amazing how many feet of wire it takes to go to a spot about 10 feet below when the wire has to run back and forth through the boat to get there.

Since Chris from SALT had only given us a partial spool of wire, we doubted we would have sufficient length to complete the job. When we laid it out on the dock, however, it was like he knew in advance exactly how much we would need. We had nothing to spare, but we had enough by our measurements to do the job.

Although we were both exhausted and sick to death of this project, I knew that Clark would not want to stop working until we had the job done. As I watched Clark cut the wires, I knew that we would potentially have a late night tonight pushing and pulling wires through the walls of the boat. With no plans or time for dinner, I started to think about what we could find to eat while we pulled wires.

To start feeding the wire, Clark taped the four wires to a line that he had dropped down through the drilled holes. He lined up the wires to be offset from each other so the width built incrementally. If I were doing it, I would forget and have a big lump that would not pass through the tight spaces.

As Clark pushed and I pulled the wire through the two drilled holes, I felt like we were finally making real progress on our wire-pulling assignment. Quickly we fed the lines through the next chamber along the starboard wall towards the bow of the boat. Once again Clark found himself in tight quarters as he crawled into a barely big enough storage area containing the propane tank holder.

As the wire passed to me standing in the pilot house, I suddenly heard, "Oh no!" The wire was being fed on the wrong side of the propane tank holder and had to be pulled back up to start again. Grrrr! One step forward, one step back! Clark rerouted the wire and tried again.

We decided that we could bypass coming out into the pilot house and feeding the wire back in towards the galley. That way, instead of having to pass around corners, we could drop it straight down. I stood in the galley and pulled the wire out of the cabinet over my head as Clark pushed the wire down from the top. Real progress! We made it into the cabin!

Looking at our options, Clark decided to pass the wire through a PVC pipe in the wall that already contained some wires. This option appeared to have more space for the wires than trying to go down the wall next to the pipe. With this plan, we got from the cabinet to the space behind the kitchen drawers next to the stove.  As Clark fed the wires, I pulled them out onto the galley floor ready to be fed back in for the next segment of the run.

Things were moving right along. Clark attached the next piece of line to the wires and climbed into the space behind the stove to collect the wires as I fed them back to him. To get behind the stove, he had to remove the seat cushions from the sofa in the salon and climb into the access space allowing him to shimmy forward along the starboard side of the boat.

Clark climbing into yet another tight spot on the boat.

Fully inside.

With only his feet showing.

As I reached the end of the length of wires to be passed to Clark, I was the one to yell, "Oh no!" Once again we had a logistical error. The wires came out the opening for the top drawer and in the opening for the bottom drawer. Short of tearing out the wood separator, we had no option but to backtrack yet again. I hear, "Okay, pull 'em back." and out they came to pool at my feet once again.

Clark took off the tape holding the wires to the next line, changed the positioning of the line, and reapplied the tape. Okay, start again. On the second try, we got the wire fed correctly.

Clark had to drill a couple of holes for the wire to pass through along the starboard wall. To get the wire fed properly through these holes, I had to climb into the hole in the wall with him. Fortunately, I did not have to crawl in too far. With just my head and shoulders in the hole, I found myself perspiring like crazy. How Clark could stand to be all the way inside for as long as he was in there, I will never know.

As I pulled the wire through, I had to pass the wire out into the salon ready for the next segment so when Clark tried to climb out of the hole he would not get tangled up in the wire. When we finished this bit, Clark climbed out and then climbed right back in facing the other direction to take the wire to the stern-facing wall of the salon.

Wire out and to one side as Clark positions himself for the next segment.

To get to the final resting spot for this length of wire, Clark had to drill two more holes in the boat. These would allow the wire to pass into the chamber under the sofa where the controls will reside.

Before doing the drilling, however, we decided to eat. While all the pushing, pulling, and taping was happening, I was grabbing any minute I could find to make dinner. We stopped at some point in our work to eat the meal I prepared and then went back to wire pulling.

Final space (under sofa) to receive the
four wires for the solar panels.

When we finally declared ourselves done running wire, the boat was a mess from top to bottom. Yesterday, we worked from 11:00 to 7:00 (if you don't count the walk to the Home Depot last night) and today from 9:00 to 11:00 on this job. Even so, Clark did not stop. He immediately set to putting the boat back together. I was happy to see my galley cabinet regain a shelf and walls and my kitchen drawers return to their designated spaces.

When we finally crawled into bed, we both ached all over. Clark showed me his back where he had a huge red circle on each shoulder blade about 5" in diameter where lying on his back to drill had irritated his skin. I knew how miserable I felt. I could only imagine how much worse it was for him.

Desperately wanting to escape this awful project, I felt like I was a hostage for the past three days. At one point I took a short walk to the recycle garbage can at the end of the dock followed by a quick trip to the building to use the toilet aka head. When I got back, Clark said, "Where were you?" Maybe he thought I had escaped!?

The installer plans to come back on Thursday with the solar panels. Hopefully this time I can escape any hard labor. I certainly hope it is not a repeat of Monday where he appears with the materials, says "I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of what needs to be done", and leaves us to take care of the install.