Sailing Vessel Prestissimo

I'm going to post stuff about the Tom Wylie sailboat I built in 2003-4 at Schooner Creek Boat Works.  There is lots more info at Prestissimo.org.

Briefly, Prestissimo is 43' long, 12' beam & weighs 12,000 lbs.  She has a 65' unstayed mast, lifting 6,000 lb. keel, recirculating shower, composting toilet, uses an electric motor of a 144v battery bank which she recharges while sailing.  Backup power is from a 144vdc genset.

I designed all the systems, and now after 5 years of use, I'm making some changes to the heating and plumbing to simplify them.  There are trade offs to every feature, and some of the efficiencies I built in just aren't worth the added complexity.

After 5 years there is some black growth in the water hoses and the tank water is coming out smelly, so I'm going to replace all the hose, and at the same time eliminate about 2/3 of it.  The original design has/had all the fixtures going to a common valve manifold.  Now, I'm going to have just a single hose pass by all the fixtures while it connects the starboard and port water tanks.  There will be a valve near each tank and at each fixture.

Hot water will be made at each fixture with a point-of-use flat plate heat exchanger and a thermostatic valve so the hot water should come out of the fixture immediately and at the right temperature.

Right now I'm on the boat and should be working, but it is pouring rain and flooding the marina, so I'm stuck in the cabin.