A Very Different Kind of Week 🙃 Building Our Own Aluminum Catamaran Pt. 68

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]- Delos 2.0 is starting to come alive.

[00:00:03]And with that comes a whole lot of equipment being installed.

[00:00:07]- Welcome to the Port Forward technical space on Delos 2.0. Wow.

[00:00:12]- This week I'm deep into the electrical systems, trying to figure out the most efficient use of space and making short and tidy cable runs and ultimately how everything fits together.

[00:00:23]And honestly, it's a lot.... at the same time, work continues on the hull, we're starting to fair the bottom of the boat.

[00:00:30]All these craters, all the stuff needs to be smoothed in and filled.

[00:00:37]- Great. So much work. Oh my God.

[00:00:39]- Oh my God. But just as things were starting to feel a little repetitive, we had something super special to look forward to.

[00:00:47]- What, what are you seeing, Erica?

[00:00:48]- I've seeing a koala for the first time!

[00:00:53]I'm so excited.

[00:01:00]- Good morning. We're back and refreshed from the weekend.

[00:01:03]Unfortunately, Connor's gone, so I'm up to finishing the electrical installation all to myself now.

[00:01:09]But he gave me a really good head start on everything and did some incredible work and I'm so very grateful for it.

[00:01:16]And now I'm continuing on today's project.

[00:01:19]I'm working on just creating this board.

[00:01:22]These are the 48 volt to 24 volt DC to DC converters.

[00:01:27]Most of everything's 48 volt for the high current stuff, or 12 volt for the low current stuff.

[00:01:32]But the autopilot, it turns out, has a better response time for 24 volt.

[00:01:37]So it's the odd, the odd duck really.

[00:01:40]One of them is more than capable of handling the power for the autopilot, but I've decided to put in two of them.

[00:01:46]So we have a little bit of redundancy.

[00:01:48]We are in the starboard engine room, so this is the electric side of the boat, the side with alpha diesel.

[00:01:54]So there's actually more equipment.

[00:01:57]So this guy will fit right up in here.

[00:01:59]This is the autopilot itself.

[00:02:01]So all I need to do is run the wires over and to right there where they'll all connect up.

[00:02:07]And the last remaining piece of the puzzle is the autopilot computer, which I have a little space for it right up there.

[00:02:15]Now I can go down to the bench finish doing all my wiring, and then when it's done, I just bring it in here and just screw it in, which I think is a pretty good method.

[00:02:31]Okay, we got it in.

[00:02:33]- Do you want to come down and look at my project for today?

[00:02:36]- Yes, - Yes, yes.

[00:02:38]That's the enthusiasm on what Love to, okay, come on, let - Me get outta - Your way. So - Excited.

[00:02:43]No way. Look at all that stuff.

[00:02:45]- Yeah, you can see there's the electric motor, very compact.

[00:02:50]You've got the air conditioning compressors.

[00:02:52]This is the electric motor controller.

[00:02:55]Yeah, this is the bus bone.

[00:02:57]Our big leads coming in from the power up front from the batteries, and then it starts getting slid off.

[00:03:04]These ones are dedicated to the electric motor controller.

[00:03:08]And then these are our other 48 volt things.

[00:03:11]So this is for all solar panels. Wow.

[00:03:14]So this will be to the solar panels.

[00:03:16]And then this will be the charge controllers.

[00:03:18]Then this supplies power to the autopilot 48 volts.

[00:03:22]We have a couple of spares built in here that's for the flat winder.

[00:03:26]And then another spares. We have lots of spares.

[00:03:28]And then that's the panel I made this morning.

[00:03:30]- Wow. - Yep. And then we have one more line.

[00:03:33]This is the, the 48 volt remote.

[00:03:36]This will run up over to a big panel that's gonna go over here and we'll have one of the safari star light units that will control a contactor that turns all this on and off and gives power to the autopilot.

[00:03:51]- Yeah. But - That's what I've been working on.

[00:03:52]- Cool. It's - Coming together. Looks great.

[00:03:55]There's so much work. Oh my God.

[00:04:00]- Oh my God. Oh my God.

[00:04:05]I'm just gonna come in here 'cause it is so loud in the shop today as always.

[00:04:11]But do you guys know What I just realized this morning is that it was almost exactly two years ago since we left the boat in French Polynesia and flew here to Australia to see the boat for the first - Time.

[00:04:27]He is, - Whoa, that looks so cool.

[00:04:33]You gotta come up here and take a look at it from a PS.

[00:04:36]- Just so much stuff have happened and it's really amazing to look back on the videos.

[00:04:43]And like Brian said, it's just so much work and I don't think our pulse cells had any clue of the complexity involved in this build.

[00:04:57]And also like how the sheer amount of decisions we would need to be making.

[00:05:04]And I feel like both Brian and I can get very absorbed in a project and especially ones like this and we kind of like feed off of each other, which is really amazing.

[00:05:17]But it can also kind of become a little bit much sometimes.

[00:05:21]And I find especially lately that I've been feeling really exhausted at night, just coming home and I'm just like completely, you know, just like completely out of it.

[00:05:35]Which I think a lot of it is because my mind just never switches off.

[00:05:43]I'm just like constantly going from the time I wake up until I go to bed.

[00:05:48]And this is actually something that came up with my therapist lately and she kind of called me out actually.

[00:05:56]So what did she say?

[00:05:57]She said something like, Karen, you need to take these moments and if you don't take these moments, like you won't feel good.

[00:06:07]So completely true.

[00:06:09]And I think for me it's, it's been amazing because she gave me these like a little guided meditations.

[00:06:19]So I've been doing those just like, it's not long, it's just like a few minutes every day and it's just incredible to have that time to just completely kind of like switch my mind off I guess, and recharge a big one.

[00:06:35]So yeah, honestly I feel like especially lately it's been really incredible to have my therapist to talk to like this.

[00:06:45]And not just to like kind of help me to figure things out, but also to kind of like, you know, she like pushes me in the right direction, which I really appreciate and that's why I wanna thank today's paid partner for this video, which is better help.

[00:07:03]So better help makes starting therapy easier.

[00:07:05]You just take a quiz and get matched with a credential therapist quickly.

[00:07:09]You can communicate however you feel comfortable, phone, video, text, click the link in description or head on over to better help.com/des for 10% of your first month of therapy.

[00:07:24]Okay, now it's back to Brian because I think he's keen to kick off just one more project before our friends arrive because I have a feeling things are about to get a lot less productive around here.

[00:07:38]- Yeah. So it's for the pumps that are gonna be in the starboard engine rooms and I've wanted to find a cool way to organize them and also solve a problem that I had on Delos, which is that every time I would loosen a hose clamp or change a pump or service it, I would get water all over everything below it.

[00:07:55]So we've placed all the pumps down low and we've also built a pan under them to catch the drippings.

[00:08:03]I went ahead and welded this channel in here and then I just bolt the pumps right into these and I can adjust it, move it.

[00:08:11]It's wide enough to accommodate an 85 mil wide pump, which is these pumps and a hundred mil wide pump.

[00:08:18]Oh yeah. By the way, do you like my nails?

[00:08:20]Sierra did 'em for me last night. She loves doing it.

[00:08:23]And I don't mind. Now it's time to put this in the engine room, see how it fits.

[00:08:38]Yeah. Cool. Looks good in there.

[00:08:45]- We are at the airport and I'm gonna pick up some people today.

[00:08:50]Some people, these people - Can't show that.

[00:09:13]- So we just come, is coming to the yard today and it's actually really fun to have friends.

[00:09:19]Erica is helping me with a bunch of the colors and textures for the outside cushions for the nav station.

[00:09:29]And Warren and Brian is working on some parts for a ball.

[00:09:38]- Hi ladies. Oh, look at you. I know. Nice little set you - Got here.

[00:09:42]We're finding scrap metal.

[00:09:44]- Look at me. Think I'm in business here.

[00:09:47]- If you're wondering why our friends flew all the way here to rummage through some scrap metal.

[00:09:51]Well, it's kind of a funny story.

[00:09:54]- We needed a $2,000 boat park, but what if we could fly to Australia, build it ourselves, visit friends who are building one of the most epic sailboats on the planet and come back for about the same price.

[00:10:14]- We're gonna be making some templates up for VA today.

[00:10:17]- Yeah. - And it's raining and the weather sucks.

[00:10:21]We are looking for a couple of pieces that are about 16 mil thick at least that will accommodate that template size.

[00:10:28]Yep. That's 16. It's kind of cool.

[00:10:33]Actually, just over a year ago I walked into this yard not knowing much about fabrication or welding, but spend enough time around people who really know their stuff and slowly some of it starts to stick and now I get to be the one jumping in and paying it forward.

[00:10:55]- I think we've gotten everything just about cut out.

[00:10:58]- Let's get it clamped. - Okay.

[00:11:00]- In place. - Yep.

[00:11:01]- Then we'll give it a couple attacks to hold it together.

[00:11:04]Yeah. And then we'll weld it and then we'll, we'll grind the edges smooth.

[00:11:11]And - Brian, you have Oh Don, come on man. Grind - Those welts back before you look at it.

[00:11:22]Two - Looks good.

[00:11:25]- Yeah. Cook the cook hook the cook hook. Yeah.

[00:11:28]Patent it right here. The cook. The cook Troutman hook.

[00:11:31]It doesn't have the same ring though, does it?

[00:11:33]- Let's leave it with the cook hook. Okay. Okay.

[00:11:36]All right. It's got a better ring too.

[00:11:37]- Yeah, this is - A B'S. Every lunch - The Ks will be, have an inch of butter, put it down about 25 mil, cover it up thick the hair on a cat's back, and then just a thin layer. I think it's great.

[00:11:50]- It's - Salty, huh?

[00:11:51]- It's double. It's like a thick soy sauce.

[00:11:55]- Yeah. Any noodles you reckon?

[00:11:58]I'll bring you some Vegemite into my, you haven't tried Vegemite either.

[00:12:02]- And in the spirit of a proper Aussie welcome, we spent the next few days showing Warn America a bit of our life here.

[00:12:09]The best way we know knowhow.

[00:12:17]- What? What are you seeing Erica?

[00:12:19]- I've seen a cooler for the first time.

[00:12:22]- Love your accent. - I'm so excited. Hey you.

[00:12:26]- He slightly moved his head like this.

[00:12:28]- I know. - Yeah.

[00:12:32]Think's pretty big, huh? Wow.

[00:12:48]- Ooh, you got some air. Are you kidding me?

[00:12:52]Are you kidding me? I'm ready.

[00:13:03]- He entertained.

[00:13:22]- I think we're all a little bit bleary. I - Where'd that week go?

[00:13:26]- What happened? It was crazy.

[00:13:28]- I'm just gonna put my sunglasses - On.

[00:13:30]I don't know what happened but we had a blast and the week has passed and Born America are going back - To Thank you for visiting you guys, Fiji and we'll see you soon. Okay.

[00:13:44]- I miss you guys so much. So much.

[00:13:47]Thank you so much for flying here.

[00:13:50]- It's all good. We'll be back. Okay.

[00:13:52]- See - You next time. Bye. Back to work.

[00:14:01]- Alright, well a couple of days had gone by actually more than a couple of days had gone by since I started working on this panel.

[00:14:09]But I'm real happy with how it turned out.

[00:14:12]This whole thing is ready to go in.

[00:14:13]So I'm gonna go ahead and place it in and then I start connecting up all the wires inside the hole.

[00:14:34]- Hi. Hi. Welcome to the port forward technical space on D los to burn out. Wow.

[00:14:40]- So these are, this is the starlight.

[00:14:42]So this will control like the pumps and the toilets and the fridges, freezers like the high current devices.

[00:14:50]- Okay. - And then this is the starlight for nav lights, tricolor, steaming lights, low current stuff.

[00:14:59]- Yeah. - And then this is another Starlight that's dedicated to running these AC contactors down here.

[00:15:06]It will allow us to turn on the AC lows like air conditioning, hot water heater, oven, stove from the same digital switching system.

[00:15:16]So we'll probably be able to control that from our phones and from any of the buttons at the helm.

[00:15:21]And it's also wired up to have manual overrides.

[00:15:25]So if I flip the switch here, then it, it turns off power to the star power and the star lights and then we can just use normal.

[00:15:34]Then these become active.

[00:15:35]I mean who, who knows what could happen.

[00:15:37]I definitely wanted to have a a hundred percent redundancy.

[00:15:40]- It's a lot of electronics, huh? Yeah.

[00:15:44]- Yeah. Fresh water, port gray starboard, gray starboard, toilet port, toilet inside fridge, freezer, NA light, tricolor deck light, steaming light, windless power, selden power anchor light port lights, salon lights, starboard lights, saloon lights.

[00:15:57]2K, network chart, plotter radar, VHF stereo enough computer deck wash down outside fridge, stern out.

[00:16:02]There's a lot of shit. All it could Came for a little visit. Mors came back. She - Does - For more. Look - At those overalls.

[00:16:12]I don't get overalls.

[00:16:16]- Look at you, bill you on the overalls. I clean. I am. You're so - Clean.

[00:16:20]- Anyway, we're working on something pretty cool now we're starting to fare the bottom of the boat.

[00:16:26]And so if you look at, you know the welds are very nice, but each of these little variations in the weld pattern, all these craters, all the stuff needs to be smoothed in and filled and then sanded before we put the primer on the bottom and paint it.

[00:16:46]And there's really two reasons for that.

[00:16:48]First of all, I have a feeling that marine growth is gonna get caught in all of these little crevices valleys.

[00:16:57]So we want this to be nice and smooth so we don't have any place for barnacles and growth to step.

[00:17:02]And then the other reason is for smooth laminate water flow.

[00:17:06]So if you look on the back of the rudder here, we have a little step up for the weld which will disturb the water flow and then there's a flap bar on the back.

[00:17:13]So what we want to do is cover this with a little bit of a mixture.

[00:17:18]We we create from micro balloons and epoxy and then we apply the mixture and then we kind of sand it so that the surface is fair and then we get like one continuous surface all along the rudder and also the scag and also the mini keel.

[00:17:36]The art of whole farrin is a delicate science.

[00:17:38]And who better to explain it than Bill considering his extensive experience.

[00:17:44]- When I had Calico outta the water in Mexico two years ago, I found 80 blisters.

[00:17:48]I think I spent about a month bearing the bottom.

[00:17:51]So this is the process I've gotten quite accustomed to.

[00:17:53]Yeah, you're expert.

[00:17:54]Yeah, I learned from the best an expert.

[00:17:56]I don't want to be, that's something I don't want to be an expert in.

[00:17:59]So Morgan is doing the first step, which is to sand the aluminum.

[00:18:04]Just remove any impurities or anything like that before we ask to watch it.

[00:18:27]Okay. So next step is to acid wash it with this stuff like an aluminum mech.

[00:18:33]You apply this with a scotch bright pad, so treat the air with the standard aluminum is pretty hard for epoxy to stick to.

[00:18:46]So doing all the proper prep steps, make sure we have a good result.

[00:18:50]You ready to mix 'em? Epoxy? Yeah, get excited.

[00:18:53]Morgan's getting a little epoxy left more than she ever wanted to know.

[00:18:57]- All I wanted to - Know - Really, but - The cell for months.

[00:19:00]So this might be a good thing for you to know.

[00:19:01]- Absolutely. - What we're doing is gonna do resin gar, mix it for a minute, have the micro balloon pre measured.

[00:19:14]- So what does the micro balloons do?

[00:19:15]- Just sticking the, so the pots would run down on the vertical surface.

[00:19:20]We're making it to like a peanut butter consistency almost.

[00:19:22]It kind of like sticks on the vertical surface.

[00:19:24]And this is sandal, so you can take a sand to it.

[00:19:26]It doesn't, it's easy to sand. It's not like structural.

[00:19:28]Something mixed, mixed upon there.

[00:19:31]Mix that together and then we'll start applying.

[00:19:55]- Getting the hang of it. - I think so yeah. Let's see.

[00:19:59]- Looking good. - Putting the pressure on with that GoPro - Call me.

[00:20:10]Whatcha doing? Don't get big in the car.

[00:20:13]Ah, ah my god - It's crazy.

[00:20:23]- Good morning. I'm working on a pretty cool project because some stuff arrived from Finland.

[00:20:30]These are the simply DC battery boxes.

[00:20:33]So what we're working on today is we're actually installing the batteries, which is super, super exciting.

[00:20:39]This goes to one bank of batteries, this goes to the other bank of batteries that are all internally fused and switched and then they're combined inside here, which will then go out to my bus bar system.

[00:20:53]What I've got going on and inside is I'm actually welding the mount system for the batteries.

[00:20:57]So I've built these trays, actually Nate Nog welded these trays up outside in the other shop and then I positioned it and fit.

[00:21:06]I mean look at that fit. It's just such a great fit.

[00:21:10]And so we're gonna be able to fit nine of these batteries per tray.

[00:21:15]So we'll have nine on this side, nine on this side and the other tray.

[00:21:19]And then we'll fasten 'em in there.

[00:21:22]And then that'll be about 50 kilowatt hours of batteries.

[00:21:25]I'm gonna mount those DC switches right here, right next to 'em.

[00:21:31]So we have a nice short run from the batteries to the fuses and the contactors.

[00:21:42]I think it looks pretty good.

[00:21:45]And over on the outside, bill and Mors had worked some magic on the hole, which was now ready for the next phase of faring.

[00:21:52]- Now the epoxy is dried.

[00:21:53]It's time to sand all these ridges down and make it nice and smooth and see where there's gaps that need to get filled over.

[00:21:59]Again. It's like a two or three step application process.

[00:22:03]Keep doing it, sand it, Siri up gaps and just try to make it nice and smooth and there and then eventually it'll be another pass oxy.

[00:22:13]- So it's a bit of work, but I think it's well worth it.

[00:22:16]It's a step you could probably skip, but I think we're much better off for doing it.

[00:22:20]- You do the work now, but then it'll be a lot less work continuously over the years.

[00:22:25]- It's better for sailing and it's better for cleaning the bottom for years to, - So it's important to get good penetration.

[00:22:41]Gotta get good penetration. Really deep, really deep.

[00:22:43]All about the penetration really deep.

[00:22:45]- There's different variations we're using, but this is like a thicker batch 'cause obviously it's upside down.

[00:22:51]Sorry.