A-25 head remodel?

[FrankD]

Hi folks
The head is quite “tight” on the 25 and I’m wondering if anyone has come up with modifications that allow a shower?
I understand it would be a “wet head” and an inside shower would be sitting on the throne, but that would still be a nice treat with warm water in a garden sprayer on a cool day. I modified a sailboat years ago with a flexible shower curtain track that worked well. Biggest concern here is dealing with shower water. Make a “pan” of sorts with a grid over and hand pump to pump over after the shower.
Thoughts?
Ideas?
Those who’ve done something already and have pics pics to share, would be awesome!
Thanks all

[DesertAlbin736]

I wouldn't think that would be very practical for the head compartment. Several issues come to mind besides being a tight space. First, the woodwork, second all the DC circuit terminals and in some cases shore power service entrance are behind that little wood door, third how would you rig a drain & sump pump. I think it would be asking for trouble. More practical would be to rig a setup like the one you did with your old sailboat except set it up in the cockpit with drain pan & a way to drain into the keel sump where your bilge pump can pump the gray water overboard. That's something I've thought about but haven't done yet. At least in the cockpit, whether you have the original style canvas enclosure or a "BC" hardtop, there's better standing head room and everything is fiberglass.

We had been planning this year to do a "Triangle Loop" from NY up the Rideau Canal to Ottowa & back down the Ottowa River & Richelieu to Lake Champlain & Erie Canal, but had to cancel/postpone due to the COVID pandemic. Hopefully next year we'll be able to. If so come on down the Ottawa River & meet up. Probably be some time mid to late August.

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[Bob Noodat]

The simple modification carried out by a previous owner of our Seaward, 25 a sailboat with similar size and cabin layout to theA25, is an extended shower hose that enables a person to have a shower whilst sitting in the cockpit. In theory the Seaward head is also a shower, but as DA points out, with all the woodwork in the cabin the very idea of creating all that humidity horrifies me. The Seaward cockpit on the other hand is designed to shed water and is built of impervious fibreglass. In the case of an A25, it would be a simple matter to rig a curtain to lend some privacy and to confine the shower spray to a smaller area.

My final thought though is that a shower on a small boat is a ridiculous waste of water. A sink with a quart of water in it can wash the average human being acceptably well, even when social distancing is not an option.

[patclem]

If you shower in the cockpit, the water goes the same place as the floor of the head - into the bilge. No?

[WillieC]

Floor of head to bilge is a little indirect, depending on year. All bilges end up below shaft. The pan under the engine will drain to bilge once it overflows.

[FrankD]

La Dolce Vita.... you’d only be about an hour and a half from home to keep in touch and I’d love to drive to see you on the canal. That would be an awesome trip!
Thanks for the comments on showers lads...
On my southern boat I use a 2 qt gardening sprayer and when on “mist”, can do a freshen up shower with a bit over a quart.
Haven’t written off the idea, but it is very “tight” in there to start with..

[hetek]

I know of at least two A25s with the aft cabin repurposed as the head. Might be more real estate there if you you were to consider such a thing.

My A27FC's previous owner used to shower in the cockpit, but that's a different setup.

Just throwing it out there.

[WillieC]

There is an A25 out there for sale with an escape hatch in the aft cabin. In full reverse with a following sea with the hatch open you could get quite a shower.

Recently read an article on how we are killing off all the good bugs on our skin by overwashing, especially with anti-bacterial soap. A point made in the article was that all we really need is to freshen up our "bits". Feet, groin, armpits you get the idea. Spit baths. Which is pretty much how it works out on extended trips for us. Use clean spit.

[DesertAlbin736]

The Seattle A25 with the rear hatch has sold. Besides sitz baths there's always occasional stops at marinas for showers & resupply. Even during two weeks in the wilds of Desolation Sound there was the marina at Refuge Cove where they had showers & a laundromat.

[Burton]

We are still doing major repairs, but I have thought about a small 12 V pump putting water through a copper coil over a stove burner, and regulating the temperature by the flow, using the cockpit as the drain. Has anyone tried this? I know you can buy these sorts of units for camping. One could take a nice saltwater shower, and finish off with a bit of fresh.

[WillieC]

Believe it or not, the cheapo solar camper shower bag sitting on the roof works great. If you have sun and avoid standing waves that quickly remove the bag from the roof. Don't ask.

[nebulatech]

Use clean spit.

This is a good reason to enforce daily observation of cocktail hour.

[REO]

Her are some more thoughts on an Albin shower. I am in the process of installing a shower in my 27 sport boat. In short , I am modifying the "hole in the floor" shower drain to fix the balsa core rot caused by the unsealed edge. I have made a fiberglass plate with a proper hose connection to form a drain. The drain hose goes to a shower sump located just above the bilge pump in the forward bilge. The sump drains both the shower and the air conditioner condensation pan. A pump in the sump pumps the shower water overboard. That should cure the rotten bilge smell many boats have. I have installed a 6 gallon hot water heater with a recirculating valve to make sure we do not waste the precious hot water waiting for the hot to get to the shower head. The sink cabinet and sink were removed and a shower seat with storage below are being constructed. This is all part of a mega-modification project that I am hoping to finish before I die.

[DesertAlbin736]

REO,

Occasional A27 AOG poster JT____, aka Motorcityboatwerks, posted this study in his blog on his ideas & execution for A27 head stand up shower modification here.

http://motorcityboatwerks.weebly.com/al ... ation.html

Now this very experienced fellow undertook quite an ambitious project. Credit where credit is due.

Regards to his notes on "Things People Will Tell you about Adding a Stand Alone Shower":

#1Of course the person who said this never actually used their boat, or stayed aboard their boat more than a few hours. They certainly never over-nighted for more than a long weekend, and they if they did they were tied to the luxury marina with the awesome free marina bathrooms. They also not take showers regularly. Their guests smell. Sometimes just for fun they spritz themselves while standing on top of the toilet they just used after Mexican Night at their favorite marina. I don't understand these people.

All that depends on the weather conditions where cruising. We've stayed aboard for up to six weeks at a time & don't have a stand up shower. In the cool summer weather of the Pacific NW it's possible to go a few days without showers & where a sitz bath will do. I have no sense of smell anyway due to permanent effects of a head injury seven years ago. But whatever. Even in the wilds of Desolation Sound miles beyond the last stretch of highway it's possible to find marinas with showers like Refuge Cove. Even beyond that there are some fresh water if chilly alpine lakes.

#4 I like Sleeping in My Galley. Or "I-really-like-my-tiny-dining-room-table-and-the-uncomfortable-v-berth." The person who said this weighs less than 100 lbs, is seventy-five years old, and needs to be within falling distance of the Albin 27 bathroom so they can make frequent trips to the head at all hours of the night. They sleep in the v-berth, which is essentially the galley after all. By virtue of their diminutive size they can shoe-horn themselves into the dining room table and they think its a great place to eat lunch: down below, next to the head, crammed into a corner, on top of their sheets. They fit so well in the bathroom they can't understand why you would go through the effort to change anything. They can fit inside a kitty litter box.

That's perhaps one reason I like the A25 cabin layout better, at least from what I've seen looking at A27 pictures. The A25's forward cabin V berth is in fact quite comfortable compared to the coffin like quarter berths in the A25's aft cabin. All boats are a compromise, and with a 25 footer one has to make even more compromises than with a 27. The project shown in the Motorcityboatwerks blog is certainly a Herculean effort, so one has to decide whether it's worth it just to be able to avoid going to marinas for showers every few nights.

Also on another unrelated subject REO, just so happens our dear sailing friends who have cruised the San Juans and Gulf Islands numerous times with us in their trailerable O'Day 25 recently purchased the double ended Southern Cross 31 cutter "Sea Dragon" berthed in Bayfield. They were cruising the Apostles for a couple weeks & just last week left Sea Dragon in the marina & drove out to Seattle to visit their son who lives in Bonney Lake, WA. I hear it's a small world up there in Bayfield, so I would not be surprised if you've seen that boat, recently launched after extended period in storage on the hard, & ran into that couple. They'll be back again later.

If this boat looks familiar, it's the one now owned by our friends Charles & Sally...

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Seen here second & third from left enjoying a meal with us and another Arizona sailing couple last July at the Hummingbird Inn Pub on Galiano Island BC

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[NickScheuer]

Were we to actually need an on-board shower, I would maybe rig a stowable pan and shower curtain in the cockpit draining into a 2 or 3 gal jug under the sole., supplied by our existing black solar jug having a hand pressure pump. We use the solar jug rigged someplace ashore if caught too far between marina showers. Plastic gas cans come in such a variety of sizes that there must be at least one which would fit in the space around the drive shaft. Having a couple of such jugs would lengthen the period over which they need to be emptied ashore if water discharge is to be avoided.