Aft Cabin Headliner and More Electronics

January 2021

My wife and I rented a place in Cape Coral for 4 months during the winter of 2020/2021. I guess you can say we are official "Snow Birds". During our stay I spent 5-6 hours a day, six days a week working on Wildthing. During that time we checked many things off of the "to do" list. Last season we spent most of our time roughing out the aft cabin headliner and aft head.

This year the plan was to get the aft cabin and head finished, install some electronics, rebuild the v-berth and redo some more sections of the deck non skid. 

Aft Cabin Headliner

Last season we rough cut all the headliner and teak trim pieces for the aft cabin and aft head.  During the off season Brad had finished priming and painting the headliner piece.  The Sintra plastic headliner pieces were primed and then painted with two coats with Interlux Brightsides paint. All the teak trim for the headliner was routed, sanded and then varnished with 4 coats of Epiphanes so it was all ready to go back on.

The headliner pieces were cut small enough to easily take down if needed.  A whole new lattice support structure was needed to support the headliner. We used 3/4 by 1 1/2 inch poplar for the new supports. These were attached to the underside of the cabin ceiling. We used stainless screws to attach the supports, headliner and trim. The headliner project turned out to be much more work than we realized. It could be done easier by maybe using pre painted panels or some sort of wians coating. I think it was worth it!

Newly painted headliner going in 

New teak trim for headliner

Box for engine room vent

Headliner trim and lights done

Victron Color Control GX

Last year we installed a whole new electrical system including new Battle Born lithium batteries, Victron inverter charger, solar panels, battery monitor and solar charger. To finish off this installation I purchased a Victron Color Control GX to monitor and control the system. The installation involved providing power to the unit and running communication cables between all the Victron devices. 

The Color Control GX provides and easy way to view energy usage and charging on the electrical system. The lithium battery system needs some sort of monitor to make sure they are staying optimally charged. It shows the amount of solar charging the batteries, AC charging from the Victron inverter, and AC and DC energy use on the Battle Born lithium batteries.

The Color Control GX also makes it easy to control three different inverter modes of On/Off, Inverting only or Charger only. It also has some features that allow remote monitoring and control of the system over the Internet. I have not seen a need for this. The added cost of providing Internet to the boat was just not worth it. 

NavPod and Instruments

Over the summer I did some more shopping and purchased a new autopilot control head. I selected the Raymarine P70s to control the Raymarine ACU400 autopilot. I found another NavPod eBay special to house the autopilot control head and a USB charger. We mounted the Raymarine Axiom chart plotter in the pilothouse and will use a WiFi connected iPad for navigation in the cockpit. A Ram Mount was attached to the NavPod to allow the attachment of the iPad.

There was no mounting rail at the helm so the NavPod was attached to the supports that hold up the hard top. A piece of starboard and some PVC tubing was used to mount it all to the vertical supports.

Wired in 12 volts for USB and NMEA 2000 cable

iPad on the Ram Mount at the helm

iPad and P70s Autopilot

P70s, USB and Ram Mount

Check back for more posts on the work done in 2021 on the world's longest refit of an Pan Oceanic 46. Next up will be rebuilding the V-berth and more deck non skid.

Cheers Mark!