Reroute Water Tank Shutoff Valves

OK folks, for those that do not have your shutoff valves under the aft bunk  by the water pump, you can delete this message, it's long, it's messy, and not recommended for all audiences.

Walter (Selkie, #887) and I tackled this re-routing job this past Saturday. Although this little chore seemed daunting at first, it turned out to be a relatively simple job.  For those that would rather have the ending first, here goes...........we moved the forward and aft tank shutoff valves forward to the area inside the forward access door below the sinks in the galley. My apologies to those looking for pictures. I don't have them yet. I'll try to borrow a digital and put them on the web
site. I hope my descriptions are visual enough for now.

OK, we headed to my favorite toy store to buy the 'whale' straight connecters, having bought the 'whale' blue water line earlier. I bought 15 feet of water line, planning for screw-ups. We actually only used about ten feet, and at 79 cents a foot what the heck. We were planning our attack, and decided that the simplest solution would be simply move the valves and use the 'T' connecter between them to route the water back to the water pump.

We used the water line from the forward tank as the line that would carry the water from the new location back to the pump, because it was already going there from under the sink anyway.

The first step was to force a new water line through the area under the refrigerator and galley sole to the sink area, This was fun, but after a few minutes of twisting and pushing the line, it popped up under the sink as planned. Of course we had to remove the front panel and drawers under the sink to get better access. The reason for this new line, was to move the aft water line forward. We decided that the existing line would be too difficult to get to because it was routed in such a way that it entered this access channel under the refrigerator too far forward to splice into or re-route. We thought it best to leave it, and use the one connecter we
needed to connect the existing aft tank line to the new line we just pushed forward.

Next we disconnected the forward tank shutoff  valve, the aft tank shutoff valve, and the Tconnecter by the water  pump, and connected the forward
tank line directly to the water pump input connecter.

We assembled the valves by placing the Tconnecter between the shutoff valves so they were in-line with the T positioned facing to port. Using the ninety degree elbow from the original connections under the bunk, we connected the line leading to the pump (the former fwd water line) to the T.

We next had to connect the new line we pushed through with the aft tank line. This is where we used the in-line connecter we had to buy. Since both lines are running parallel as they exit the access channel under the refrigerater, using the new  line, we decided to run a loop around the pump and back, to connect to the existing aft tank line. It may look a bit funny, but it works.

Next step, add water to the tanks and try it. How 'bout them apples, it worked.

I think it took us about an hour and a half to actually move everything and put it back together (the Galley and bunk). There is one potential issue to evaluate. When we put the front panel and shelves back in place, the aft valve is under the bottom of the shelves. It is still accessible, but may turn out to be a pain. I decided to try it and see how it works, and adjust it later if it becomes a pain to change the tanks.

We'll tackle Walter's next weekend. One last thing, West Marine said they were not going to stock the Whale connecters any longer. I guess we'll have to buy them elsewhere or order them online if we need more.