Secrets of Saving as PDF, How and Why

You’ve seen links like the one above. You’ve probably clicked them and know they produce PDF files. Did you know you can save your own files in that form? Did you know when and why know you should? Here are three compelling reasons:

1. If you share a Word document with someone else, they may not have the same version as you, and they may not have the fonts you use. Your document may not display right for them. By saving as a PDF, you can embed the fonts, and the file will look the same on a Mac, a PC, or an Android based device.
2. If you share a Word document, others can copy from or edit it. PDF files are more secure. Few people know how to copy text from a PDF file. Fewer still have a clue how to edit them or the special software to do so.
3. If you upload to an online printer, like CreateSpace or any POD publisher, they require PDF files, and they must have embedded fonts and be formatted with the right paper size for your project.
4. For long-term storage, PDF is the archivist’s best bet. PDF files from twenty years ago still display just fine. That’s definitely not the case with word processing documents.

The good news is that this conversion is easy to do and if you don’t already have software to do it, it’s widely available for free.

So, you say, “I’m sold. How do I do this?”

The tutorial below will walk you through three different paths, starting with the simplest one first.

Save as a PDF with Word (or OpenOffice or most any word processing program)

1. Whatever program you’re using, select Save As. They’ll all be pretty much the same as what you see here.
2. Click the tiny arrow on the right of the Save as type field. Select PDF from the flyout menu.
   
   
3. Check the options. First check that your file is optimized for printing if you are uploading to CreateSpace or have other plans to print. If it’s primarily for onscreen viewing, select the Minimum size option.  Then click the Options menu to the right and make sure the box, Bitmap Text when fonts may not be embedded is checked.
   
   
   Word automatically adjusts page size (in case you are saving a file with pages some size other than 8.5” x 11”) and embeds fonts. Some commercial fonts can’t be embedded, at least not without a special license. This option ensures they’ll be readable on the other end.

LibreOffice, based on OpenOffice, has an Export as PDF function rather than Save As. For POD publishing, select 100% for JPEG compressions. Other tabs include lots of bells and whistles, but nothing important for our purposes here.

Print as a PDF

Aside from word processing programs and maybe a couple of others, you create PDF files by “printing” them to a digital page. To do this you use a printer driver much like the one for printers that use ink. This means that if you find an error and need to fix it, you go back to your source file, i.e. your Word document, make your change, then “print” the file again, just as you’d do with paper.

Many PDF printer apps are available for free download on the Internet. The ones I’ve looked at all use print setup interfaces similar to one of the two types I’ll show below. I’ll begin with Cute PDF, but first a caveat about downloading any free software:

It often comes bundled with add-on apps. You do not need these add-on apps. They probably aren’t malware, but why take the chance? Only download specific programs that you know you need, want and trust. The add-ons keep the software free, but you can avoid them by paying close attention. Reputable software publishers today offer you the opportunity to opt out of add-ons. If you see any window that asks you to click to install anything other than the app you selected, look for an opportunity to Decline, or a button that says Next. If you don’t see any option like this. kill the installation and find another app. If you accidentally download something you don’t want, on a Windows machine, use System Restore and go back to the a time before the download.

Now a second caveat: I’ve used both the apps in the examples below and they are both satisfactory. They are not necessarily the best or the latest. The field keeps changing. Do a search for PDF conversion software, then check reviews before selecting one. You may want to try two or three.  And don’t be fooled that you need to buy anything unless you want to edit PDFs. If you don’t know, you don’t need it. The conversion engine will be free.

Using the Cute PDF Interface

This interface has been around for years and is shared by many of the free apps.

1. Find your way to the Print menu for your file. Click the arrow on the right and select Cute PDF (or another of your choice) as your printer.
   
   
2. Click Printer Properties to open the printer setup dialog.
   
   
3. Click Advanced on the Document Properties menu.
   
   
   From here you can change the page orientation, and select color or grayscale from the Paper/Quality tab. Advanced gives you more options, including embedding fonts.
   
4. By default most PDF printers substitute device fonts to keep file size small. Play it safe over the long run. Embed your fonts by selecting Download as Softfont in the TrueType font line.
   
   
   
5. Change paper size. This won’t matter if you’re sticking with standard letter-sized paper. For books and other special projects, you need the Paper Size option.
   
   
6. Monitor Print Quality. This app saves images at 600 dpi by default. CreateSpace asks for 300 dpi, which also works well on home printers. Nothing but file size is gained by saving them at higher resolution.
   
   
7. In the fly out that opens when you click the Paper Size field, check to see if your page size is listed. If not, scroll down to PostScript Custom Page Size. A new menu will open.
   
   
8. Enter your page dimensions. These should be identical to the paper size you designated in Word.  You will probably use inches, but millimeters and points are also options. Don’t concern yourself with the rest.
   
   

That’s it. Click OK as many times as you need, then click Print. You’ll be asked to specify a file name and location the same as saving any other file. Remember, this is a digital page, so it’s stored as a digital file, just like your Word document.

Using the Foxit Phantom PDF Printer

This app uses a newer interface with fewer options. Don’t concern yourself with what you don’t see.

1. Select Foxit Phantom PDF Printer and click on Printer Properties as above.
2. On the General tab, select Quality and Color. For publishing, you want High Quality Print. For other purposes, standard works fine. Don’t concern yourself with the confusing options behind that Edit button.
   
3. Alter page size if needed on the Layout tab. Click the Custom Page Size button.
   
4. Enter your page size. As above, this needs to be identical to your document paper size.
   
   
5. That’s it. Click Okay and print as above. You can add document properties information as you wish. If you’re saving for widespread public distribution, this is a way to ensure you retain credit for your work.

You may find slight variations in software interfaces, but these three examples should be enough to guide you through any of them. Now, go forth and fill hard drives and cyberspace with your work!

A Safe Space for Survivors

In spite of nature’s best efforts to derail my plans, in the form of Hurricane Matthew, they are proceeding apace, including the plan to design QUIDNON—the houseboat that sails. The hurricane provided a teachable moment on surviving hurricanes aboard boats, confirming many of my intuitions about what makes QUIDNON a safe design for any situation, hurricanes included.

We were in a mandatory evacuation zone, and although we could have sheltered in place, I decided to avoid subjecting my family to such an ordeal. And so we jumped in a rental car, drove away from the coast and sat out the hurricane in a motel room. When we got back, picking our way between piles of debris that were littering the roads, we found that the boat had suffered zero damage, but that the entire marina came within a foot or so of being annihilated: another foot of storm surge, and only some concrete pilings would have been left, with the rest of the marina, boats included, washed up on shore, with the boats crushed underneath the floating docks. In fact, this is what happened to many of the other marinas in the area. Since the height of the pilings was set a long time ago, when ocean levels weren’t rising as quickly and catastrophic storms were less frequent, this is going to be happening more and more frequently. Everyone here considers the fact that the marina survived something of a miracle.

Boats at anchor did not fare too well either; most of them have ended up on shore when their anchors dragged or failed. Of these, the sailboats did the worst: the combination of a lead keel mounted to an eggshell-like fiberglass hull is a bad one when it comes to tackling land. Once the keel hits and the boat flops over, total damage becomes almost inevitable. The boats that did the best were mored to stationary anchors with chain: large concrete blocks embedded in the bottom. Well-designed boats don’t care too much about wind and water; it’s solid objects that kill them.

These observations validate some of the design decisions that went into designing QUIDNON:

1. The ability to get out of the marina in a hurry is very important. Most people who live aboard boats don’t put too much effort into making sure that the engine is in good running order. For an inboard diesel this is quite a lot of effort and expense. And so when the time comes to move the boat out of the marina and put it on a mooring, the engine may not even start, or start and then stall because the fuel is old and the fuel filter becomes clogged with sediment. But since QUIDNON is going to be powered by an outboard motor mounted in an inboard well, this will be less of a problem. First, the motor can be used to power a dinghy when QUIDNON is at rest; secondly, outboard motors are much easier to lay up, and usually fire up afterword with just a bit of effort. Gasoline does not grow bacteria like diesel fuel, and can be stabilized and stored over long periods of time.

2. No matter how hard you try, your boat may end up on dry land. Therefore, it is very important that QUIDNON goes aground well. Having a wide, flat bottom covered in roofing copper over tarred felt will make QUIDNON relatively shore-friendly: roofing copper is tough material, and will work-harden rather than rip. Once the extreme weather passes, it should be able to drag QUIDNON back into the water over round sticks using the anchor winch.

3. A hurricane is not a convenient time to go sailing. Sailboats have masts, which generate windage during a hurricane, and are not useful unless you plan to go sailing. After a hurricane some number of masts can be seen poking out of the water at low tide: not only were these masts of no use during the sinking, but they now pose a hazard to navigation. QUIDNON’s masts can be taken down and lashed to the deck by a single person in an hour or so, reducing windage and weight up top.

4. Once the hurricane is over, weeks may pass before the local economy gets back to normal. Food, electricity and gasoline are likely to remain scarce for some time. In order to make it, is important to have lots of storage space stocked with food and water. QUIDNON’s ample lockers and massive water tanks (which double as ballast) can provide for months of autonomous survival.

5. The safest place for a boat during a hurricane is on shore. This is true even for keelboats, which are stored on jacks and can get pushed over in a hurricane. QUIDNON needs no special arrangements of this sort, and can simply sit on a patch of dirt, next to your house, stocked and ready to serve as hurricane shelter or, if the waters reach high enough, a floating escape capsule. Moored between two pilings in a flood zone, it will simply float up in case of a flood, then settle again.

6. Even if the motor runs, it may turn out to be impossible to move the boat out of harm’s way because its bottom and prop are fouled with marine growth. People who live aboard boats don’t usually find it necessary to haul them out and repaint the bottom with anti-fouling paint every where. And so they find that their boat won’t move when it has to, even with the engine at full throttle. QUIDNON’s bottom is surfaced with roofing copper designed to provide anti-fouling for the expected lifetime of the boat (around 30 years), will never need to be hauled out and repainted, and will always be ready to move.

7. There are cases where there is simply nowhere for a boat to shelter near land, and the safest survival strategy is to head for open water and away from any dirt or rocks. Remember, sticks and stones will kill a boat, but wind and water are its natural element. Here, it is very important that the boat have certain characteristics that allow it to survive any conditions, no matter how wild. Stability and the ability to self-right is very important, and QUIDNON's impressive 130º of primary stability will help it stay right-side-up no matter.

9. Although staying well away from dirt and rocks buys a large amount of safety, there is still the small chance of encountering floating debris that can hole a hull. Here, QUIDNON's self-rescuing characteristics are very helpful: blowing out the water tanks with compressed air, making them buoyant and blocking off the aft cabins to allow additional flotation, allows it to remain afloat with the cabin knee-deep in water until the hole is plugged and the water pumped out.

10. When disaster strikes and you happen to be possessed of a secure, well-stocked, self-sufficient survival capsule such as QUIDNON, you may find that you have more company than you expected. Most 36-foot sailboats usually can’t accommodate more than four or five people with any degree of comfort. In contrast, QUIDNON’s interior space is rather carefully carved up to provide the maximum of accommodation with a maximum of flexibility. There are two aft cabins that can sleep two adults each, four settees (two in the main salon, two in the bow cabin), two pilot berths in the main salon that provide beds for two adults each, or a larger number of children, and two generous shelves in the bow cabin that can provide cribs for babies. There is a full galley to cook for all of them, and a heads with a full-size shower stall and a mini-bathtub for the kids to wash them all.

* * *
This last point is the one that I would like to discuss here at some length, because we are nearing the end of the design process to maximize the interior space. The interior structure—the bulkheads, the sides and the top of the water tanks and the board trunks, the settees, the cabin soles and the various partitions—are all made of plywood pieces that are joined together in a variety of ways: jigsaw joints, box joints, and mortise and tenon joints. Each element serves two purposes: it maximizes the use of space, and it also maximizes structural rigidity: everything is structural.

It's a split-level

Next project on the list is to analyze the structure using software, to identify stress concentrations and weak points, to select appropriate thicknesses of plywood for all the elements, and to add gussets and other reinforcements where necessary.

Top view of interior structure

At the center of the boat is the companionway. It is trapezoidal in shape, and has openings in six directions: up the companionway ladder to the cockpit, two openings leading to the aft cabins (equipped with sliding doors for full privacy), an opening to port going to the heads (also set up with a door), an opening to starboard to the galley (always open) and, finally, an opening to the main salon, equipped with a curtain. There is a similar opening, with a curtain, between the main salon and the bow cabin.

Lots of room between the deck and the cabin soles

Because of the curve of the bottom the cabin soles are at five different levels. The lowest are in the galley and the heads, where people (including very tall people) are most likely to be standing for extended periods of time, with a full 6’10” (2 m) of headroom. The cabin sole in the companionway is a bit higher, because there is 3 tons of solid ballast under it.

Bottom view of the interior structure

The aft cabins are not designed for standing room, and are just 4’7” (140 cm) in height, but provide plenty of locker space below the cabin soles. They can be used as storage, as sleeping accommodations, and, with the bed rolled up and stowed and a drop-leaf table and a fold-out seat, serve as a workshop, a study or even a miniature classroom.

The main salon has 6’3” (190 cm) of headroom, which is enough for some 90% of the people to avoid having to stoop. The settees and the pilot berths, at 10’ (3 m) long, provide room for up to eight people to stretch out with their heads pointed in opposite directions (with some overlap between their legs).

Cabin measurements. Beam is around 15 feet except at the bow

The bow cabin, with 5’9” (175 cm) of headroom and the settees 6’9” (205 cm) long, is still adequate for all but the tallest people.

Because every element is both functional and structural, we have made every effort to keep the layout as generic and multipurpose as possible while maximizing both living space and locker space. Completely missing are shelves, cabinets, hanging lockers, slide-out drawers and other typical cabinetry. There will be some built-in cabinetry in the galley and the heads, to be sure, but the overall approach is to provide a minimum of structure, which will be unalterable, and allow people to customize the rest as they see fit.

Who Owns Which Memory?

I know three sisters who remember life differently, and sometimes things I hear from them drop my jaw, at least mentally. For simplicity here, I’ll call them Annie, Betsy and Connie, in order of age. All are in their mid-eighties.

One day I got an email from Connie with a scanned letter attached. The letter was from her aunt, confirming that this aunt had indeed taken Connie as an infant to her house to care for while Connie’s mother was sick.

“I can’t wait to show this to Annie! She has sworn for years that Aunt Laura never took me home with her, she just took me to a motel!”

Apparently, when Annie saw the letter, she humphed and changed the subject. Obviously this development did not square with her memory of things, and as the older sister, she was supposed to be the authority. 

During a recent visit with Annie and Connie, we got to talking about their grandfather. He let me drive his old car all over the place when I was only eleven. He even lied to the Department of Motor Vehicles so I could get my driver’s license when I was twelve. He told them I was fourteen,” said Annie.

“That’s interesting. He did the same thing for Connie,” I said.

“What?”

“She told me the same story about him taking her to get a license when she was twelve and letting her drive thirty miles to Turkey Town by herself to get something he needed.”

Annie looked at Betsy. “That’s not possible. He didn’t live near us when she was that age.”

Betsy shrugged. She didn’t seem eager to get involved. I changed the subject.

Which sister owns that memory? Did Connie hear Annie tell the story often enough that she started thinking it had been her? Stranger things have happened.

As it turns out, I may be the one with the creative memory. Connie affirmed that it was Annie’s story. “I hardly ever spent time with him when I was young.” Well … whatever. In the overall scheme of things, who cares?

This all goes to show that much of family history is myth, and a changing one at that. One key thing we collectively agree to is that the old man was a scoundrel who bent rules when it suited him and ignored them much of the time.

From the larger perspective, that matters more than which granddaughter got to drive when or where. I’m semi-sorry I sought to clarify the source.

Writing tip: Do some freewriting or journaling about conflicting stories within your family. (This may be best left unshared.)

Start Your Story with a Hook

If you spend time worrying about the best way to start a story, you may never write it. Your first challenge is to get it on the page in any form at all. But before you release it to readers, give your opening some thought so you sink a hook firmly into readers’ brains and guts.

I offer these Before and After opening excerpts of a story titled Missing Neighbor that’s based on a personal experience.

Before

You would not believe the adventure I had with my friend Ellie. We were scheduled to take her to the airport at ten. I texted her around nine-thirty, and she didn't reply. I tried calling a few minutes later. She didn't answer, but I assumed she was on the phone with her daughter. Her voice mail was full. Hmm. Shall I go over there now just to check? No ... she's a big girl ... I muted my ESP.

At ten I rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. And again. I pounded on the door. She's expecting us now. What the heck? I decided to call her husband, who flew east four days ago. Maybe he’d heard something.

“Bring me my phone!” I hollered to Ed, who was standing by our car watching.

Suddenly it occurred to me to try the door. She does often leave it unlocked when she's expecting people. Huh! It opened! I went in. The house was dark. And silent. I saw no evidence of life. Very creepy!

“Ellie? Ellie!” I made my way toward the back of the long everything room, noticing the door on the sun porch was closed. At the end, I saw her bedroom door was closed. What will I find if I open it? Is she sick Or worse? What if she's ... dead? I feel like I’m living the opening chapter of a thriller novel! ….

After

Something is dreadfully wrong! This thought roils through my head after I punch the doorbell five more times and pound on the door and get no response. I see no light behind the frosted door glass. She has to be up. Her plane leaves in two hours. What am I going to do?

“Bring me my phone!” I holler across the yard to Ed, who stands waiting at our car. I’ll call Chuck. Maybe he’s heard from her. No matter that Chuck is already in Boston, her destination today.

My eye lands on the doorknob. Of course! She often leaves it unlocked when she’s expecting someone. I press the lever and the door swings open into their huge, dark, empty everything room. Aside from a fan whispering on the ceiling, I hear no sound except my pounding heart.

“Ellie? Ellie!” My skin crawls as I creep slowly toward the end of the room. “Ellie! Are you here?” I call out over and over, but hear no response. My heart beats even louder.

Ellie can be ditzy, but this is way out of character. She’s been planning this trip for months, and I’ve been booked for the airport run from the start. Yesterday she was excited about the weekend wedding she’s heading for. I should have followed my hunch and come over thirty minutes ago when she didn’t answer my text or her phone. But hey, she was probably talking to her daughter. She doesn’t interrupt those calls. She’s a big girl. I’m not her mommy. I’d muted my ESP.

The door to the sunroom is closed. I reach the hall to her room. It’s also closed. Maybe she’s in the shower. But what if she’s sick? What if she’s gone? What if she’s … dead? I feel like I’m living the opening chapter of a thriller novel!”

“Ellie? Are you up?”

I hold my breath as I approach the door, reaching for the knob ….

~ ~ ~

You may not be surprised to learn that the Before version began life as an email, which is a great way to discover and develop a story draft. In fact, it’s just fine to send it as an email. Whether you send it or not, you may want to copy it out and develop it further. I decided to hold onto mine before sending it off and exercise a little creativity.

I realized that the creepy, horrified feeling I had as I crept through her house was the perfect beginning for a compelling mystery novel. Taking all the advice I’ve read from both fiction authors and experts like Lisa Cron in Wired for Story, I cut right to the emotion-filled point where my stomach began churning and let it build from there, looping briefly back to tell who Ellie is.

Are you curious about what I found? Was Ellie hurt or … dead? Mission accomplished.

Writing tip: write a new story or pull out an old one and find the juicy part. Rewrite the story starting with that.

Tell a Story, Change the World

Carmen Murasan changes hearts, and perhaps someday the world, by telling stories. She changed my heart as she spun stories about Romanian history, lacing them strongly with perspective and personal insight.

I met Carmen at the conclusion of a Vantage river boat tour of the Rhine and Danube that ended in Romania. She lives in Brasov and served as our local guide during the time we spent in Transylvania. Our local guide in Bucharest had painted a slightly cynical picture of Romania’s past and present, presumably also its future. She left me wondering why she’d chosen to return after living elsewhere for years.

Carmen was the perfect antidote. She’s passionate about life and passionate about Romania. She had our Orange Bus group howling like werewolves at every opportunity, baffling the Blue Bus group the first few times they heard us, and she punctuated her points with hugs and kisses for everyone at frequent intervals. She added brilliance and focus to the seductive beauty of Transylvania. How could we not listen to her stories and absorb her passion?

For example, consider the way she developed the story of Count Dracula, also known as Vlad, the Impaler. “It’s not fair to judge Vlad in light of twenty-first century values. You must understand conditions back then and the way he was brought up....” By the time she was finished, I got it. Not that she turned him into a saint, but I did understand his logic and the protective effect it had on Transylvania’s history.

During the course of the cruise from Bonn to Bucharest, we stopped in so many cities, towns and villages that they’ve begun to blur together, but especially as we cruised down the Danube from Vienna into former Eastern Bloc countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, our local guides’ stories became intense. We heard tales of millennia of invasions and the violence of World War II. Accounts of more recent Balkan conflict horrified us. We heard personal accounts of genocide and ever-present anxiety over possible attempts to form a new Ottoman Empire.

My hair stood on end as our Croatian guide told of suddenly being sent alone to a children’s camp in Germany for what turned out to be six months while most of his extended family was shot in a mass execution of Croatians. Fortunately his parents survived. Every guide after Vienna told a personal story of life under Communist rule and later liberation. Each story left an imprint on my heart.

Not all stories were verbal. Buildings stood as silent testimony. Great progress has been made toward restoring the damage caused by bombing and decades of neglect, but most notably in Bucharest, far too many stand like rotting teeth in a brilliant smile, constant reminders of the past and work yet to be done. How starkly eastern Europe contrasts with western cities rebuilt by the Marshall Plan. Taken together, the two halves of Europe bear testimony to the ability of the United States to implement the Marshall Plan to rebuild our former enemies while thriving ourselves.

Story is the operating system our human brains use to make sense of life and the world we live in. We’re constantly creating and editing stories to incorporate new information and experience. I’ve encountered a river full of small stories that beg to be woven into a larger one. My former view of the world has burst open like the shell of a growing lobster. A new view will take time to become clearn and solid. This blog post is one small step in achieving that end.

I'm endlessly grateful that Carmen Murasan’s stories were the last ones I heard. Her optimism and joy for life form a pillar for anchoring and focusing others.

Carmen shares her stories with legions of visitors to Romania from around the world, and I feel certain she changes each of their hearts. Hopefully as we each share our take on her stories, and I share mine on others I’ve heard, the ripple effect will kick in, and the world will become a better place. Perhaps, just maybe, one day she’ll begin writing those stories and touch even more people.

How has hearing new stories from others changed your heart, life and stories? Write about it! 

Decomposition

If you're like most writers, you pay careful attention to the composition of your stories. That's a good thing. But something I saw the other day turned that concept on its head in the most elegant way. I ran across a reference to decomposition books. What a surprise I had when I checked Amazon and found a wide variety to choose from. I must be a late adopter.

So it would seem. The Amazon description for Michael Roger's Honeycomb Decomposition Book refers to it as “a new spin on an old concept.” This old concept is not one I've been familiar with.

Searching around, I found no further explanation or discussion, but it can't be that complex. Blank notebooks are perfectly suited for recording journals. Nothing new about that, but that decomposition term points to a new way of looking at journals as compost piles for memories.

Think about it. When you pile weeds, grass clippings, dead lettuce and such into a compost pile in your yard, it all decomposes into rich fertilizer to spur the growth of newer plants. Something similar takes place with memory. Look back through old journals, if you're fortunate enough to have some. Some old thoughts may sound silly to you now, some profound. Even more mundane ones are likely to spark new ones, to give you fresh perspectives on perplexing matters. Nearly all will have been transformed, one way or another, by time.

Garden matter does not decompose overnight. Months or years may pass before it's ready to use. In the meantime, matter in the pile has broken down, fermented and mixed around, generating considerable heat in the process. You won't notice from the outside, but this is not a calm process. Decomposing memories can also generate heat, painful heat at times, which may encourage you to keep journaling and adding to the pile.

This decomposition process is one of the reasons to wait for a time before writing a lifestory or memoir. Letting things stew around with other memories for several months or years mellows them, deepens their meaning and generally enriches them. Using your mental spading fork to churn things around now and then speeds the process and produces a nourishing memory stew, ready to hit the page.

What better reason to keep a journal, at least now and then? And what better reason to dig around in old ones from time to time?

On Women, Boats and Plumbing

Plumbing systems on boats run from the very simple (a blue jerrican of water brought in from shore) to simple (a fresh water tank, a foot pump and a spigot over a tiny sink that drains overboard) to ones that are equivalent to the ones found in houses on land. Houseboats, in particular, generally have running hot and cold water supplied to a faucet in the galley, the one in the heads, and the shower head in the shower stall. QUIDNON will follow this general pattern, providing all the amenities people are used to having in their home on land.

Although the details of boat plumbing systems vary, all but the simplest ones share two significant commonalities: all of them break from time to time, and when they do repairing them involves the use of significant amounts of foul language while groping around in a cramped locker full of hoses cutting up one’s forearms on the sharp ends of hose clamps. Boat plumbing systems are virtually never designed with ease of maintenance in mind; mostly they are an afterthought, not so much engineered as crammed together in any space that’s available. A very common problem is that working on them requires the use of tools—screwdrivers, channel locks, sockets with ratchets—but there is no room to wield these tools in the normal manner, and just about every operation requires one to become a contortionist. Another common problem is lack of space for both the arm (with which to work on things) and the head (with which to look at what you are doing), meaning that much of the work has to do be done “by Braille.”

Boat plumbing is also a topic that brings out gender differences in stark relief. There is no shortage of men living quite happily aboard boats with minimal plumbing systems. They drink from a water battle, and sanitary arrangements consist of a “relief bottle” (what is done with its contents is rarely discussed). They shower ashore, at the marina or the gym, they eat out a lot, and all they really care about is having a place to sit, a bed to sleep in and a cooler for the beer. They may entertain female visitors on board, but if the accommodations are sufficiently spartan virtually none of the women volunteer to move aboard and see it as a sort of survivalist camping trip—interesting, perhaps, but unappealing for the long term. Sometimes this is by design. There is an abiding superstition among sailors that having women (and priests) on board brings bad luck. But there are also plenty of men, and women, who would like to live aboard as families, children included—provided the accommodations include a good plumbing system that provides hot and cold running water in the galley and the heads.

Very importantly, the plumbing system has to actually work. Since the system is on a boat, one naturally expects it to break on a semi-regular basis (a boat being a hole in the water you throw money into and all that) and when it does break, this tends to seriously disrupt domestic tranquility. This is because fixing the plumbing is, more often than not, considered “men’s work.” It is dangerous to generalize, and there are some exceptionally handy women, but there is also a preponderance of anecdotal evidence that the vast majority of women who live aboard boats limit their participation in dealing with plumbing issues to making announcements and asking questions.

The announcements can be quite emphatic, ranging from “There is no water!” or “There is salt water coming out of the tap!” to “I am going to the gym, because I want to take a normal shower!” and “I can’t stand this any more!” The questions can be quite challenging as well: “Why is the plumbing breaking down all the time?”, “Why can’t it be made to work reliably?” and “Why can’t we live like normal people?” As you may rightly surmise, plumbing emergencies occupy a spot at the top of the list of things that negatively affect domestic tranquility among liveaboard couples.

When an onboard plumbing emergency arises, the male part of the seasteading team takes out the tools, plunges his hands into a cramped locker filled with a tangle of hoses, promptly cuts himself on a hose clamp and starts using foul language. He would much rather work on something—anything—else, but he knows that if he can’t fix the plumbing problem quickly and definitively, his stock will plummet in value. Now, fixing the problem is generally quite possible—plumbing isn’t exactly brain surgery—but there are several adverse factors:

1. Most men aren’t plumbers and don’t quite know what they are doing.
2. Boat plumbing systems are weird and challenging even to natural born plumbers.
3. If you are on a boat, calling a plumber is an even more expensive option than it is on dry land.
4. If you need to replace something, you quickly find that “marine” replacement parts are at least twice as expensive as regular replacement parts simply because the word “marine” appears somewhere on the package.

But with QUIDNON things are going to be different, and in a good way, because the design of its plumbing system explicitly addresses these questions and concerns. All of the controls are laid out in a way that makes sense and makes them easily accessible. Schematic diagrams, diagnostic procedures and work-arounds for most common and even some uncommon problems make it easier to make repairs when something goes wrong.

The first two problems to address are the ones of cost and of the need for expert knowledge of plumbing. The solution is the same for both: use ¾-inch garden hose throughout: green hose for raw water, white hose for potable water, red (industrial) hose for hot water. Most men (in the US and Canada) can handle tasks associated with lawn care; lawn care involves the use of garden hoses; ergo, most men know how to screw together and fix garden hoses. You cut a specific length of hose that you look up on a chart, you slide on the ends of the appropriate gender onto each end, and you tighten them with channel locks. You make sure that the female end has a rubber gasket in it. Then you snake it into place and screw in the ends, by hand.

The garden hose-based solution is by far the cheapest, and the spare parts are very easy to come by: the gardening section of any hardware store is likely to stock all of them, while the plumbing section will provide the faucets and the shower head (no need for specialty “marine” parts). What’s more, people are always throwing away hose as soon as they get a single puncture in them, and so you can pick up all the spare hose you could ever need simply by making a habit of strolling past the marina dumpster. There are a few unusual items: a pressure reducer (the boat works at 15 PSI, not at “house pressure,” which can be anything), two demand pumps that run on 12V, an electric water heater and some additional odds and ends. These need not be “marine” either: any RV (recreational vehicle) supply place is likely to have all of them in stock.

Next is the problem of layout. On QUIDNON, the various valves are not located deep inside some locker but laid out sensibly between the three bottom steps of the companionway ladder, right above the slide-out shoe drawer. On every other boat I’ve looked at the companionway ladder is just a ladder, but QUIDNON is different: every item does several jobs. And so QUIDNON’s companionway ladder is at once a ladder, a shoebox, a plumbing control panel, an electrical control panel for both AC and DC circuits, a locker for boat documents, a locker for flares, handheld VHF radios and other emergency signaling equipment, and a firearms locker big enough to hold a shotgun, a rifle, a Glock and their assorted ammo. (If you don’t like guns, you can use it as a wine rack.) Here’s what the plumbing control panel looks like. Those little green valves are $2.49 each at Target, but I am hopeful that a quantity discount can be obtained.

Next is the problem of having plenty of freshwater on board, for those members of the crew who would never consider just shaving their heads and use shampoo and conditioner, and may even lather, rinse and repeat. The simplest solution is to live at the dock and to hook up a hose to the shore water system at the marina. In the north there is usually a summer water system and a separate winter water system with hoses run underwater and wrapped in electrical heating tape and insulation between the water and the boat. Further south there are no winter water systems and when there is a cold spell the water is simply shut off “until further notice.” Winter water systems sometimes freeze and get shut off “until further notice” anyway, and then everybody has to wash and shower at the marina bathroom, which gets crowded, causing tempers to fray. The solution, of course, is to have plentiful on-board water, which can be periodically replenished by pulling up to a fuel dock to fill the tanks. QUIDNON’s water tanks double as ballast—5 tons of it, or 1300 gallons—so there will be plenty of water on board. But it eventually runs out anyway, in which case you need to do the following:

• Dock some place where there is a water hose available (such as a fuel dock)
• Attach the water hose to the water intake
• Turn off raw water pump
• Open the raw water drain valves (to make room for fresh water)
• Program the DigiFlow 8000T water meter ($36.98 well spent) to count down from 1300 gallons
• Open the shore water intake valve
• Wait until the water meter starts beeping
• Close shore water intake valve
• Close raw water drain valves
• Program the DigiFlow 8000T to count down from 1000 gallons, so that it beeps when it’s time to start thinking about filling the tanks again
• Turn raw water pump back on

This is all simple so far, but now it gets a bit more complicated. Since the water tanks double as ballast, they have to always be kept full. This is accomplished by storing the fresh water inside a bladder that’s floating in salt water pumped in from overboard. When you turn on a tap, the raw water pump starts squirting salt water into the tank, squeezing fresh water out of the bladder and out of the tap. But what happens if QUIDNON is drying out on a sand bank or a beach at low tide (a fun thing to do with a ruggedly built flat-bottom boat) and salt water isn’t available? Now it gets complicated! You need to do several things, ideally before the raw water pump starts sucking air, and they may sound technical and complicated, but they really aren’t.

• Turn off raw water pump
• Close bypass valve
• Open both vent valves
• Turn on fresh water pump

Turning off raw water pump is an obvious thing to do; water pumps don’t pump air, and when you are drying out there is no raw water available. The bypass valve allows fresh water to flow around the fresh water pump when the pressure is supplied by the raw water pump, but since we will be using the fresh water pump, we need to close it. The vent valves need to be open to let air into the tanks as water is pumped out of them to avoid vapor lock. Turning on the fresh water pump is also an obvious thing to do.

Now, suppose you like living on the beach so much that you decide to stay, haul QUIDNON some distance away from the surf into the shadow of some coconut palms, and use it as a beach house. To do this, you walk the anchor to the shore, bury it, and then use the anchor winch to roll QUIDNON onto the shore over some logs. But while you are doing this you don’t want to be hauling five tons of water; you want the boat to be as light as possible. (You’ll deal with stocking up on freshwater later.) How do you do that? Here’s the step-by-step procedure, which starts where the previous procedure left off:

• Shut off fresh water pump
• Open all 4 drain valves
• Wait for water to dribble out

Bored of living on the beach and want to be sailing again? Once QUIDNON is afloat again, it’s time to fill the tanks with salt water:

• Make sure all drain valves are closed and both vent valves are open
• Open bypass valve
• Turn on salt water pump
• After pump stops running, close both vent valves

Bladders don’t last forever and although many years may pass uneventfully, eventually you will hear the words “There is salt water coming out of the tap!” What do you do? First, you isolate the problem. Run the tap, close the port fresh water tank valve and have a taste. Problem fixed? Then it’s the port tank bladder that’s leaking. There is nothing more that you have to do immediately. Is water still salty? Then it’s the starboard tank bladder that’s leaking. Open the port freshwater tank valve, close the starboard freshwater tank valve, and confirm that the water is no longer salty. Inform your partner that the problem is fixed (for now).

Now, to really deal with the problem you have to replace the leaky bladder. First, you have to drain the tank. For the bad tank:

• Open vent valve
• Close raw water tank valve (fresh water tank valve is already closed)
• Open both fresh and salt water drain valves
• Wait

Once the tank is drained, find the access plate. It’s a round piece of plywood bolted onto the back wall of the tank, held in place by six ¼-inch bolts arranged in a circle with a rubber gasket sandwiched in between. The port access plate is in the shower stall in the heads; the starboard one is under a cabinet in the galley. Empty the cabinet and put something underneath the plate to catch any water. There is a hose attached to a threaded nipple that sticks out of the access plate. Unscrew the hose, undo the 6 bolts, remove the plate and pull out the bladder that’s attached to it. Undo the hose clamp securing the bladder to the nipple inside the plate and remove the bladder. Coat the nipple with caulk and slide on the new bladder. Install and tighten the hose clamp, but not all the way. Wait for the caulk to harden, then tighten the clamp the rest of the way. Gently stuff the bladder inside the tank, reinstall the access plate (a bit of vaseline on the gasket should help keep it watertight) and reattach the hose. Open raw water tank valve. Once the tank is full, close vent valve and open fresh water tank valve. This is probably the most complicated and delicate plumbing repair that QUIDNON could call for.

But what happens if the pumps stop working? You are off sailing, or living at anchor, and suddenly one of the batteries develops an internal short circuit, discharging the rest of the batteries. (You probably shouldn’t have kept the battery bank selector set to “both,” but it’s too late now.) “There is no water!”—nor is there anything else that requires electricity! You need to isolate the faulty battery, disconnect it from the bank, then start the motor using the emergency pull chord and run it until the remaining good batteries are charged. But that’s thirsty work, and how will you keep yourself from becoming dehydrated in the meantime? Easy: open the tank vents and use the foot pump in the galley. Filtered fresh water will come gushing out of the spigot. You still need to fix the electrical system before you drink up all of your ballast, but it’s not too huge of a hurry—unless somebody really needs to take a shower right there and then. Be sure to close the tank vents once the raw water pump starts running again and the tanks are full once again.

Finally, there is the worst-case scenario: you are sailing along and hit something hard and pointy—a floating shipping container or a coral head—and put a hole in QUIDNON’s bow. This is hard to do, because the bow is clad in tough copper sheets, a thick layer of fiberglass and an inch of plywood, but there is simply no arguing with sharp rocks. Water starts gushing in faster than the bilge pump can pump it out. Under these circumstances, most sailboats quickly disappear under the waves, leaving the crew treading water. But what about QUIDNON?

Well, here’s the procedure. Unless the problem is relatively trivial—something that can be fixed with an oil-soaked rag, a hammer and a screwdriver—do not immediately deal with the leak because there are more important things to do. First, stop the boat. Raise the motor to the top of its well. Anchor if the depth allows, otherwise just drift. Close the watertight doors to the aft cabins (first making sure there’s nobody inside them); they will be used as emergency flotation. There are also large slabs of foam lining the walls of the engine well; as is usual, they have two jobs: 1. insulate against engine noise, so that the aft cabins are nice and quiet; and 2. provide emergency flotation when the boat is swamped.

Now you need to “blow the tanks,” just as you would on a submarine. Find the emergency SCUBA tank (it’s in one of the aft cabinets in the galley, strapped to the bulkhead) and open the valve on it. Make sure the regulator is set to somewhere between 15 and 25 PSI. Now do the following:

• Close all tank valves
• Open all drain valves
• Make sure vent valves are closed
• Open air valves
• Wait
• When you hear loud bubbling sounds coming from the engine well, close all drain valves and air valves. Close valve on SCUBA tank. Water tanks now provide 5 tons of additional flotation.

QUIDNON will now remain afloat while you effect repairs. When swamped, QUIDNON will sit low in the water, but it will not sink. The stuff that you don’t want to get wet should be stored in the aft cabins or on top of the water tanks.

The next step is to break out the emergency hull repair kit. It contains some canvas, a few pieces of plywood and MarineTex epoxy. Mix the epoxy, and use it to coat a piece of plywood large enough to cover the hole in the hull. Note that the plywood has kerfs (little slots) cut into one side, to make it bendy. When you put the plywood over the hole, the kerfs should face out, not in. Also coat a piece of canvas cut big enough to cover the entire area of the repair. Now go up on deck, dive overboard and apply first the plywood, then the canvas over it. Once the leak is stopped, start the motor (it may need to be partway up on its slide to keep the air intake above water) so that there is electricity for the bilge pump and wait for the water inside the cabin to be pumped out. Now fill the water tanks with seawater (to get your ballast back). Sail to some place where you can pick up some fresh water, then think about hauling out for more permanent repairs. The emergency repair needs to be ground off, the ragged hole cut out and replaced with fresh fiberglass and plywood, and the copper sheathing either hammered flat and reattached or replaced.

One last QUIDNON plumbing-related thing worth mentioning: there are three signal lights to tell you which of the three pumps is running, and three alarms, all wired up to a single bell, each with a silencer switch:

• Signal lights for raw water pump, fresh water pump and bilge pump
• Bilge high water alarm (means you have water coming in faster than the bilge pump can deal with it, or the bilge pump isn’t working)
• Starboard tank low water alarm
• Port tank low water alarm

The low water alarms are important because the tanks provide ballast, which is necessary for stability when sailing. Thus, when they aren’t full, this is something that the crew needs to know about. Of course, when the boat is drying out and the raw water pump isn’t running, the low water alarms are a bit of an annoyance, but they are there to remind you that you need to fill the tanks before you go sailing again. The silencer switches are important because in practice every alarm has a silencer, but if it isn’t a switch then it’s a mad person wielding a hammer or wire cutters, and that isn’t good for safety. Other signal lights are useful too. The bilge pump light tells you that water is getting into the boat from somewhere. If the raw water pump is running for no reason you could have a leak, a tap left open, a clogged strainer or you could be drying out at low tide. If the freshwater pump is running, you could have a leak, or out of freshwater, or maybe you left the bypass valve open by mistake, causing it to pump water in a circle.

To summarize, QUIDNON’s plumbing system will provide lots of tankage (you are unlikely to find another 36-foot boat with 1300-gallon tanks), all the usual amenities, plus a powerful safety feature that makes QUIDNON self-rescuing when holed and swamped. It achieves all of this functionality at minimal cost, thanks to the use of garden hose and fittings and RV instead of marine components. It is laid out in a way that makes it easy to work on. It is documented with schematics and troubleshooting procedures. And it will, I sincerely hope, prove to be conducive to preserving domestic tranquility.