Creating The Ultimate Live-Aboard

Former Outward Bound director Peter Willauer and his wife Carol customized their J/42 for a life of cruising and living aboard. By upgrading and streamlining the refrigeration, storage and battery systems the Willauers created the ultimate live-aboard 42' cruising J/. Their story was the impetus for the J/42 "L" (for live-aboard) that J/Boats offered as a separate model through 2002, before incorporating many of the features into the current model J/42. Peter spoke with Dana Paxton about their "new home" shortly after delivery.

(DP): What was the impetus to buy a J/42?

Peter Willauer (PW): It all started while we were having dinner with Mary and Bob Johnstone, who are old friends. We wanted a cruising boat that performed like a J, but couldn't find one. At the time we had already owned/cruised a Tora 40, which is an old wooden, beamy, centerboarder. We had some ideas about what needed to happen, in fact, we were looking at other boats. Bob said why not tell us what you want and maybe they could figure out some options.

PW: We took a look at the existing J/42. Basically we were looking for more storage room, so it started with the batteries and fridge. The J/42 sailed wonderfully and we didn't want to mess with anything on deck and how it sails. The refrigeration is good, it freezes a few trays of ice, but no big frozen stuff. We wanted a separate freezer box and spent time figuring out where to put that and ended up in the main saloon on the port side. We located the freezer, a pullout bunk and a table against the bulkhead, with a lift up top. Ocean Options did a super insulation job; it's real thin.

Basically it's L-shaped in back of a double sink. It's a good, big one and once we did that, then we were able to have a fold-up table to store up against the bulkhead. TPI made a table for us. It's beautiful with wine glasses/wine rack . The table comes down and seats two or opens again and seats more. The nice thing is that it's out of the way when you're sailing and it makes storage space behind the table. I told Bob, now the best bunk is in the main cabin, because you pull out the slider the width of the freezer!

PW: The main thing we did is pull down the side cabins on either side by about five to six inches. You don't notice from the outside. On starboard side, across from the L-shaped freezer, we have a TV/VCR and a nice, deep china locker on the port side, behind the cushions on the lockers settee. The lockers are twice as big and that allows me to easily -- finally -- increase the battery capacity.

The J/42 originally comes with 200 amps and we wanted 600 amps; two house banks, at 100 amp power capacity and a fifth starter battery, besides the three under the nav. station.

PW: There is a big battery behind the settee on the starboard side, taking up one of six lockers. An additional glass-mat battery stored on its side, in the bottom of the forward-hanging locker, where it's still deep enough for jackets/shirts. The optional battery charging/monitor regulator program, put out by Jack Rabbit, tells you how many amp hours are left and when to start charging them and monitors how fast you're using them, to see what kind of amperage and how fast out and in the power is going. So, I can see what's going on in terms of energy. The battery storage is on starboard side and it balances out the galley and head on port side.

And in that system is an inverter/charger. On most boats when you plug in the shore power you have a charger that charges your battery. Now they make a charger and inverter in one unit. We put in a little 300-watt inverter to run the computer and it also runs the TV. It was Cay Electronics idea to have a low-power inverter for those two units.

PW: On deck there are 200-watt solar panels, which are built into a hardtop bimini. It's a fiberglass top and we imbedded the panels on top of it. Even this time of the year, when the sun's low in Dec, they give me five amps an hour in or 50-60 in a day. That takes care of refrigeration/freezer or other stuff. Of course in the spring or fall it does more. Electrically we're much more self-sufficient with this system.

The freezer and refrigeration are separate systems and both have the regulator plates that are frozen when the engine is running, but when not running I have a separate DC backup system for each one and can run for two to three days without running the engine. If we're moving around, it's easy to set them up and it runs the refrigeration in a marina because the batteries are charged by shore power.

PW: The V-berth is permanent and made up all the time rather than having an insert in the aft end.. It gave us more storage, with a couple of big drawers and four lift up hatches. It's great. Over our feet -- across the front -- are huge forward cabinets, a couple of nice doors that go across about 14 inches and then we raised the shelf fiddle rails up for better duffle storage space.

PW: We opted for an additional spare fuel tank in a bladder under the liferaft cockpit well rather than at the bottom of the sail locker as is the case on the standard J/42. It's a 35-gallon bladder that we leave empty to keep weight out for racing. When full, it doubles your fuel capacity. The tank gravity feeds to the primary tank so I can fill the main tank if I'm in a situation where we're motor sailing for extended periods.

PW: In the portside locker, next to holding tank we put in a water maker. There are two DC refrigeration units, and we also put in a double fuel filter in the forward part of that locker for easy access and inspection.

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