A lot of us agree with those sentiments, Jim. We are thinking of a crawl, walk, run approach with the plumbing (waste water ,specifically). At a minimum we want to be able to have running water and gray water storage/disposal. If we go the "black water" route, it will be more of a "yellow water". None of us savor the idea of a crew member, volunteer, or guest dropping a deuce in one of those toilets and stinking up the boat. There is no ventilation system to get the odor top-side. The A/C blower unit will just suck it through the whole boat. Once word gets out that the Batfish smells like a sewer pipe (once more), that will kill visitor numbers for sure.
Something that has to happen in parallel with the plumbing effort is to add about 4 more dedicated power lines to the boat to handle proposed audio/visual displays in each compartment (plus sound effects), on-demand water heaters, getting the grills/ovens working, again, put some small modern reefers in cold storage, etc.
All of these additions would greatly enhance visiting the Batfish, as well as work days and event weekends. We have no problem adding something modern in places that people can't see it in order to accomplish this. As you said in another post, Rick is working on a beer budget and a lot of the stuff that gets worked on or added to the boat (like the two original fans in FTR and the ward room) are donated by the volunteers. Thankfully, the City of Muskogee has been awarding grants to the park. So, we're moving in the right direction toward a new museum facility.
