Egalite'

For two weeks I have been looking askance at the lines of my newly built starboard side pilot berth and settee. Every time I go down below, my new starboard side mid ship interior layout, like a crooked picture hanging in the doctor’s reception room, dumbly announces ….”This is just not right. Fix me”. In denial until now my response has been, “you’re fine, your seatback is not supposed to be parallel to the port side, besides it’s designed to be functional first and symmetrical second. It doesn’t look that bad; I am probably the only one who will ever notice”. Au contraire! It looks awful and has got to be fixed.

I’m an Idiot! I should have built a complete mock-up of the starboard side furniture before glassing it all in place. I was so focused on the dimensions of the pilot berth that I closed a blind eye to the lack of longitudinal symmetry. The two settees have to face each other squarely (master of the obvious ((in retrospect only)) ), that is to say, these two bulkheads must be parallel. The pilot berth measurements will then be whatever they will be. I designed it backwards forcing the measurements of the pilot berth first and then letting the line of the port settee back fall wherever the pilot berth location dictated. I can just picture myself six months down the road ordering the starboard settee seat cushion , “yes ma’am, a 4” deep cushion measuring 53” x 15” x 51” x 12”. “I’m sorry Mr. Kent; it’s against the Hippocratic Oath of seamstresses to make a seat cushion that ugly.”

Anyway, as my papa used to say, “It ain’t arms and legs, its only money”. The fix is of course is to tear it all out and start again which is what I will do starting tomorrow morning.

In a couple of years when we are seated across from each other, just the two of us, we will be exactly facing each other and you will be seated on a 52” by 14” perfectly rectangular settee cushion.

And symmetry ruled the land of Rose once again.