Dingy Aboard

The nesting dinghy is a bit too tall to stow on the house top but she fits nicely up forward.  The bow section fits over the scuttle hatch bow facing forward and then the stern section goes on top.  There's enough deck space to go forward on either tack and room to handle head sails or ground tackle.  Grab rails on the dinghy bottom will make for a safer the trip forward.

Interior Progress Photos

Several posts ago I was singing the blues over the longitudnal lines of the starboard side furniture.  The pilot berth face and settee back traced a fore and aft line of its own mind outlining functional but formless furniture. It just looked crooked. 

As shown in the photo to the right the fix is in. It is too early to visualize the end product but trust me, the reconstructed furniture is now fair.

Here are a few more photos of the current state of affairs below deck:

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.

Roughing Out Interior

I think it will be another 30 days before the interior construction is finished.  Once the furniture rough out is done we can start machinery installation, plumbing and wiring.  Photos I took last week show the current state of affairs down below.

The freezer space is on the forward end of the box and is as big as the fridge compartment in order to accept the Cool Blue Technautics cold plate. The freezer side has a bottom that conforms to the shape of  the hull while the fridge side bottom is level.  I think I can get a drawer under the fridge side.

The navigation station with chart table and fridge/freezer under is positioned at the forward end of the main cabin on the starboard side.  The space is 53 inches long and will contain a small bank of 10 inch wide 3 high drawers at the far forward end in addition to the 36" long and 18" deep refrigerator freezer box.

The 25 inch high cold plate mounts in the freezer side of the box on the bulkhead facing the centerline of the vessel.

The Nav station faces the port side galley on the forward end of the main cabin.  The doorway leading to the forward cabin is offset to starboard so that the 8" diameter mast does not block the access.

From the companion way  we get a feel for the overall main cabin layout......port settee aft of the galley and to starboard, a facing settee (yet to be built) with pilot berth behind and nav station forward.

Looking dead astern from forward cabin.

The port quarter berth is 76 inches long and has storage below and beside.

The starboard pilot berth is 27 inches wide at the top and 33 inches wide half way down.  Total length is 93 inches.  The pilot berth does not convert to a double..... one mattress without insert. (Sleep two, eat four and drink 6)  The area due south of the pilot berth will be dedicated to machinery space and storage.  The only access will be from down below.  There will be no starboard cockpit locker to get to this space.  Based on our recent track record down flooding opportunities will be kept to a bare minimum.

Interior

Starboard bulkheads and fridge box construction is underway. Once furniture is roughed in machinery installation, plumbing and wiring can begin.

Forward Cabin Configuration

Also changing is the forward cabin layout.  The new design will allow the anchor locker, sail locker and head areas to work more closely as one cabin for machinery installation, toilet (but not shower) and storage of sails, tools, spare parts and ground tackle I willl also take out the existing portside cabinetry and move the toilet off centerline and over to the port side.  The bulkhead opening between the head area and sail locker will be enlarged.  The holding tank will mount on the port side of the sail locker, the AC compressor in a portside cabinet just aft of the head and the refrigeration compressor on the starboard side.

In contrast to the main salon and galley the cabin before the mast will be workboat like in style with exposed plumbing, easy access to machinery and open shelves for spares and tools.  And if I can get this Dell "all-in-one" to scan as advertised I will post a couple of drawings describing the new layout.

OK let's try this:

A bit rough but approximately to scale (no such thing).  A few labels would also help. Anyway, she will have a port side quarter berth for a crewmen not longer than 6 ft 1"; the pilot gets a 7 ft. starboard berth; the third crewman gets the sole and the fourth, if any, will be a daysailor who can hot sheet with the quarter berth occupant should he or she require a catnap. The Galley will remain to port with the nav station/fridge box opposite. The head will shift from centerline to the port side and face a storage cabinet cum workbench.

Interior Layout

One of Sea Star's restoration goals is to create the illusion of a larger interior space and to in fact enlarge the living space. The sole will be dropped two inches to increase headroom to six foot three inches. The water tanks will have to be rebuilt and some pot water volume sacrificed but dings to this bald head of mine will be minimized.

In the main cabin the small L part of the cabinets and the associated countertop will be removed. For now there will be no table or back settee cushions. The deep built-in battery box/step will be eliminated and batteries relocated port below the quarterberth and starboard in the new machinery space created by eliminating the starboard quarter berth. The starboard side settee seat will be much narrower at 15 inches allowing for construction of the 82 by 26 inch pilot berth.

But the most dramatic design change, both from an interior layout and an engineering standpoint, will be the deck stepped mast compression post re-design. The mast will be deck stepped just as before Ike but stepped on a bridge 34 inches long by 12 inches wide installed on the main deck where the propane tank boxes used to sit ( the new Sea Star will have no propane). Below decks there will be two compression posts each 15 inches off centerline extending to the reinforced hull bottom with loads redirected to the top of ballast.......more on this with some photos later in the rigging category. The rectangular door separating the main and forward cabins will be wider and postioned exactly on the boat's centerline helping to create the illusion of one large cabin when the door is open.

The forward cabin will appear more spacious by removing the port side upper storage cabinets in favor of a full depth countertop w/ sink.

The space aft of the pilot berth below the starboard cockpit seat will be dedicated to storage and machinery installation. This space will be accessed from the interior of the cabin rather than a new cockpit locker as originally contemplated.

I need to scan a layout of the New Sea Star ( to be re-christened in May 2010, (approx give or take a year); I'm thinking "Rose".