Custom cooler

This is my really cool customized camping cooler for Diana.

Here shown holding what it usually does-- iced tea-- is the interior of the cooler as I modified it.  The divider is Plexiglass left over from the cabin windows.  It slides down into place between Starboard fiddles mounted in 5200 (to seal the screw holes so water doesn't get into the foam core; it does not stick to Starboard).  The side corners are cut out to let water reach the drain fitting, a plastic one I installed in the forward end.  The drain deposits its dribble into a PVC receptacle in the floor of this compartment which in turn carries the dribble forward into the bilge.  The drain in the cooler is cut off flush with the bottom so the cooler will sit level (and thus structurally sound) on a flat surface like the dock.

Beyond the divider Starboard fiddles hold a grilled shelf for smaller items.  The bagged ice goes under the grill.  (This cooler is not big or strong enough to hold a full block.  Nevertheless, with a plug in the drain it will hold some residue of ice-- not merely cold water-- for 5 days.)  With this configuration, there is a place that remains free of ice cubes to hold taller things, like full gallons of water or iced tea, wine bottles, etc.  The smaller stuff goes above the ice in back.

The grill is a leftover section from the light baffle material I got when installing a work light in my mother's kitchen.  It is not very strong and was annoying to cut, as a jigsaw only shattered it and a bandsaw did only a little less damage.  I resorted to cutting it by hand with a very fine hacksaw blade.  Of course the sides are not parallel, due to the cooler's shape, and the back edge is slightly rounded.  And then there is the issue of ensuring that the square holes, when cut through, allow enough support along the fiddles.  As can be seen I got it aligned so that one long strake rides on each side fiddle.

The cooler is not a 'marine'-spec one but a standard Coleman '5-day' campers'-spec one.  The marine ones all have top hinges along the side.  As seen here Diana needs one hinged from the end-- or, as here, not at all.

The cooler sits under the ladder; its top is covered by the bottom step (which I personally never use, as I step on the quarter berth edge when entering or leaving the cockpit).  This step is hinged at the back.  I do not yet have it rigged but I want to have a Fastpin slid through the ladder side(s) to hold up the step.  Then one can lift the cooler lid without having to hold up the weight of the step.  The step does not protrude far enough beyond the upper one to allow anyone to accidentally step on it and break it or bend the Fastpin.  If it's pinned up, you will see there is no step below (or just the cooler lid) and step onto the quarter berth instead.

The pencil scribble on the not-yet-painted right side (left in photo) is marking where the recessed red LED footlight will go.  With the step and lid down, it illuminates the step.  With the step up, it illuminates the cooler.

The heavy fiddles screwed to the sides support the step, which is 1/2" plywood with a 3/4" step plate epoxied to the front edge.  It was varnished about 7 years ago with Captain's Varnish and is still holding up well.

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Some inconveniences are beyond counting

I once told my young brother-in-law, as he was building some plastic model airplane and complaining about glue on his fingertips, that to do a good job sometimes you have to love your project more than you care for your self.  This is especially true when it comes to convenience-- after all, most of the things we love are patently inconvenient.  And yet we pursue them anyway; and in this pursuit is how we acknowledge their value to us.

This photo is not great; it's intended to show the nice fat mahogany splinter I got in my foot.  (How? --I wasn't even barefoot.)  In this one week I got this splinter and another as well, tore my fingertips on a jigsaw blade (it was not running), jammed the meat of my hand in the drill-press chuck and mysteriously gashed my leg which bled all over the project in process.

The West Marine sticker is on my daughter's laptop.

Here is the top of the cabin, with no hatch or hatch shroud in place, the day I was fastening down the new hatch-slider rails.  The green tape along a piece of wood is a dam to keep epoxy from coursing down the side of the cabin and over the windows (already let that happen once, so never again!).  I had noticed a stickiness whenever I was kneeling a certain way but in the semi-mad rush to get the sticks into position and screwed down I attributed it to something stuck to my leg.  Only when I was done the most urgent part of it did I happen to notice the red stuff, which I then concluded was blood.

That's the foredeck's hatch coaming in the distance.  At the time of this photo the hatch shroud was being used to cover up that opening-- that's it even farther beyond.

Below you can see something of the main cabin, the compression post, the settee and head trim, and whatnot.


So I took this photo downwards at my leg, probably just to record the solution to the mystery.

Here I am standing up on the quarter berth, my other foot on the ladder step.  The quarter berth is (at this time) the current lumberyard.  The gap below my foot is the 'wet locker,' the one place inside the accommodation that goes straight to the hull skin itself.  Over this I would like to make a panel of slats, like the white-pine ceiling we make for C44s.  On the side of the ladder, behind my leg, goes the stainless-steel double hook to hang up wet foulies.  On the teak cabin face behind me is already another of these hooks.


You can see the cooler under the bottom shelf of the ladder; its cover is accessible when you lift the shelf.  A Fastpin stuck through a hole in the ladder side holds it up.  It's made so that if one should descend the ladder while the shelf is up the shelf won't stick out so far so as to catch a heel and break off-- although it does mean there won't be a second shelf in place for the one coming down.

Also two sections of the three-part cabin sole are visible here.  At the time of this photo the center section is just rough plywood-- it'll be varnished mahogany later.

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Lost Star Yacht Club’s restoration-project quiz

An informative and entertaining self-examination


Anyone involved in restoring his own boat for any length of time will readily recognize the answer for each that best represents reality here!
(Note: as though you can’t guess, ALL of these are based on real-life experiences.)



The best-laid plans

Apparently, the previous owner of your boat was

1. A dedicated yachtie who kept it in pristine order
2. An older guy who let it go during the last few years he had it
3. A complete idiot

Carefully-drawn plans or instructions for your intended projects

1. Serve a valuable purpose in organizing, scheduling and budgeting the work
2. Give a general idea which usually gets changed once you start the work
3. Are likely to be left in the bathroom at home and thus disregarded in place of ‘just winging’ it when you’re already at the boat to work

Schedules and budgets are

1. Valuable guides to keeping a sense of sanity and proportion
2. Seldom absolute
3. Completely pointless

The last time you had a completely new idea about what to improve on the boat was

1. The last time you sailed it
2. Right before you began an organized plan of restoration
3. Five minutes ago

Parts catalogues will

1. Be worth browsing to what’s available and what can be ordered
2. Be important sources of ‘how-to’ information
3. Get comprehensively marked-up with underlining, highlighting, circling, arrows and diagrams as well as notes and gift hints to family members who will really never see or heed them

Tools of the trade

The average yacht restorer’s tools and supplies are stored in

1. A shiny metal rollaway tool chest with locking doors
2. A handmade mahogany-and-plywood toolbox
3. A mismatched collection of eleven (or is it twelve?) lidless containers and damp cardboard boxes, organized, if at all, in such a way that Rube Goldberg, Charles Manson and PeeWee Herman would consider it crazy

Your stepladder is

1. A new orange fiberglass one from Home Depot
2. An old aluminum one that has seen many years of dependable service
3. A really crappy wooden one that was surreptitiously ‘borrowed’ from some other guy in the boatyard

The tool vital to starting the next job will mostly likely be found in the

1. Tool box
2. Last place the tool was used
3. Bilge

Your electric extension cord is

1. A brand-new blue one, 100 feet long, 12-gauge, with a heavy-duty plastic recoiling reel and a molded-in 4-outlet box with circuit breaker
2. The two lengths of orange cord relied-upon for the hedge clippers at home
3. Possibly more duct and electrical tape than actual electrical insultation

A flashlight’s most common function is to

1. Illuminate poorly-accessible areas
2. Attack would-be burglars or wasps’ nests
3. Store dead batteries until you decide to throw them away

The usual condition of the average cordless drill/screwdriver’s batteries is

1. Both at full charge as soon as possible
2. The one in the unit dead, the other one charged and waiting in the charger
3. The one in the unit dead, the other one, which died last night, nowhere to be found

Wood plugs are frequently sealed in the screw holes using

1. Weldwood wood glue and an overnight drying process
2. WEST epoxy and an acid brush
3. The varnish, when you noticed the missing plug(s) right after you started to brush it on

Your boat-work shoes are

1. High-quality leather moccasin-type deck shoes
2. Sturdy, sensible work boots
3. A pair of ripped, stained and punctured CVOs with the soles completely blown-out or held together with duct tape; and your wife wonders why on earth they are still in the house

Rubber gloves and dust masks are

1. Essential, for safety and hygiene
2. Frequently necessary for really ugly jobs
3. Unheard-of

The procedures

You tend to have help in this project

1. Most of the time
2. About half the time
3. Pretty much never, unless you count the times when somebody from the yard comes by with a beer and talks while watching you work

‘Cutting corners’ in quality is

1. To be avoided
2. Sometimes necessary
3. Totally acceptable, so long as the task gets done

When you encounter a necessary task involving an area of expertise in which you have no experience, you will

1. Seek help from an expert
2. Read up on the procedure and treat it as a learning experience
3. Get out the tools and epoxy and start doing it

During a restoration, the bilge usually contains

1. Dirt and liquids, till they are cleaned or pumped out
2. Hoses and wiring that would be unsightly if run elsewhere
3. Wet pencils, locknuts and expensive electrical connectors you thought you mislaid and have had to buy again

When working on the boat, trash is

1. Stuffed into a 5-gallon paint bucket which is emptied at the dumpster each evening
2. Brushed into a corner of the cabin sole or cockpit
3. Pitched out the companionway hatch at the spur of the moment; and may God have mercy on the poor people who may have stopped below to look over the boat

Some of the fiberglass lay-ups in your boat may contain

1. Small air bubbles
2. Dust or wood chips
3. Sandwich lettuce, Dr Pepper and your blood

When installing fittings on spars, you will use

1. One thread tap, carefully maintained with oil
2. Maybe two or three taps
3. So many taps that you must make the 20 minutes’ trip from the boatyard to the auto-parts place several times a weekend

When you are kneeling or balancing on hull timbers to install new cabin-sole panels, the electric drill that gets in your way will most likely end up with the point of the new spade bitt in

1. The bilge
2. Some finished woodwork
3. Your leg

The usual procedure for electrolytically isolating stainless-steel fittings from aluminum spars involves

1. Applying nonconductive thread-locker liquid to the threads
2. Smearing both sides with white lithium grease
3. Sticking a piece of white electrical tape under the part before screwing it down

When cutting plywood outside, the rain will begin

1. The moment the pieces are cut
2. In the middle of the job
3. As soon as you have run the extension cord, clamped down the part, and switched on the jigsaw

The most valuable application of white Krylon is for

1. Gas grilles, bicycles and outdoor furniture
2. Models made of metal parts
3. Anywhere you neglected with Durawhite, Bilgekote, or Awlgrip when it’s time to put the boat in the water

When cutting Plexiglas, the typical experience will involve

1. A slow, clean cut with the jigsaw
2. Easily peeling off the protective paper backing
3. Having the blade get stuck in the middle of the cut when the material melts itself back together and then using hacksaws, grinders or lots of sanding to ultimately finish the part

When cutting G-10, you should use

1. A brand-new, fine-toothed jigsaw blade
2. An old blade that is almost ready to be thrown away anyway
3. Someone else’s blade (and saw)

With the spars out of the boat, the usual procedure for reeving new halyards involves

1. Carefully ‘sewing’ and whipping the braided messenger line to the new halyard
2. Tying the messenger line to a paperclip ‘buried’ into the new halyard
3. Hastily wrapping the messenger line to the new halyard with about half a roll’s worth of electrical tape

The 5200 is usually applied

1. In assemblies that must hold out seawater and are not likely to be dismantled in the regular course of maintenance
2. For anything and everything that goes together
3. All over the cabin sole, your knees, the clipboard, most of the tools and half of the sub sandwich you had intended to finish

The usual disposition of an unfinished tube of 5200 is to

1. Cap it so it stays airtight and store it in a cool dry place
2. Stick a machine screw down the nozzle and wrap tape over the end
3. Leave it where you last used it and expect to throw it away next week after the remaining half has cured in the tube

When painting decks or soles, the usual experience involves

1. Careful planning so that you can work from a ‘wet edge’ in painting from one end to the other
2. The occasional oversight requiring that you lean over wet paint to reach neglected dry spots
3. A completely disorganized nightmare involving spills, runs, blots and numerous opportunities to wear your work home

When the tarp that covers the boat needs to be changed, the wind will pick up

1. As soon as the new tarp is tied down
2. As soon as you arrive at the boatyard to do it
3. As soon as you get the old tarp stuffed into the dumpster and begin spreading the new one over the cabintop

Your primary motivation for doing painstaking work is one of

1. Interest in the value of your investment
2. Concern for the durability of the boat for the future
3. Pride, to demonstrate your superior ideas and craftsmanship

After-work bathing typically entails

1. A long refreshing shower
2. A rush to finish and get on to other tasks
3. Dishwashing liquid, Fast Orange and Scotch-Brite to remove all the paint, 5200, epoxy and resin from your raw skin

Beat the odds

The likelihood of damaging or dislocating a seacock is inversely proportionate to

1. The cost of the seacock
2. The importance of the supply line attached to the fitting
3. The need to replace it

The likelihood of drilling a hole through a spar or bulkhead and breaking into a length of electrical or plumbing conduit is inversely proportionate to

1. The cost of the conduit
2. The importance of the hole you’re drilling
3. The amount of time left before the Travel-Lift comes

The likelihood of tossing a screwdriver up into the boat and damaging something is directly proportionate to

1. The cost of the screwdriver you toss
2. The proximity of the object it hits
3. The amount of work you put into what it hits

An example of an unexpected negative correlation may exist between

1. The quality of the varnish job and the cost of the foam brushes
2. The cost of a VHF radio and the time it takes to receive it from the supplier
3. The time and effort you take to install the paper-towel holder and the importance of the paper-towel holder to the overall project

The costs

The way to really recognize a yacht owner who is performing his own work is by

1. His smile of sublime satisfaction at the launching banquet
2. His nearly-empty wallet at the end of the weekend
3. The 5200 under his fingernails at church

One of the most humiliating things about taking so long to restore your boat is

1. Your friends’ nagging impatience to go sailing
2. Paying 12-month dry-storage contracts
3. Discovering that the state-of-the-art CD stereo system and FireWire computer network you installed 4 years ago have become obsolete before you got to use them

One way to be sure you’ve spent too much money on parts is by

1. The smiles on the faces of the staff at West Marine
2. Your wife’s interrogation about the Visa bill
3. The way the UPS guy, who is not a yachtie, is on a first-name basis with your dog and knows all about the product lines carried by Defender.com

The Bible verse that may best approximate the current status of your restoration project is

1. Hebrews 11:7 (‘By faith Noah, divinely warned, built this ark to save his family’)
2. Ezekiel 15:3 (‘Is wood from this tree fit to make anything useful?’)
3. Luke 14:30 (‘This man began to build, and could not finish’)

Life lessons learned

One thing you’ve found out about yourself that you never expected is that

1. You’ve learned many new things and gained a priceless experience
2. You have physical strength and stamina you didn’t know you had
3. Falling sweat actually splashes

By now you are convinced that marine-toilet plumbing should be

1. Replaced every three years
2. Replaced by every new owner
3. Made of heliarc-welded and polished 3-inch schedule-40 type-316 stainless-steel pipe and never changed at all

One maintenance cycle you did not expect to need to know is that

1. Bottom paint, no matter how old, should be reapplied within two weeks of launching
2. Spars should be removed and inspected every three years
3. The screw threads on jackstands should be oiled annually

When your restoration project is complete, you will know your boat

1. Better than most yacht owners know their own boats
2. Enough to trust it in nearly any conditions
3. More intimately than you know your wife

Your restoration project has taken

1. More or less the amount of time you expected it would
2. A season longer than you expected
3. Several years longer than you expected

The one most likely to perform future major maintenance and repair on your boat is

1. A trusted yacht-service facility
2. The next owner
3. You

When the boat is finished