Replacement cockpit drains - Take Two

18-19 July 2014

I don't think I mentioned this before, so....

The small brass fittings I installed about two seasons ago (here) were really too small.  After making a big deal out of putting them in, I decided to replace them with the very idea I have been advising other H25 owners to do for many years.

The original H25 drains were RC Marelon through-hulls straight out the back wall of the cockpit-- necessitating that water either climb up the 5/8" threshold to flow out or else stay in the cockpit pan.  I installed the little brass drains in the sole itself, fitted them with 90-degree elbows and though them good enough.  After consulting with my friend Roland (SV Moonshine) about his solo Atlantic crossing, I decided too big can never be big enough.

The fix I have been long suggesting for this entails the fitting of a rigid fiberglass tube straight out the very bottom corner of the cockpit pan through the transom.  In what has to be the most productive two two-hour work sessions I have ever had on this boat (even in the face of predicted rain), I drilled the holes, bedded these into place, removed the old ones and filled and faired the old holes.  I did one one day and one the next, after a full day of work each time.  It impressed even myself!

 

Here's the view from the cockpit.  The tubes are 1" inside, 1-1/4" outside diameter, pressed fiberglass, ordered from McMaster-Carr.  It was about $21 for one 60-inch piece, which, cut in half, fit perfectly for this application.  I deliberately made the cut on an angle, twisting each tube in its hole in order to fill the corner (shorter side inboard).  Bedded in 5200 and faired with WEST epoxy and Microlight, they look like they were molded there.

 

At the transom I allowed the excess length to just stick out and, when the epoxy had dried, cut them shorter with a hacksaw and used the orbital sander to smooth them over.  This picture doesn't show it so well, but the factory's installation wasn't symmetrical-- one old hole (filled as of this picture) will appear closer to the new tube than the other side.  I just eyeballed the site from above, applied a ruler and made them lead  out parallel to the centerline, straight aft from the corners of the cockpit pan.

The green tape covers the HIN.  I got some epoxy into it a while ago and decided to preclude any more messing it up.

The other two through-hulls are the Marelon ones I installed for the bilge pumps.

 

Looking under the cockpit the downward angle and parallel leads are seen clearly.  The duct tape is part of one of my 'mooyock' solutions for filling holes.  When the old through-hulls were taken out (with hammer and chisel), I taped over the holes in the inside and made up 'communion wafers' of fiberglass to stuff into the voids from the outside with epoxy.  Why try to fill a hole that's overhead or angled so that the epoxy will only dribble out?

This isn't a great view of it, but below the tubes is a little floor I installed aft of the low bulkhead in the foreground.  This low bulkhead, a little higher than the waterline, will contain water from any rudder-post leaks in the event of a rudder strike (which should be high on the list of any sailor's worst nightmares).  A small hole, here seen stained in epoxy, is fitted with a brass tube which will accommodate one of those little rubber transom-drain plugs.  It's not the most secure arrangement; but it's much better than having nothing at all in the event of this happening, for which Stephen Dashew says your best scenario is to crack the rudder blade.  Any other possibility involves catastrophic damage to the hull-- and, with your average production spade-rudder boat, probably the end of your voyage.

 

This pic, with the fuel tank in place, shows the upper end of the cockpit-drain tube.  With the little brass things in place, there had to be an elbow over the back edge of the tank that seriously complicated attaching fuel hoses and intruded on space for removing the tank.  Now this is practically structural-- no worries for stuff in the lazzarette weighting down the drain hoses till they fail or pop off.

(The dark spot on the tank is an old epoxy spill, not a leak or any damage.  This tank has been kicking about this boat for very long, getting dusty and spilled-upon, and only now (September) is is finally in its place for good.  Of course I've kept all the openings well taped-up!)

* * *

Hunkered down

15 October 2014

Bill Robinson, editor of Yachting for many years, wrote a terrific book in about 1980 about cruising, using his own experiences including those of sailing the NJ Shore.  One sage observation he made was that the NJ Shore suffers one 'major weather event' every autumn, like between mid-September and early November.  Superstorm Sandy was our dose for 2012.  This week we were promised another, high winds and torrential rain.  Naturally I did not expect it to rise to any proportion of what Sandy was like; but being prudent I took some precautions, moved, stowed or weighted down everything loose about the yard, snugged up the covers and tightened the stands.

In this pic taken from the scaffolding around Jerry's C44 Second Alarm, Diana (with all her attendant gear)  is hunkered down for another dose of ugly, land-based weather.  But she survived Sandy just fine (despite some intense worrying on my part) and this mess, really just an extended squall, proved inconsequential.

The tarp on top is really just because the deck, cabin and cockpit are not yet painted and the holes for the sailing instruments in the back of the cabin are still covered only with plastic sheeting (and plastic bags) taped over them.

One cool thing about flush-decked and semi-flush-decked boats is that they present very little windage, even when hauled out, to aggressive weather.  Diana's 'blister-canopy' configuration is even better in such conditions than is the modest trunk cabin of her sistership (which is within 2 weeks of Diana's age).

The cabin windows and new foredeck hatch do not leak.

The new cockpit drains work really well-- if the boat were not slightly tilted to port, there'd be no water at all in the cockpit after a blow like this.

I leave the old running-light holes in the bow uncovered, for light and air; the amount of rainwater they let in, which runs straight down to the bilge, is insignificant.

* * *

U-bolt installation

September 2014

This was done two seasons ago and I don't think I ever posted pics.

At Cherubini we used to have heavy stainless-steel chainplates fabricated for the C44s. About five years ago a customer wanted these replaced and we sent out for a quote, getting a figure of about $125 for each one. There are ten rigging-attachment points on each side of a Cherubini 44.

In about 1980 Lee and I did some research, really just as an intellectual exercise, and discovered that common type-316 stainless-steel U-bolts, such as are used for transom tie-down points on trailerable boats, are both phenomenally strong and amazingly cheap. Therefore we concluded by revising the engineering specification for new C44 construction that we'd use Attwood 1/2" U-bolts for the main shrouds and 3/8" ones for the mizzens. These are rated at 16,000 and 12,000 lbs breaking load, respectively. So any four of them would serve as harness-attachment points to lift the whole boat. These were bolted through that massive solid-fiberglass flange, for which the C44 is famous (see Ferenc Mate's books) and reinforced with a 2" x 2" stainless-steel angle about six feet long. This has never, not once, ever failed in any C44 or C48, despite boats' having been subjected to incalcuable stresses due to storms and other conditions.

Meanwhile Hunter continued building boats with problematic through-deck chainplates bolted to plywood bulkheads that were treated with, if anything, polyester resin. Now how many of these boats' structures have failed?

I was resolved, from the start, to replace Diana's pokey little above-deck shroud-attachment angles with U-bolts.

Below is a pic from the cabintop comparing Diana's U-bolts (below) and the original factory 'chainplates' (above, on her sistership). The plate on Diana's deck is a G-10 bolster (riser) epoxied to the fiberglass to serve as a base plate for the stanchion base. The vintage Schaefer stanchion base will span the gap, having two bolts through the plate and two through the toerail (one of which replaces one of the existing toerail bolts). In this way water can travel past (under) it, rather than pooling on top of it and working its way (such as with the help of ice) into the boltholes. I am not too keen on having a stanchion located between chainplate-attachment points; but it's only for lifelines and we'll see how it turns out.

There is tape residue about Diana's toerail in this picture. Wherever there was aluminum corrosion, from under the SS plate, against the rail, I scraped away the softened material and coated it in black 5200. There's nothing else for it but to remove the entire toerail; and I'm not ready to go there (kind of like insisting on an unnecessary operation for a child who can very easily live comfortably with the malady's symptoms for many years yet). Note that these U-bolts are very close to the vertical face of the toerail. Attaching the shrouds will be problematic unless done by screwing the bottles onto the toggles already pinned to the U-bolts. But, again, we'll see. 

The first photo shows, from below, the starboard-side aluminum angle with the U-bolt bolted through it. All of these stainless-to-aluminum connections employ nylon flat washers and plenty of 5200. Note that the angle is turned with the vertical face inboard, not outboard against the hull. The locknuts are accessible from below and inside the aluminum angle. This piece of metal is about 1" wide and about 1-1/4" high. Keep in mind that its job is to enforce stiffness of the chainplate structure (against fatiguing flexing) as well as to serve as a backing plate (against tensile loads). Therefore the longer leg of the aluminum is vertical, not flat against the flange.

 

The big orange wire is my 115VAC system. When we had our Raider 33 (hull 5, about 1977) built, my dad paid a guy about $1200 to do the wiring (since he hated wiring) and the result was stiff, balky, marine-grade 12/3 triplex wire that was heavy and impossible to get to yield if it got in your way. My dad (typically curbing the compulsion to curse, to which anyone else would have given in) said, 'I'd been happier with an extension cord thrown through the window.' Recalling this, when it came time to wire Diana for 115VAC, I got a decent 14/3 extension cord from Lowe's and cut it into pieces for Diana's three sockets and battery charger. I mean, really-- it's only 15-amp service anyway. (In the yard, currently, I run everything-- except the heat gun and fan together-- on a similar wire. The power inlet is for 30 amps but the cord has a plug for 15-amp sockets on the dock.) 

The silver wire is the sending circuit for the depth finder. Note the 1974-vintage woven roving (trade name 'Fabmat') of the hull, even this high up. I'm embarrassed by this next pic because apparently I missed a spot when spraying in the adhesive for the hull liner.

This is Diana's port-side U-bolts angle, inside the linen cupboard in the head. Here is where I ran all the wiring-- the reds and yellows in this picture are all heading forward from the head for bow-rail bi-color light, (LED) floodlights in the forepeak, and one cabin light (an original one I rejuvenated) to be mounted on the bulkhead.

The white wire is for LED footlights along the bottoms of cabinetry and bunkfronts. That's three reds and a white. The black and heavier white one (VHF coax) are leading from the mast step towards the panel, aft.

The fourth red is for a secret: with the hull-mounted bow lights removed, Diana will be getting blue-LED 'eyes' in these openings, lending her personality-- but I'm not advertising that and it'll be something to be shown off at the commissioning party!

The Sweet Sister

The sistership, one of the trunk-cabin model I call 'series 2', beside Diana is destined to become as much a celebrity as Diana is (rather like Haylie Duff or Beth Ringwald). I have been calling her 'The Sweet Sister' as, though she is within two weeks of Diana's age, she has been terribly neglected and yet remains in better condition than Diana was when I acquired her and brought here. (For example, the deck and cabintop are all solid. She has not had the distress of having had POs screwing down hardware without proper preparation.)

The current owner has only recently acquiesced to my interest in gaining her title; and over the winter and spring I will be performing a basic restoration of her, topsides, interior, and rig, incorporating several Diana features but otherwise letting her remain stock, as a kind of comparison to my (highly-modified) boat. Of course the sister will be getting U-bolts, my mast step, a 115VAC system, stanchion-base bolsters and the same color scheme as Diana's.

Look for her at the planned Hunter Sail-In in Burlington NJ in early July-- she'll be up for sale (but only to a good home).


* * *

Finally! --it's paint.

9-10 October 2014

I have been procrastinating the hull paint on this boat for an inordinate time.  This is really 'just because' --I truly haven't felt like investing the time and effort into it till now.  But I've had the gallon kit of Interlux Primekote for a while, just for when I decided to do it, and so I finally bowed to the constant encouragement of my friend and boatyard neighbor Jerry (C44 Second Alarm) and together we attacked this.

 

(The spots on the bottom are my repair of some hull cracks that had spread through the Pettit Protect barrier coating that I applied last year.  Discovering these was distressing; but I've been determined to have this boat done properly and so the Dremel took was applied right through it and WEST epoxy, with milled fibers as filler, was troweled into the gouges.  As of now it's really pretty good.)

 

Jerry did the rolling and I was going to try tipping it, for which I bought a couple of really good brushes, but we found that Primekote doesn't want to be tipped.  We also found that it should be thinned more than the 20% the label advises-- I approximated about 25% (or a little more) into each batch.  We mixed 5 batches of about 20 ounces each and this did a little more than two full coats of the hull.  Jerry was a champion with the rolling and really made the paint spread well with virtually no heavy spots.

 

Earlier pics will show the extensive repair on the transom.  Upon removing the center-mounted backstay tang, I discovered its load had sort of impressed upon the transom, creating a hollow.  I filled this with new 'glass and plenty of WEST epoxy with Microlight.  With Jerry's help I sanded the entire hull with 80 grit, and then 120 grit, using DryGuide, this marvelous black powder that, applied to the hull before sanding, illustrates clearly where your highs and lows are.  Sand it all off and it's fair-- and, amazingly, that stuff does not lie.  This hull is incredibly fair-- and, in some places, fairer than it was fresh from the factory!

 

I haven't seen this transom all one color since I brought the boat up to Delran!

 

This poor boat had numerous close encounters with pilings and the like, to the point where some PO cut off a section of bow rail to effect a repair.  I took this off again to repair his repair and left it off for the painting.  By some odd coincidence this is the very section of rail that needs to be cut down to accommodate the anchor roller (as it's tradition for sailboats to have the primary anchor rode to starboard).  The whole nose has been redone with 'glass, Microlight, milled fibres, and endless sanding.  Now in the bright white Primekote it looks almost done.

The holes formerly occupied by the hull-mounted running lights will be fitted with teardrop-shaped black Plexiglas windows, giving light to the forepeak locker and finishing off the bow in a familiar way.  I'm putting little blue LED lights in here (called 'docking lights' on the breaker panel) to represent Diana's personality.

* * *

Finalizing cabin and interior

Here are some pics of recent progress belowdeck.  Currently (June 20th) I am finishing the cabintop, fitting the Dorade boxes and hatch shroud, and remedying the PO's repair of the bow in preparation to paint the hull and fit the stem fitting.

Hanging locker

Aft of the port-side rode locker, opposite of the microwave and toolbox, was planned this locker.  In framing it I realized there was much more space than I expected.  As it is now, it has several bins to hold shoes, balled-up t-shirts and cottons, various personal effects as well as 12" worth of clothes on hangers.  Shirts and coats will fold onto the floor; but it's much better than having nowhere to hang clean clothes at all.

The first photo shows the after bulkhead, where the plumbing is (which necessitated the locker being delineated from the bunk space in the first instance).  The 1-1/2" vented loop is for the holding-tank pumpout; the smaller standpipe is the holding-tank vent which goes to a 3/4" through-hull in the hull.  The wiring will go to a 3-gang panel over the head sink for the lights.  The little 1-1/4" elbow shown coming through the wall is the head-sink drain, going to its trap and thence to 3/4" hose for the seacock.

I don't know if I've said this before but, when fitting plumbing traps to boat sinks, one should always make them turn forward or aft first and then inboard only after they have gone downwards, to ensure sufficient drainage on either tack.  (This says nothing about the shape of the basin which may retain water to leeward of the drain; but that can't be helped unless you have a basin more steeply sloped than the usual angle of heel.)

The other pic shows the forward side of the same locker.  The "Get A Grip' placard came from a hook-and-loop strap display at the West Marine store where I worked; I thought it was hysterical and swiped it from the trash when the sale was over and cut it to a minimal size (and then spilled acetone on it, causing the blur).  It's been in the boat for about 6 years and by now deserves a place as decor.

 

This locker will get covered with a canvas curtain to keep water out, as the foredeck hatch is directly overhead.

The vertical door-jamb pieces probably need some cleaner way of terminating outboard of the sill-- I'll look to that later.

Main cabin, aft

These two pics show the back corners of the main cabin, the electrical panel to port and the galley and bookcase to starboard.  Among other things can be seen my re-use of the (1974) teak fiddle rails that were originally fitted to the outboard hull shelves over the settees.  This wasn't an easy task since the cabin, as molded, is not symmetrical-- the port-side bulkhead was fully one inch wider than the starboard side, as is evident since the vertical posts are keyed to the hatch's opening.  The solution lay in justifiying the space between two spindles on the center of the opening and then ensuring that no spindles are too close to the ends.  I think one of them is a little off, by less than 1/8", but you won't be able to tell (and one strict rule of Diana is that no one is permitted to visit this boat with a ruler in hand!).

In the spirit of complete disclosure: the cheek piece at the after end of the overhead cabinet (where the radio goes) is teak, not mahogany!  It came from a very weathered piece in a trash bin and I didn't recognize it till I'd sanded it down and applied varnish.  Oh, well-- at least both sides are the same (from the same board in fact).

On neither side is the cap fitted to the top of the divider bulkhead.  I've been getting impatient about getting this stuff varnished and installed, just so it doesn't clutter up the cabin and inhibit other progress (as it's all been doing for too many years) and so I screwed this stuff into place as it is now.  I'll fit the cap pieces after I finish the after side of these bulkheads (more on that-- and a surprise! --later).

I haven't had the motivation to build the drawers for the galley yet and so the cabinet bulkhead beside the ladder is still missing.

I don't go in for the trite little piracy fetish so many yachties favor; but the skull-and-crossed-bones can cooler is in tribute to my late cousin Peter, who co-founded Raider Yacht (for which this was a logo).  So it shall remain on the boat.

  

Other stuff

Here is a cool pic of the foredeck hatch.  It lets in some phenomenal light-- you can read by it in the saloon, even during a rain, even with the other hatch closed.  I've been saying all along that if this project is taking far too long, at least I get to spend my days with gorgeous bits of varnished Honduras mahogany; and here's an example.

The stick holds up the hatch because the hardware isn't on yet.  The cords are what secures it down against wind, rattles and motion.

The green tape is a sign reminding me which end goes forward.  Remember that the hatch frame is cut from the base on the deck, to ensure that they fit together, before the base is installed.  Even with a rectangle it matters which way it goes.

Below is a pic of the (too dusty!) sink in the head.  The cabinet lift-out panels are not painted and so not fitted yet.  The leaning board is the divider, not screwed in, that will hold a shelf in the forward locker.

The portion of counter after of the seam in the fiddle hinges up for access to a 4-inch-deep bin (the original bin over the footwell of the settee berth.  The astute will recall that this idea was my contribution to this boat's design in 1972; see here).

I messed up the trim stick that goes atop the blue countertop along the forward bulkhead and it hasn't been remade and installed yet.  In (typical) impatience I had just "eyeballed" the angle against the fiddle and cut it; and it's too wrong to be tolerable.

I could have tugged the wire loom a little more tightly into the upper shelf, under the window, for this pic; but there's still wiring to be run in it.

Don't say anything about the after cheek piece protruding below the upper fiddle rail while the forward one remains even.  This is an oversight and will be remedied!  The trick deserving the credit is in the making of both cheek pieces, one wide and one narrower, so that they align with the locker face which, which like the sink-counter face, is parallel to the centerline.  How else would it have been done?

And this allows the curtain rods to be fastened to the cheek pieces, more or less parallel horizontally.  My mom, the accomplished seamstress, is currently making the curtains for these hull windows.

Main saloon

Lastly here is a pic of the saloon bulkhead after I fitted the cheek pieces along the top.  This had been long unfinished because I just didn't know a way of making it all in one piece; and then (in the shower, as so often happens) I conceived of the positively brilliant notion of making each side in two pieces.  I wanted some straight line to avoid emphasizing the roundness of the cabintop in here; and here is my solution: an ogee curve descending to a second cheek piece and a further horizontal line.  Together these just about cover the ragged fiberglass tape (though not quite) and represent an apparently-structural deck beam in conjunction with the compression post (the true structural deck beam is on the forward side of the bulkhead, requiring the horizontal door header).

In keeping with the conceit of having these pieces represent a real deck beam, I deliberately made these of Phillipine (lauan), not Honduras; so they appear greyer, darker, a little greener than the footwell trim and table cleat mounted lower on the bulkhead.  The cheek pieces to cover the gap between bulkhead and cabinside will be of (thinner) Honduras.

All of these pieces, as well as those on the forward side of this bulkhead, are "permanently" installed now.  If the white or varnish requires any more touching-up, it'll be done with them in situ.

I should have reinstalled the arched door header here; but in fitting the cheek pieces I ran one screw into the bulkhead, thinking it would be covered by the door header, and just missed; so I have to fill it and paint it again first.

Dave saw this and commented on my practice of simply screwing these pieces into place without concern for hiding the screw heads behind plugs or multiple cleats, saying it was just like what Uncle Joe would have done.  I took that as a high compliment, as I have long admired Uncle Joe's clearheaded sense about what's least complicated being the most aesthetically pleasant... but I really meant it all this way to be able to remove all these pieces for varnishing (and revarnishing.  As I always say, 'It's never the last coat of varnish!').

I have a really cool idea for after I paint the fiberglass around the companionway hatch (where the centerline is indicated, top of photo); but I won't share that till it's been done.  Stay tuned.

* * *

More on the inner-staysail bulkhead

In this pic I have painted the bulkhead but have not attached the fuzzy hull liner, the bow-locker door, or the chain-locker doors.   The hull liner is the roll wrapped in cardboard paper lying on the bunktop.

I am not going to paint the faux-teak bow-locker bulkhead, just for old-times' sake, to show the original fabric of the boat as-built.  The small holes in the stem are awaiting the fitting of the stem fitting (see here).

In this pic also can be seen my method for securing the forward hatch: small cord tied to eyestraps on the hatch, the same as my dad did on our 31' plywood yawl in 1962.

The fiddles on the hull shelves, port and starboard, are made high enough to make bins.  These will hold sailbags (it's a small boat!) and other stuff the way the old ones (about 2" high) never would have done.  Above, as though a facia covering the toerail bolts, will go a similar board to hold hooks from which sail bags, fenders, dock lines and other things can be hung.  As such, this space becomes a bona-fide forepeak, nothing like what's found on even much, much larger yachts.

The varnished board down the center of the underside of the deck is, in this pic, just sort of stuck there.  It is meant to catch the bolts and backing plates of the foredeck cleat, the inner-forestay's attaching plate, and the anchor winch.

I am not happy about the gaps along the top of the chain-locker bulkheads (to port and starboard here) against the underside of the deck but will leave the fitting of some varnished trim for some later date! 

* * *

Inner-forestay support

This pertains to the pole-lift/inner staysail idea I've had for a while.  The blog post is here: http://dianaofburlington.blogspot.com/2012/08/internal-pole-lift.html

In fitting an inner forestay, even if it's a detachable one, the foredeck needs to be reinforced.  Though I've filled all the rotten core adequately, the deck alone won't support something that amounts to a chainplate and may be called upon, in a catastrophe, to support the rig as the only surviving headstay.  So I decided upon a "horse", a structure going athwartships at this point.  Here is my original drawing (on the piece of plywood I would use for the crossmember/deck beam).

Below is shown the initial structure, two short little bulkheads in the forepeak, aligned with a couple of sticks.  The stick under the starboard-side shelf is propping up the shelf from its as-built position, as it was both angled downwards inboard and also too low.  The cleat on the forward bulkhead (what used to be the rode locker)  is aligning the two shelves more or less evenly; though the starboard-side one, once leveled, is too high by 1/4".  Such is the nature of budget-minded mass-produced yachts of the 1970s.

Of course these pieces narrowed the space considerably.  I had trouble wedging my out-of-shape self forward of this to disconnect the running-light wiring (along the port side) which kept getting in the way; so I decided to cut out the bulkheads a little.

I am always wary of amorphous shapes like this (such as on the back of the Hyundai Sante Fe SUV, which is downright hideous) so I just used a 4" sanding block to scribe a line parallel to the hull and deck all round.  This picture shows the cutout with the crossmember in place.  The bulkheads are 3/8" and the crossmember is 1/2".  I use mainly good-quality cabinet-grade plywood, well-saturated in epoxy and sealed in epoxy paint (these will be done in Easypoxy).  The void to port is for the wiring, which here I have tucked back out of the way.

 

Pretty cool how the bow-locker door hinges open and fits into the curve of this new bulkhead; huh?  (Should I say I planned it this way?)

(And, yes; this is where the microwave goes.  I've written on this before.)

On most budget-minded production boats, the V-berth shelf is meant mainly to stiffen the hull above the bunktop, as this tends to be the longest and highest section of otherwise-unsupported fiberglass hull on most boats.  It's not there to be useful; and most of the time the fiddles on the shelf are so miniscule as to be only for show.  Determined to have a proper forepeak, I made these high enough (6" inside) to contain plenty of gnarly gear that will accummulate here, like fenders, mooring lines, a mooring pennant, spare tackle, and probably even a couple of sailbags (Diana's main and jib already share a bag that would fit in here as it is).  The fiddles are made of 1/4" plywood, just decent cabinet-grade lauan that I had got to finish some Barbie dollhouses for my kids.  I cut them down forward of the new bulkheads to allow the little door (the only cabinet door with hinges in the whole boat) to open fully.

 

Above is to go a mahogany plank, about 4" wide and 1/2" thick, to serve as a backing plate for the deck winch (which serves the anchor rode), the mooring cleat, and the inner-forestay attachment fitting, as well as the aesthetic purpose of representing the centerline.  Originally I made this for the full length of the space; but I will cut it and fit two pieces to the fore and aft of this crossmember.  It occurs to me to have some really nice bright white LED floodlights under the deck, forward of this, to illumine the whole compartment.

Along the deck, against the hull, kind of like a facia meant to hide the toerail bolts, I will fit a wooden cleat between the new bulkheads and the (new) chain-locker bulkheads, on which can be mounted hooks and straps on which to hang line and sailbags and other stuff.

These pics were taken a few days ago.  As of today (Saturday, 24 May) I have applied a fillet of 5200 along the hull and, using WEST epoxy, 'glassed the bulkheads and crossmember into place.  When this is kicked-off I'll be painting this with semi-gloss Easypoxy.The original faux-teak forward bulkhead will be left as original; though when I replace the door I'll be replacing the tired old brass-plated-steel offset hinges with some in SS or chrome.  My daughter Rachel hand-painted ship's wheels and anchors onto some wooden knobs for my mother's kitchen cabinets recently; there is one left over and I may use it on this door.

Stay tuned for the pics of after I install the rode-locker bulkheads and trim up here.  I've mocked it up a few times and it's going to look really cool.

* * *