Last week another big step forward in the refit program of my King´s Cruiser 33 has been accomplished: I´ve begun fitting the covers for the chain plate stringers in my yacht´s salon. This has been a big chunk on my list for months now because these covers are ready for mounting for a long time but other stuff had diverted me. Now the day was there and I must say, I am relieved that everything worked out just fine.
A quick look back: After I had cleaned my boat I discovered that the openings for the chain plates through the coach roof deck of my yacht had been leaking for quite some time. So I refurbished the chain plates (read all about this here and here) and also renewed the GRP-stringers as well as the rotten Balsa-core in the cockpit-roof itself.
In this process I also decided to get rid of the old furniture because the parts for the starboard side had been damaged badly by the leaking water and I also didn´t quite much like the design. My plan was to make new ones which would be a bit slimmer and thus not so dominating the otherwise small salon of the boat. Here is where I started last week when I saw the time was right to attach the Teak stuff to the stringers.
Fitting of the Teak covers
It went surprisingly well. Of course, since the covers had been made taking the measurements of the salon without the new roofing panels and the Teak ceiling attached, I hade to cut to size the four covers and that took most of the time of that day. When the covers fitted nicely, I just had to Push them onto the stringers which I had been fitted with Oak-spacers.
Having them in place, two or three brazen screws had been drilled through Teak and into the Oak spacers to ensure that the new furniture will stay in place. Rugged. Solid. Nice. The whole process that I honestly was so afraid of to implement turned out to be a no brainer in the end. I seldom had begun to work on a thing in my boat that was going through so effortlessly like this. Nice!
In the end I sat back in the salon and looked at my work: Apart from the fact that because I am no boat builder nor a carpenter in any respect the seams and spaces between the different parts of my work are … well … huge and I need a good idea to at least cover the worst points nicely, I was very satisfied with my work. But another question quickly arose …
Utilizing space: Rum or Books?
When I started working out a design for the covers I new that between the two stringers a void of some 25 centimetres width and some half a metre height would be generated. What to do with this space? I thought of adding book shelves – a nice idea since reading is a good thing and I certainly would have some harbour guides and stuff at hand. A second idea was to stow away the salon fire extinguisher nicely here. But then I got a third idea …
I am addicted to Rum since my last year´s visit to the Paris Boat Show (read my article on this occasion here) and sipping on a nice glass of Rum after a long, cold, rainy day out sailing in the nicely warm salon is a very nice prospect I have in my mind. So, where to put the bottles? Well, why not in between one of those voids?
Yesterday I too measurements of the port side void and now I am at home looking at the different kinds of bottles, their width and height, to determine how to make a nice rack that will hold them in place even when the boat is heeling on the one hand and is nice to look at when I will sit down and relax, reading a book that I took out of the shelf from the port side rack. Stay tunded.
Like refit-action in sailing boats? You may try out these articles on yacht refit:
New roofing panels, parts 1, 2 und finish
Refurbishing a filthy old bilge, parts 1, 2 and 3
Sailboat refit? Never again! Black hole refit