Katie-J´s refit

V berth cabinetry
stb side
note the PVC pipe which will act as ducting for power, signal and water lines





stb side fwd locker


floor piece
in the end i ended up prioritizing confort over small storage unit. i think its better to have the tallest headroom possible in a place fit for a hobbit to start with


port side

 

galley cabinetry









final position on the boat (the wall wasnt given the storage, this was a prior rough fit)

 

new cockpit lockers
this model despite its cruising capabilities (which are great by the way for the boat it is) was designed as a daysailer, weekender at most, so storage aint something the original design pays attention to.
the cockpit is yet another area where space needs to be created to properly house equipment




this will be a sheet locker built on the frame of the cockpit locker itself, it will self drain to the cockpit once finished.


both cockpit locker lids

 

in my quest to maximize storage and ergonomics i decided i needed to lower the cockpit floor. i will build a rigid bimini and ideally i want to have standing head room. at 5' 7" its not that difficult to achieve.
so i had to cut the whole cockpit floor piece



this was a rough fit at 70mm below the original height. this ended up to be number i was looking for as it always enable me to keep tha majority of the under cockpit unclaimed space.


templating the partitions for the under cockpit storage lockers


not the 2 side dray channels, laminated from an oval shape, created by taping 2 pvc pipes, 2 inch diameter and then cut to a J profile shape

 

solid dodger build
to build it i first needed to peel the whole cabin top




trying to have a first feel for the volume and shape involved in the making of the dodger



very first anchoring laminations



another step towards the intended shape



laminating a couple of biax layers to have some structure to it


demoulded


refitted


fairing it and applying peel ply to iron out the surface



and thats it guys, the is pretty much where i am presently
nexts steps are to sand the fairing down, tune it some more, laminate from the inside, fair, sand and tune the inside, then strip plank with G10 strips, and laminate until im happy with its strenght, when it doubt laminate some more!
the cloth im using it biax, 400 gr/m2, 45/45 angle. im also going to use some CSM to help getting some meat on.

 

A question about structural materials.

i will be replacing the original rudder post with a wound filament fibreglass tube. the original tube was made of steel, glassed at both ends, thus avoiding water ingress and packing nuts ( proven and simple arrangement in my view), the new tube will a fraction of it, glassed only to the bottom, but very robustly reinforced with G10 collars and biax cloth, meaning i will have to install a packing gland/nut.
my gut tells me to go at least 12mm (1/2 inch) on the wall thickness

for the bearings i will use a, machined, free spinning, vesconite, or delrin like polymer (something that doesnt absorb water in the long term) for both the bottom (always immersed in water) and top, near the tiller head.

it would be great hearing from the forum's fibreglass experts about the minimum desired wall thickness of said tube.

The original rudder shaft was 57 mm OD, i will be increasing it to 60mm or the next upper number being usually manufactured (to make for an easy future replacing situation)

thanks for any info

 

scribbling lines


before cutting


after cutting (from several viewpoints)


uglies to fix (wavy sections)


problems with compound curves
gaps created by twisting over 2 axis upon a short distance.
im going to patch the gaps as you would patch thru hulls, get the overall shape (a bit oversized for a later trim), and slap layers of cloth together, tightly cinged then use thickneed epoxy to bed and bridge the remaining mm

 

got around to continue to refit

main bulkhead works

before filling some cavities


after


laminating central and portside sections




in the mean time i also received the SS metal pieces i had designed as the reinforcement pieces to counter the mast´s compression force.
its all 6 mm SS , polished in the visible side
there is a visible slant on the fwd piece, and also in the aft one, but its quite noticeable in the fwd one. im not going to fix it.
just going to bridge the gaps with G10 sheets, cloth and thickneed epoxy, which, by squeezing out will make for a flat surfaces, making both surfaces match

 

integral water tank works

got some pvc pipe to route the cabling from the batteries to the windlass, and to the main switch board.
i think its a good solution, makes for shorter runs and also hides the cabling

dry fit and after hole sawing the hole


after glassing it in.
had 3 layers of cloth glassed so far but im going for more. dont want this thing coming apart, having water all over the place and worst: having to build it again!




glassed some lips where the top lid will be set upon
everything is filleted and then 2 layers of biax cloth. might be overkill but i try to make stuff that would be load bearing in case a heavy load was dropped (me falling into it for instance)


glassed the aft wall and the inside of the longitudinal wall

 

cockpit floor works

gor started on making the lids for the openings i cut out previsouly
cut some strips with a grinder and put everything together with tape, filleted and glass over it

 

other laminations

laminated both bunks to the hull (only STB is depicted)



another view from stb bunk lam. note the "shield" piece installed to make the bunk watertight and create space on the inside to install/remove the transducer


V berth cabinetry reinforcements

 

some morw work got done in the meantime

i glassed in the under cockpit floor partitions, making ready to reglass the floor in the near future


reinforced the aft water tank wall and centre cockpit lockers walls with a couple of lams


and scribbled the lines for the diesel tank lid

 

got to cut the water tank lids to be glassed in the future also
aft lid
this is after i realized upon templating that a full piece wouldnt be able to fit.
will be glassing a small lip to the underside of the fwd exposed edge to have something for the fwd lid to rest upon.


both lids on

 

cockpit floor hatches
prepped the floor piece by taping it with pvc tape as a release agent
used the original cutout pieces, cut the cloth strips and laminated it along the edges. applied a bead of thickened epoxy just before the cloth so it would fill cavities and help rounding the corners


small lid demoulded
you can see the excess thickened epoxy coming out, pretty easy to chisel out and finger sand
i will laminate more layers to beef it up, this was just to gain a stable surface for that


big lid

 

building the port and centre B berth lockers

decided to make it in one single piece. and this time it actually worked without incidents


transfered the shape onto 3mm G10
bit of waste there, but thats life


final shape


so i took this to the boat, dry fitted and imposed the composting toilet footprint on it, (in its stored position) (thats the plywwod shape you see) to have a feel for the space available.


it became apparent i could take storage "real estate" fwd of the toilet.
which meant a extra partition was need to separate them.
templating


Cut G10 piece


a view on the storage size. pretty decent.


"final" look with the lids cut out