This weekend we did a LOT of it. To say it was so much fun and utterly satisfying would be an understatement.
Saturday we were up and at it at 8am. The name of the game was: TEMPLATES! When installing anything on a boat, templates make everything cleaner, easier, and more precise (there is no such thing as a 90 degree angle on a boat so everything has to be custom). Luckily for me, I married an engineer who is something of a savant when it comes to creating templates. Me, I am more of a tracer. Tracing does NOT equal templating.
Our favorite person, Walt, came down along with our family's carpenter friend, Mike Creswell, his son Jeff, my dad, my uncle Bob and Scott and myself. Our little boat was all abuzz with activity! Bob and my dad worked on a template for the base of the radar arch, while Scott and I were below with Walt and the carpenters working out where instruments will go and what not.
Bob and my dad constructing a template for arch which will go on the aft deck.
The radar arch. This is going to be beefed up with dinghy davits, 3 more feet of height, solar panels, antennae, the radar and all sorts of stuff. One of these babies off the back of a boat is the trade mark of the "serious cruiser". Or so we're told. We think it looks real cool. Because we are custom designing ours out of stock pieces, we'll be saving 7 thousand dollars or so. Better than a kick in the face!
How to lay out an instrument panel - with cardboard cut-outs!
Doesn't appear to be the safest way to do this, but hey, nice hat!
On Sunday, it was just Scott and I. We got started a little later (blasted byob restaurants and cheap wine from Trader Joes!) but despite being "fuzzy", we still got a bunch done. We hung our giant 50lb battery inverter, we templated some more, and we mounted the cockpit instruments. We were REALLY, REALLY excited about this. In fact, I think we sat and gazed in silence for at least 3 minutes.
The evolution of an instrument panel!
We also cut some holes in our boat, which makes Scott extremely nervous. I'm not sure why, but this never freaks me out nearly as much as other people, as illustrated by the conversation below:
Scott: Okay, are we suuuuure about where we are going to mount the AC breaker and meter and such?Me: Well, we will be once we cut the holes.
Check it out!
Next week, we hope to have the navigation station all sorted out. We are having our carpenter friends make us a new panel out of plywood with teak veneer where we will mount all sorts of fun boat stuff. Here is the template off which they will work (I made a better, more precise one yesterday, but forgot to take a pic), consider this the "teaser" for next week....
Instruments will take the place of cardboard and the big hole in the middle will be solid. We call this "real estate" and it allows us "room to grow".
Boo yah!
Brittany and Scott
5 comments:
Looks like its all starting to come together!
Very productive weekend! Looking forward to hearing more about the radar arch, as we're speaking with a welder today to get an idea of the costs.
Hey MLC - the arches can be VERY costly, to buy one can cost you around $7-8,000. We got a used one that we are going to "tweak". We are very lucky because my dad has unlimited access to an R&D department where we can fabricate pretty much anything we want, and we also have access to stainless. We are using 1.5" stainless steel tubing and making it strong as all heck. We'll post more about it as comes to life, which should be in the next 2 weeks or so! Good luck!
Thanks for the info! The welder was sick yesterday, so we left a picture and waiting to hear back. Lots of money! We might have to wait until the house sells. =) Sounds like ya'll are truly fortunate with your dad's access. Looking forward to more info!
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