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It's winter, and some days really too cold to work on the boat. Trevor's been making heroic progress in hand-freezing bursts, though, and we are close to the point of mocking up the galley. The galley side will be a bit more complicated than the chart table, or so we think.


The galley, though, will not be complicated. We're not planning for refrigeration. We don't want through-hull fittings, so the sink will be a counter-mounted bucket. Our firm sailing plans focus on the Strait of Georgia, so we're not equipping the boat as if we're heading offshore on launch day. 

So far progress consists lots and lots of fillet joints, and a tremendous amount of sanding. And a beautiful companionway.

Looking towards the bow on the day of the turn. Photo by Virginia Hayes

The interior on turn day. Trevor had done some interior sanding while it was still upside down.
Photo by Virginia Hayes.

In this photo, you can see the two benches installed on either side of the galley. You can also see, at the centre of the picture, the lifting sole panels that cover the bilge. Trevor redesigned these panels -- playing naval architect, he calls it! The original design calls for the panels to overlap the ledges at the edges, and that's how we did it on the first hull. You can see that in the picture below.

We didn't like the results in the original. The sole seemed unpleasantly springy underfoot -- there was a lot of flex.

So this time, Trevor built some support pieces in underneath and used these narrower panels. It's altogether more satisfactory, and gives us the thickness of the plywood more headroom. This is minor for most and really irrelevant for us, but we're hoping the tall brother-in-law's neck will now be able to stand upright.

First sole. In this picture, you can't see the ledges visible in the picture above, since the sole overlaps them.

There's a bit of a difference in the companionway, too. On the first hull, we fitted packing pieces between the stringers, leaving no gaps behind the plywood stiffeners at either side of the companionway. It looks great. And it took quite a bit of time. So for this hull, we're following the plans as written and not putting packing pieces in these spots. Of course there are still packing pieces at the bulkheads. For the galley, though, it's easy to imagine uses for the gaps -- we're thinking about hanging vegetables in net bags and such. Mostly, it's easy to find other things to do with the time saved on packing pieces! And the interior of the second hull is going to look great without them.

Here are a couple of final pictures -- the first hull's companionway, with packing pieces, and the second hull's companionway, without.

The companionway is on the right in this picture. It's hard to see the packing pieces -- but you can see the lack of gap between the stringers and the companionway. 

Here's the companionway on the second hull. Here you can see the shadows below the vertical piece -- these are the gaps that on hull #1 were filled with packing pieces.

With the new year and the return of the light, we're anticipating more hours spent building. Stay tuned -- galley mockup is coming soon.