Aft hold access and shelving

Another clamping extravaganza!

Clamping...

... and more clamping...

And scraping....

And glued!

The galley mockup!

Trevor mocked up the galley last week.

I say this in a plain, bare sentence, just as if we haven't been talking about doing this for well over a year. And just as if it was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, which for me at least it certainly was not. I was finding it very hard to think about the space, and had spent considerable time sitting on the companionway steps staring about and trying to imagine things as they should be.

You may remember that a few weeks back I suggested that we go with a diet entirely composed of Cliff bars -- hence simplifying galley construction.

The complete food storage system

Can't say Trevor doesn't listen!

There's a bit more of a mockup than that, though.

The mockup includes cabin top (complete with deadlights) and hatch cover, since envisioning the space without closing it in is really difficult.

Since we're currently thinking of installing a wood stove for heat sailing around the Salish Sea, there has to be a chimney.

And of course, if there is a chimney, it has to be clearly labelled.

This is the wood stove usually installed on Penna, but removed for last summer's refit. To the left of the stove is a cabinet base for either a sink or a cooktop stove.

We're thrilled with the height of the table. Following the suggestion of our friends David and Neila, formerly of the SV Wind Chime (also a Narai Mk IV), we're experimenting with raising the floor in the seating/table area. This gives more storage space beneath, but more to the point raises the seats to the point at which the hull is wider. This means that four people can sit at the table, and also that when they are sitting there, they can see out.

The table is really spacious. At this point it's a trestle table, and we're just sliding it back and forth. We're thinking about options for folding up, taking down entirely, hanging from the ceiling -- any one of a number of possible ways to get it out of the way to create access to the aft berth. (The entry to the forward berth is under the table from this angle.)

Looking aft, you can see the companionway steps on the left. The counters facing each other will hold stovetop and sink. We don't plan to include refrigeration so there's no space built in for that.

Next steps? Living with the galley for a while. We've had coffee in it repeatedly, eaten lunch there, and will soon be entertaining dinner guests. Once we're sure how it works, the building-in process can happen -- much more easily before the cabin top is built.

How many clamps does it take to build a Wharram?

How many do you have?

Moving on up

Deck structure began appearing in late April, the week after my April 19 post.

Canadian readers will be aware of something else that happens at the end of April. April 30, to be precise -- the Canadian deadline for filing income tax. It is a wonderful thing to know that this coming year is the year that I will be organized, and that the whole process will only take moments. Note the future tense and please do not look back on last year's April entries -- I fear I may have had this idea before.

Over the forward berth

Clamps: Study # 452 on this blog!

Adding the deck beams is a transformative moment. There's a sense of a boat emerging, instead of just a large open shape.