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Previous Refit work – 2021, 2022, 2023
I got a head start on the remodel in the galley area before we left St Thomas. The corner of the galley was this odd shape that made accessing the freezer very difficult for Brownie and also ended up with a very narrow “door” into the Starboard aft berth that we had sacrificed to be permanent storage. First order of business was to remove the framing around the door to open that area up.
The other big galley change was converting from propane to electricity. We discovered that we used about 10lbs of propane every couple of months on average and depending on where we were it could be a PITA to refill the bottles. We also wanted to do something with our anemic 700W microwave. We discovered that kitchen appliances had evolved and now there were combination microwave/ air fryer/ convection ovens available. That sounded like it would scratch multiple itches so we bought one. We also acquired an induction cooktop with worked amazingly with our cast iron skillets. I cobbled together a prototype and we used this setup for a couple of months. I built a poor man’s gimble but running a couple of bolts from the wooden frame into the surrounding cabinetry. I removed the cover from the oven, found 4 locations that I could add bolts without interfering with the oven and bolted the cover to the bottom of the wood box that was holding the induction hob and the gimble “hardware”. We used a very scientific method (2 pieces of string and 4 screws to find the balance point and got it mounted. I should have made the box a bit narrower to swing freer but it worked great. The carpenter on Carriacou can take my prototype and make it more functional and look better.
The second area to attack was the v-head. This was the cat’s litter box domain and otherwise it was wasted space. The boat was stern heavy anyway, so let’s turn it into storage. This greatly freed up space elsewhere on the boat to do other work.
The third area to attack was the “couch” next to the masters berth. This was completely wasted space and we had our Engel Refrigerator/Freezer tied in place here. It was space that we couldn’t do anything with and given our lack of easily accessible storage it was an easy area to attack.
We decided to make this a work bench and tool storage primarily focused on ship’s records (large hanging file drawer), scuba and camera gear (6 smaller drawers) and tool storage underneath – I have an extensive Dewalt cordless tool collection and corded tools.
The Navigation Station has been a sore spot for us since we were exclusively using digital charts. It was wasted space and accessing the electrical and electronics systems in the area was challenging.
We decided to deal with both issues by remodeling this entire area. First order of business was to decide on the to be plan. This included a completely rebuilt electrical patch panel as well as trying to bring order to the electronics chaos. We also needed to make room for the new master alarm panel.
We removed all of the old carpentry, saving as much as we could since it was all finished with the right finish of the rest of the boat. We mounted a large piece of plywood against the hull and started attaching all the new electrical and electronic components, and making all the necessary connections. EVERY electrical circuit on the boat was rehomed. We figure we made over 400 connections.
The carpenter then got to work making the new work surface and frames to mount the new tool drawers and the tray to put our Engels fridge/ freezer onto. We had already purchased foam drawer inserts so that once the drawers where installed they could be custom cut so all of my primary tools would have a distinct home including the extensive socket set on the boat. This was going to be a huge leap ahead in getting boat projects done quicker as a third of our time is spent looking for the right tool. We had just purchased the plywood for the drawers.
The final area we had started attacking was reconfiguring the salon table/ seating area. I don’t have good pictures of this as it had just been taken apart and we were still working on the final design. We had already sent out all of the cushions to be recovered. We brought all the materials with us so the canvas shop had everything they needed. We gave them a bit of a moving target with several of the cushions as we sorted through the design of the salon table area. Essentially there was no comfortable lounging space here and we had a 45″ TV that we liked to watch. This needed to be corrected! We also had a washing machine that needed to be installed. The table was going to be reconfigured and the seating area was getting a do-over. We were really looking forward to the final result.
This is as far as we got before the hurricane.
So it is now September – 3 months after the storm made almost 4 years of refit an expensive learning exercise. I think I can now safely say that we may have been trying to make a boat designed for one thing, into something it was never designed for. You could almost argue that we needed to rip out the entire entire much like Sailing Uma has done and started over on the interior, but the hull shape and the total volume was something we could not change. What I think we will do with the next boat is to start with one with a layout much closer to what we want and go from there. We met Raff and Shasha from Spear It Animal and have some great ideas from the work they did (and more importantly a contact capable of the necessary fabrication) so maybe we won’t be another 4 years before heading for distant shores.