Sustainable Sailing

It is good that our bed in the aft cabin is so comfy, except it does mean we stay asleep in the morning 😁

However, once the tea (Jane) and coffee (Dave) had kicked in, we got started on emptying the aft cabin. Fortunately, we have kept the saloon fairly empty. Still the cushions and extra thick super-kingsize duvet are a struggle to get out of the cabin and along the tight corridor.

Very pleased to see that the under mattress mesh that we fitted last time has kept the bottom of the mattresses bone dry, no condensation at all.

Then we started on the headlining. Most of it just falls down, however, we had to remove the aft porthole as the lining was all trapped behind it. Also the timber edging around the central hatch. Both these lead to diversions. In the past little strips of wood have been nailed to some edges to try to hold the lining up, so these needed removing too.

The next photos show the central hatch before I removed the wood edges. I then removed the rubber seal for the hatch (which has perished and squished) as it wasn’t fully keeping the water out. I’ll order a replacement, meanwhile I’ve turned it over to seal with a less perished edge, hoping that will be enough for the moment, if not we will just tape it up again.

The porthole inner and outer have now been removed and the old sealant (which was leaking, we had taped some bubble wrap over for waterproofing) cleaned off. We can’t directly refit the porthole as the flange is much deeper than the grp. The headlining had been wrapped around a piece of plywood which has then been glued into place (you can see how the plywood had got wet at the bottom of the hole).

We will take the porthole home for cleaning and I’ll create a plywood spacer. Rather oddly (we think), the inner and outer have matching holes, yet they were rotated so they didn’t align and then both were screwed on. That means twice as many holes in the grp and a less secure fit. So we will through bolt them for added strength and security.

Once the actual headlining is down the worst mess is still to come. Some bits of foam and glue are left sticking to either the grp (mostly the sides) or to the plywood liner (mostly the cabin roof). A wire brush in a drill gets the grp clean but not so much on the plywood which has to be scraped and sanded.

The end result is that the cabin is now ready for the new lining (on a different visit).

There are 3 layers of foam floor tile attached with sealant for the porthole (one outside, one filling the hole and one on the inside. Should be dry and warm for the moment. Once we have the lining complete we will add a removable foam panel (held up with self-adhesive magnet strips) to insulate the central hatch to stop condensation dripping on us (much cheaper than replacing the metal hatch with a more modern design).

Hopefully that is about the end of the really messy jobs in the aft cabin!