More on storage boxes

Here are a few more detailed pics of the storage boxes in the cockpit:

The boxes are about 8" deep (inboard-to- outboard). I built the first one at 18" long and then decided I want the other one a bit bigger so I made that one 20" long. The longer one got glass in on the port side since there will be few feet more spin sheet in there while gonig up wind.

The bottom of the box is parallel to the cockpit floor so water should drain aft. As you can see in the second pic, the top and bottom are not parallel---the bottom is slanted slightly inboard to facilitate draining to the rear inboard corner.

The opening is 5" x 11". I doubled up the edge with some 1"-wide scrap to provide a little added stiffness.

The other benefit I hope to get from these is added support under the cockpit sides where the crew will be sitting.

Jeff

Hurts so good

Tonight Traci and I got the cockpit sides planed even and fileted in the stow boxes in the cockpit sides.

The picture says it all. There is only ONE way out from the aft bunk with the stow boxes installed (foreground).

The bottom of the boxes are angled toward centerline and in the fore-aft direction are parallel with the cockpit floor, so water should pool in the after inboard corner where I will drill a hole to allow it to drain into the cockpit. The boxes are about 20" in length.

We're close to putting the deck down now. Just a little more finetuning of the bulkhead heights...

Stay tuned!

Jeff and Traci

Don't get lippy!

Actually, I think I will! One of the blog readers asked about the "lip" on the cabin top that extends past the aft end of the cabin.

I figured I would post the explanation for all. I got the idea from Kevin (builder of Pipedream) and from the Open 5.70 and 6.50. Those boats have a similar lip extending from the back of the cabin top. The Open boats also have several control lines come from below deck and, presumably, the lip serves to reduce water intrusion through the holes where those lines come out.

At this point, I plan to have at least the spin pole deploy line come from below deck. But there is the potential to have any of the halyards or the tack line for the spinnaker run below the deck.

That's it!

Jeff

Everything but the kitchen sink...

...is what we used to weigh down the cockpit floor when Traci and glued it in on Saturday.

To fit the cockpit panels, I transferred a few measurements from center line to the plywood and got to cutting. To span the entire cockpit (~8'8" in length) I placed a seam directly over frame 124. Frame 124 had my 1x1 diagonally ripped pieces already epoxied on so there was plenty of surface area to receive the floor panels (click on the image below for more detail).

This morning, I cut and fit the cockpit sides. The cockpit sides, when layed flat, have a very slight overall curve to them, so a straight ripped piece of plywood won't work (ask me how I know!). No worries, that 12"-wide and 8 foot-long piece was used for another component---more on that later. While cutting and fitting the cockpit sides, I thought it would be useful to have a couple of "cubby-holes" in the cockpit sides to store water bottles, spin sheets while going upwind, etc. So I cut elongated holes for those as well.

This afternoon, Traci assisted me in getting the sides filleted and taped. I should say that we started working together, but at 2:00 I had to get on a conference call with some other builders to discuss rig dimensions, and Traci went solo.

She did impeccable work!! Although next time she will be wearing a baseball cap so I don't have to spend a half-hour with nail polisher remover getting epoxy out of her hair! :)

So far, so good! Everything looks the way I think it ought to.