Cuddy and Transom Compartment

Things are starting to come together more now and I think you'll be able to get a much better idea of how the boat will look.  The floorboards are permanently in place (I hope).

Floorboards

I have made several changes to the cuddy floor and to bulkhead 8 (BH8), just aft of the floor, as discussed in previous posts.  

Aft end of Cuddy Floor

The floor was originally planned to reach all the way to BH8.  Instead, I added another floor joist that enabled me to install all the boards at the convenient and less expensive 8-foot length.  At some point I will be building a small lift-out or hinged panel from the new floor joist to BH8.  This can be done at any time, even after the boat is finished and launched, but as you will soon see it would be much easier to do it before the cockpit seat and floor are installed.  The opening is to allow access to wiring and the BH8 drain plug. 

On each side I have installed plastic conduit leading from the front storage/battery compartment to the two aft-most corners of the boat.  Heavy (6AWG) DC wiring and things like VHF antenna coax will be run through the conduits.  The holes in BH8 for the conduit (not part of the original plans) have been sealed with marine-grade sealant foam.  Looks messy, but will do the job (those of you who have used "Great Stuff" know how hard it is to be neat with this kind of foam).  The foam seals can be cleaned up with a knife and sandpaper, but they are in an awkward position and I don't want to take a chance on cutting into the epoxy.  After the cockpit is in place, they can only be seen by crawling back into a very small space.  I hate to leave them like this, but it is better than taking a chance on compromising the epoxy seal.

Inside Transom Compartment

 Inside the transom compartment you can see the conduits and their seals.  I have painted the bilge area with more of the epoxy-based bilge paint.  The instructions call for the entire compartment interior to be painted, but for the life of me I can't think of a good reason to do that, so for now at least I'm going to leave it as is.  Everything is covered with several coats of epoxy.  The epoxy can be damaged by sunlight, will be protected from the sun.  Sunlight can reach small areas of the compartment floor when the "lazarette" hatches are open, so I may decide to paint those areas.

Modifications to Floor and BH8

Two small (14 AWG) wires have been run alongside the conduits from front to back in case I later find a need for electricity in the rear of the cuddy.  The new standard for DC wiring is red for positive and yellow for negative.  This is to avoid confusion with AC code, where black is the "hot" wire. You can also see strings I ran alongside the conduits.  These will enable me to easily pull more wire if I ever need to.

In the bottom-center of BH8 I have installed a small drain plug.  The transom compartment is supposed to stay relatively water-tight and help keep the boat afloat if it is ever flooded.  (There will also be a lot of floatation foam in that compartment and several other areas of the boat.)  There will be two "lazarette" hatches to allow access to storage inside the transom compartment.  These hatches have been known to leak, so any water that gets in must be removed.  My modification was to install the drain plug so I can drain water from the transom compartment into the cuddy bilges where it will be much easier to pump out.  I just have to always remember to replace the plug before sailing.  There is another plug that goes in the forward-most bulkhead for the same purpose.  The hull hardware kit included two of these plugs and I read somewhere that the BH8 plug was part of the original design, but later discarded.

Cockpit Footwell Dry Fit

This seems like a good time to show you how the cockpit and its footwell will affect the cuddy space.  The dry-fitting of the footwell comes a little later in the instructions, but I'm doing it now for illustration.

Footwell Dry Fit

As you can see in the above photo, the footwell intrudes into the cuddy space.  The cockpit seat will intrude all the way to the front end of the centerboard trunk, some of which appears in the photo.  So from the CB trunk back, the cuddy roof is only about 1'4" high.  (Under the footwell it is only a little over 6" high.)  But the cuddy floor is 4'3" long from the front storage compartment to the CB trunk, and in that area the roof is over three feet high.  The idea is that the forward area of the cuddy is for sitting around in, and the rear area is for stretching your legs out when sleeping.  Two basketball players could fit in there comfortably (as long as they are careful not to bark their shins on bulkhead 7 while stretching out).  The cuddy is obviously pretty tight, but it is the roomiest I was able to find in any boat this size.

Footwell and Transom Compartment

This shot shows the footwell and transom compartment.  The two conduits have not been cut to length as yet, but they will come through holes I will cut in the cockpit seats near the aft corners.  (Those holes will also have to be sealed as in BH8.)  It is possible that water will eventually find its way inside the conduits, even though I plan to bend them downwards at the ends.  So I will need to find some way to temporarily plug them.  My Lake Michigan sailing friend, Orval Quamme, suggested plumber's putty, which I think is a great idea.  It will form a good seal, but can be easily removed when necessary.  (Orv is actually Jan's friend from High School in Madison, WI, but I have met him and we correspond quite a bit about boating.) 

Painting Interior

Looking Forward--Primer Coat

Finished painting the interior of the cuddy and the forward storage compartment.  Here you can see a forward-looking view of the interior after application of the oil-based primer.  I did not paint above the level of the cockpit-seat cleats so as not to interfere with the glue and fillets that will be applied to the topsides panels later.  In this shot you can also see an unpainted section just behind the centerboard trunk.  The front ends of the cockpit footwell floor and sides will be attached there, so that unpainted section will actually be part of the outside of the boat.  You can also see two items I used to great advantage, a combination mixing/pouring lid on the paint can and a roller tray with lid.

Here is a closer shot:

Roller Tray With Lid and Mix/Pour Paint-Can Lid

These two items saved me a lot of time and quite a bit of paint.  I was able to simply snap the lid on the roller tray with the roller in it and re-use it the next day or even after two or three days.  That saved a lot of clean-up time and loss of paint--you can't pour every bit of it back into the can.  The mixing/pouring lid has a crank handle that rotates mixing panels inside the can and a trigger that opens the pouring spout.  This is again a big time-saver and saves some paint.  The mixing paddles do an excellent job of mixing the paint.  I got the roller tray with cover at Lowe's and the lid from Rockler Woodworking.

Looking Aft--Primer Coat

 Here's another shot, looking toward the stern, of the primer coat .  I did not paint the stern compartment yet.  Once the cuddy is finished I plan to install some of the floorboards to give me a nice platform to work from while painting the stern compartment.

Final Finish Coat--Cuddy and Storage Compartment

 Here are some shots after the second finish coat and installation of some of the floorboards.  The remaining boards have not had their finish applied, so I'll be installing them later.  I used a high-quality interior/exterior latex paint for the finish coats over an oil-based primer.  The Skerry is painted with Hatteras White Interlux Topsides paint and I like the color very much so I'll be using it for the white parts on the outside of the PocketShip's hull.  I took a sample of the Hatteras White to the paint store and we found a color for the interior paint that is a very close match.

Looking Aft--Final Finish Coat

 As I said earlier, the floorboards will give me a good platform for painting the stern compartment.  There was also touching up to do under the rear cleats and here and there in the storage compartment, so the floorboards gave me a very comfortable platform to work from on those jobs.

Wider Looking Forward--Final Coat

Painting the Bilges

 At first I was thinking of not painting under the floorboards at all to save time, but eventually thought better of it.  Here you can see I am painting the bilge areas a light grey.  I am using an epoxy-based paint specially formulated for painting bilges.  All the grey bilge paint will be hidden under the floorboards.  Above the floorboards the walls of the cabin will be painted an off-white very similar in color to the Hatteras White I painted the Skerry, but I'll actually be using house paint.

Here are a couple shots of the bilges after painting the second coat.  I will probably add one more coat, then on to the cabin walls.