On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 03:34 AM, Maria Jorge wrote:
Hi Rachel: I am 5'3", recently spent two nights on my M17 4 berth model (one jammed in the quarterberth and one in the cockpit), and I am intrigued with your idea of joining the settee berths into a double. On this particular weekend, the V berth was filled with the usual junk. How did you place the board?
Hi Maria, I never got to the "permanent" implementation stage because I got heavily into the repair and restoration part after discovering wet deck core. By the time I'd fixed all that my life had taken a different turn and I sold the boat. Basically, I had just stuffed some square boat cushions (those supposedly life-saver cushions that I've only ever seen used as seat cushions) into the gap to test my idea. On other (non-M) boats I've seen either plywood panels that fit under seat cushions or behind back cushions during the day (but then restrict access to lockers), or ~1 x 4 slats between the usual seat-front fiddles now-turned-into-cleats. The slats are easier to stow and, personally, I'm always happy to avoid the use of plywood when not necessary. I like the idea of dual purpose cockpit filler/cabin filler boards. That's one of the things I love about boats; how everything works two (or more) ways :-) One of the cleverest (not applicable here though) ideas I've seen was on a Baba 30 I crewed on. The wood under the port-side settee seat was a series of tongue-and-groove boards running athwartships, so when you pulled out on the seat-front fiddle, every other plank slid out and the tongues and grooves supported the whole thing. It only came out about a foot, so was plenty strong - even without legs - and a water tank was underneath, so no problems with inaccessible stowage. The funny thing was that the skipper had owned the boat almost two years, and had been musing over how to make a double berth in the main saloon. We'd also both been wondering why most of the settee bases were plywood, but this one was boards. One day in Port Townsend, Washington, a woman who also owned a Baba 30 stopped by and I ended up visiting her on her boat. She showed me *her* port-side settee pulling out. Was the skipper of the Baba I was on ever surprised when later on I pulled out his port-side settee with a flourish to reveal a double berth :-) Months later, in Florida, another Baba 30 owning couple saw us pull in and invited us over to see their boat and have a cup of coffee. They also didn't know about the pull-out double and said they'd been meaning to take out those silly boards and replace them with plywood so they could better access the few inches of stowage on top of the water tanks. They were equally amazed to see a double berth magically slide out. --- Rachel Former owner, M-17 #334 Former owner, M-15 #517 Currently cruising on Westsail 32 #412