MORE CARPENTRY

Happy New Year 2017 ! At the boatyard, working all day until 10pm.

We had to sand the plywood pieces from  the front cabin and adjust them all together. The holes are obviously there to provide some ventilation for the lockers.

It was now  the time to finish the cupboards doors. Originally the saloon lockers were closing by long back cushions which were using a huge amount of space

We thought we could gain some more room by cancelling the old upholstery and just create doors to close the lockers. In the future we will install matresses and a few pillows.

The difference between the old plywood and the new one is quite clear.  For the new doors we used some of the old ply from the boat itself.  We were amazed by the density and the quality of these pieces.

The weather forecast was predicting a big drop in temperature. It was quite cold already (about 3 degrees celsius in the evening). So we had to cover a bit more the stern under the waterline which was facing to the north-east. We also decided to add some extra insulation to areas which were not covered. This would guarantee that all the boat could stay warm and dry during the working hours.

Chart table seat template and construction.

The nav berth totaly empty. The previous owner had a plank but it wasn’t really matching the space.

The nav berth is slowly taking shape. Because of the curve of the hull it was necessary to trim very precisely the edges with an electrical plane. And after loads of wood chips we finally managed to level the berth !

Then again, we drilled some holes for ventilation and trimmed the sharp edges.

You don’t want to mess with this guy !

The heavy cold finally arrived ! First day wasn’t so bad really. Just a few snow flakes and 2 degrees under 0. It was a nice atmosphere and still quite exotic to watch the palm trees freezing in the snow. But the weather forecast was predicting further polar temperatures.

This did not stop us from working. At least on the first day. We were very motivated to finish the nav berth…

From the second day on, conditions became worst ! More snow and colder….We could not work properly anymore and there were some serious constrains to face. The car was stuck because the diesel was frozen. We had to go every day by foot to the boat yard and break the ice which was accumulating above our super tent. The cover survived but the weight of the snow was starting to be alarming.

The freezing weather lasted 4 more days and it was so bad that the whole country was paralyzed. It was the first time Greece experienced such a cold winter. Snow was falling everywhere even on the islands !

When the weather got a bit better we went straight back to work.

We wanted to start building a battery box made of ply and epoxy.  We love epoxy works ! Measuring was the most complicate part because we had to bring back these batteries up in the boat and try them. The box was planned under the nav berth as it is usually in most Contessa’s. It permits to have the batteries close to the engine and at the same time close to the electrical panel. The idea was to keep away any water from the batteries and to protect the boat from any acid leak.

The space in the battery box is measured in order to stock 2 to 3 batteries depending on their size.

Time to crack on the galley. First thing to do was to strip off the old Formica from the bulkhead ! Not as easy as it looks and an extremely sharp material.

The galley area completely stripped off.

The original layout of the galley and sink was kept as it was but we wanted to have a bigger and deeper sink which is quite usefull when under way in a rough sea.

It was necessary to cut out a very strange shape made of ply. And behind the sink, we just managed to squeeze a smaller locker for storage.

That was just a temporary test of all the elements. We wanted to make sure the cooker could swing nicely on her gimbals. It was a bit complicate to find the exact size cooker but our Contessa 32 was very happy with her new Nelson ! It was just fitting in between the two bulkheads.  Here again, the CO32 forum was very helpfull.

This is how the nav area was looking after removing the old electrical panels. There were too many holes to do anything with the old plywood.

Instead, we just cut through and made a wide opening with a small door.

After finishing all the wood work, it was time to do some color tests in order to match the original wood interior.