The last few months have been time spent drawing up a to-do list. The majority of work evolves around totally rewiring the boat, and fitting new instruments, together with some minor modification here and there, such as new bunk bases and painting the bilges using International garage floor paint, a tip picked up from the YBW forum.The first move was to totally strip the boat of fenders, anchors, out of date fire extinguishers, seat covers, crisp packets and other miscellany. This gave a bit more space (not a lot) to move around in and discover the leaks!
I have taken the decision to do away with the sink and water pump and utilise the space for a decent chart table with storage. A washing-up bowl and bottle water will serve fine in this department. A large aperture was cut out where the sink use to sit, which will now accomodate a large box, giving plenty of room for charts etc. A new table top of marine ply with hinged lid and mahogony fiddles will form the chart table, allowing a Yeoman chart plotter to sit comfortable in the space provided.
The old instrument panel together with the engine starting panel has been stripped from the main bulkhead to be replaced by a new 12 way instrument panel. To check the size of the new switch panel housing a dummy box from foamex board was constructed to see how it would sit over the chart table. Now happy with size and position of this I will make up the new housing from mahogany. This will be srewed and glued (epoxy) to bulkhead, with hinged doors for access to reverse of the instrument and engine starting panels.
