More boat plans

I never get tired of messing around with boats, even if it's just thinking about them. My lovely wife and I spent a few hours looking at new boat specs. There's a lot of information out there if one is willing to look, but not all of it is good information. We feel we've been on the water just enough to be able to sort out the wheat from the chafe.

One thing we are not willing to do is to break the budget. As second thing we aren't willing to do is skip our planned sailing adventures. There's a chance we'll find a bigger boat in our price range before the fall, but we aren't going to do anything hasty. There are some things we can do with our current boat, for small money, that will improve its comfort.

We currently own an old Oday 19. We can comfortably stay on it for about a week at a time. That's pretty good for a boat few people would even overnight on. Still, we can do better.

During bad weather, the cabin can get pretty cramped. A boom tent stretched over the cockpit will help a lot. It will be more dry area on a rainy day at anchor, but will also block the sun when it's too hot. We sketched out some preliminary ideas, literally on the back of an envelope.

Coolers are fine but looking for ice is a pain. If they've got a drain plug, eventually that plug will come loose and icy water will pour into the boat. Without a drain plug, odds are some food will be lost to the watery goop in the bottom. Efficient, marine quality refrigerators often cost more than what I paid for the boat.

The solution is build a custom cooler. I can build a super insulated cooler that will fit my storage area.
There's an old thermoelectric cooler in my basement that I can take the working parts out of. It's too big to fit my boat and isn't insulated enough anyway. Thermoelectric coolers run on 12 volts. I've a very large deep storage battery on my boat. Between the alternator on the outboard, a solar panel, and the occasional connection to shore power, it should stay charged.

We put together a list of projects that would improve life on the boat. The old shelves have seen better days, so might as well build new ones. A removable bug screen for the front hatch would be nice. There's room for a bigger fuel tank. After running out of fuel in the dark that's become a priority. Some hardware should be rebedded. The bottom needs another coat of antifouling paint -and so on.

There's nothing on the list that's very expensive, but they will improve livability. Knowing that we have a boat ready to go takes the pressure off. We can take our time looking for a good deal on a bigger boat.

-Sixbears