Minor modifications add up to a major improvement
Issue 83: March/April 2012
In 2004, we sold the 31-foot Bombay Clipper we’d purchased specifically for an extended summer cruise. We intended to leave the sea, content that we had done what we had dreamed of for so many years: spending a full summer on the water on a five-month cruise. On to other adventures. That is the way it worked for a couple of months . . . until we heard that unmistakable siren’s call once again.
By the fall of 2005, we were looking around for a new (well, new to us) sailboat. This one would be an interim boat, a weekender, until we could save up for a larger, more comfortable boat.
Southern Idaho is not noted as a hotbed of ocean-going sailboats, or any sailboats for that matter, but we stumbled onto a 1982 O’Day 23. Sitting on her trailer with peeling bottom paint, she wasn’t looking at all good, but she seemed to be in good shape otherwise. Her sails were almost new. In fact, the genoa and spinnaker had never been own. That clinched the deal and we had our interim boat.
and sitting, at left, and at night the seatbacks become part of a whole-cabin mattress, at right.
Each summer for the next few years we packed her full of stores, pointed her bow north of west and, going to windward at 55 mph, took off toward “Big Water” in the Pacific Northwest for a week or two of cruising. Meanwhile, we were saving all we could toward our next sailboat.
This plan was going fine until the economic downturn came along in 2007. By fall 2009, we decided our interim boat was going to be our cruising boat for the foreseeable future. It was time to make some changes. Redoing the dated (original) interior while creating more storage topped the list. Adding a few other items would make life aboard more comfortable.
Re-engineered cushions
I first pulled out all the old vinyl covering the hull sides and replaced it with layers of insulation and then carpet.
When the time came to sew all new cushions and replace the old worn-out foam, the next issue of Good Old Boat arrived to show us how to fabricate cushions. While we were at it, we did a little redesigning.
The original interior had fixed back cushions for the settees and a small storage shelf behind each settee. I made up removable cushions that were big enough, when laid down, to fill the space between the two existing settee seats. On the fronts of the fiddles that hold the settee cushions in place I installed rails so boards could be placed athwartships. Laying our new back cushions on these boards made a continuous berth across the beam in the main saloon, a full 8 feet by 6 feet. This was more comfortable by far than the narrow single settee berths. (We use the V-berth for storage; it’s too small to sleep two).
On our summer adventure we discovered that by using just one of these back boards/bed boards we had a comfortable seat to use when cooking and doing galley chores; we no longer had to kneel to cook or clean.
The next job was to construct some new shelving, complete with pinrail, to increase storage. When done, our little O’Day looked new. The total cost for this addition came to less than $300.
Ablution solution
Yet there was just one item missing: a vanity. Besides the convenience of being able to stand upright in our Bombay Clipper, we missed her really nice head and vanity arrangement. On the O’Day, we performed our personal-hygiene tasks at the galley sink, but it’s a slide-away galley and using it this way for very long becomes inconvenient. It was bearable for shorter cruises, but we were planning for a longer adventure, something more like our five-month cruise of 2004.
When I redid the V-berth cushions, I made four sections rather than just two. This allowed easier access to the storage bins under the V-berth and, with the starboard aft cushion removed, I had room to install a portable vanity. I first considered adding a sink and hand pump, but after contemplating all the plumping associated with this route, we agreed on a portable bowl that we could dump overboard.
In my shop, using some old boxes and the sailorman’s secret weapon, duct tape, I quickly constructed a prototype for the new vanity. Keeping the cardboard ends long for scribing on the sections that would touch the hull, off to the boat I went. Using a compass to scribe the cuts and a pair of scissors to cut them, I soon had the prototype fitting perfectly against the outer hull. I could now construct the final product.
I used teak-and-holly plywood along with some mahogany ply, all scrounged out of a dumpster, and added a couple of fiddles from some leftover maple. The only purchased items were the pinrails and hinges. The total cost came to less than $20. If you have to buy the wood, it might run closer to $100.
We really like the sliding doors in the upper section of the vanity. I used 1⁄4-inch teak door-skin material, a section of aluminum track (left over from a past project) as the lower track, and made the upper track from scraps of teak. Behind the doors, I added fiddles to keep items from moving around and to allow a bit of organization. To add a touch of class, the top shelf has a pinrail.
The lower section of the vanity is accessed by a drop-down door. This is where we store the wash bowl (we spent all of 99 cents on a dog’s watering bowl we found in a thrift shop). There is more than enough room left nearby for washcloths, soap, and hand towels. The middle section, behind the sliding doors, holds toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, and my shaving kit. The top shelf is a catchall for various items; in other words, we’re not yet sure what to put there.
In January of 2010, I was laid off. We suddenly had the whole summer free to go cruising. We launched Fantasy in the waters of the Pacific Northwest on May 27 and pulled her out 104 days later. All the work we did over the fall and winter of 2009 — the extra storage, the new cushions, the queen-sized main-saloon berth, and especially the new vanity — made the cruise more enjoyable. From an adequate weekender, we created a comfortable summer cruiser. (Now, if we could only do something about the 4-foot 10-inch headroom . . .)
We had a need and, with a little ingenuity, found a way to fill that need. By scrounging around for material, we spent very little and yet wound up with very usable improvements to our good old boat.
Dan Cripe and his wife of 39 years, Teresa, have owned a series of boats, all named Fantasy, which they have sailed with their four children at home in Idaho and also on the “big waters” of the Salish Sea. Their current Fantasy is an O’Day 23. Dan’s “early retirement” from the building industry in 2010 has given him lots of time to devote to sailing and writing.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
