Neater and tidier dining al fresco
Issue 36 : May/Jun 2004
Eating lunch in the cockpit while under way can be an ordeal. The boat heels, drinks spill, sandwiches are sat upon — or slip off the seats and fall into the footwell. We usually had at least one mess per meal.
Enter the food box. Load it up with sandwiches and drinks, and pass it up to the cockpit. It keeps things together and contains spills.
On the bottom of the box are a couple of wood pieces that allow it to nest securely over the footwell without sliding athwartships. It can be slid fore and aft but cannot be upset. These strips of wood were also rabbeted so that the box fits the fiddles of the stove, providing a gimbaled surface while lunch is being loaded.
There are two small removable partitions in the box that can be slid into different grooves, depending upon whether drink cans or coffee mugs are being used.
I made the box out of 3⁄4-inch teak with mitered corners. The bottom of the box was made from 1⁄4-inch birch plywood. The bottom was glued into the frame, which was rabbeted to accept it. This made it quite watertight.
To get a nice varnish job, I masked off the glue seams and varnished the box before assembly. This eliminated the hassle of sanding in the inside corners. The partitions are fashioned of 1⁄4-inch teak.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
