How to get a bigger cabin

[Wommasehn]

When I introduced myself here, I said that I was planning to build a Coresound 20#3. Meanwhile, I have ditched - or at least postponed this plan and decided to rather improve my existing boat, a Diabolo named Muckla. Even taking on some tasks, that previously seemed too much work for me, would mean only a small fraction of the time and energy and money that a new build would take.

As there were no major damages to fix, I thougti, I might tackle on some improvements. 

One of the few things, I don't like about Muckla, is the very small cabin with lots of corners  and edges where I use to bump my head, shoulders, knees, ankles and so on. I found several of these corners and edges that could be taken away or at least softened. 
The side deck protrudes inside the cabin to form a handy window-sill with a coaming. Under this sill , there is the carling, which here does'nt have to be that hefty, but is heftily in the way. My first major task was to saw and plane away about an inch of this beam. An inch seemes a little gain - but it means a significant percentage of usable space. And there are the hanging knees that form a part of the mast-supporting frame. I dared to make these a bit narrower. On the first picture, you see the original status on the left and the narrowed version of knee and carling on the right. 

Down in the middle you see the forward end of the CB-trunk. I found out, that the most disturbing part of it is unnecessary too and I made the top-forward end shorter, narrower and rounder.(2nd /3rd / 4th pic). Another inch gained on each side and 2 forward.

Unfortunately, after opening the CB-trunk, I found the serious damage, that I had missed before: the CB-uphaul somehow had caused a split in the CB includig a bulge on the CBs side. As taking out the CB is a really nasty task - and putting it back in es even worse , I decidet to repair it in situ. After cleaning out the debris inside the crack, I filled it first with neat, then with thickened epoxy and put a double piece of glass-tape over it, then sanded away the lateral bulge with angle grinder and sanding disk and epoxied over. Hope, that will do. (last pictures) 

I could'nt find out yet, how to insert photos inside the text, so I put them all at the end.

[Don Silsbe]

Boat renovation is always full of surprises.  Good luck!  Keep us posted.

[Wommasehn]

Thanks for reminding me.

 

yes, its ready. All the edges cut and / or rounded over, some eposy-sculpturing at the new upper-forward end of the CB-trunk and the hanging knees and lots of sandig, varnishing, painting.

Meanwhile, I could try it out on a 5 days-cruise on Lake Constance (together with the new electric OB). Was it worth all the work ? - its hard to say - but shurely, it is an improvement in usable space and in looks. I liked to wake up in the mornings under the freshly painted/varnished cabin roof and with a few centimetres more of space. I wonder if anyone can spot the differences between the before- and the after- pics.