Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday 19 February 2011

measuring up..........

I spent an hour or so measuring up and designing what I think the portable sleeping platform will look like.



I’m going to put it across the length of the aft cockpit but on the port side. It will overlap the centre, side and rear thwarts by about 4 cm. I’ll make it out of 6mm thick marine ply which I have left over and this will be strengthened below by battens 10cm x 2cm thick. I’ll seal the whole lot with Burgess Hydrosol as well. The overlap bits will have foam on the underneath so that they don’t dent the thwart sides.




I don’t want the platform to be wider than about 36cm because I want to store it along the side of the centre case on port side when underway; alternatively I might clip it up under one of the side deck areas where it runs into the front deck (again port side).
I might need to add a little fold down leg on a hinge so that it supports the weight of the platform on the cockpit well floor. Because I will sleep on a self inflating mattress – I don’t have to worry about the ridges where the platform edges overlap the seats.


I’ve also given a little thought to a helm impeder. I think I saw something like this but can’t remember where – the Dinghy cruising association seems to ring a bell. I want something that I can tension when to keep rudder amidships and pointing into the wind for reefing; or where I can keep the rudder to leeward when hoving to.



So now I’m on holiday for a week, it’s time to clean the boat and make these modifications – well I would if it would only stop raining for an hour or two!

Steve

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