Sailing with Nine of Cups

I am making progress each day on the refrigerator/freezer project, but I never seem to get as much done as I hope to. Much of it has to do with my age. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't move as fast as I did twenty years ago. Age aside, there are a few other contributing factors to my “slower than molasses in January” pace, however.

One issue is that most of the work has to be done in the saloon. This is not a boatyard or cruiser's marina where the majority of owners live aboard and are working on projects. I would like to be a good neighbor here by keeping the dust and noise to a minimum, and it would be rude of me and in poor form to do my sawing, hammering and sanding on deck or on the dock. So I have a very small work area cluttered with large pieces of plywood, laminate and foam, not to mention all my tools and supplies stacked everywhere. It is difficult just to walk through the saloon, let alone try to cut a piece of wood. Today is even more annoying as there is a 25 knot wind in the marina, and Nine of Cups is rolling a bit. I can't lean a piece of wood against something or leave a power tool sitting on a counter without fear of it crashing down with the next big gust.

The biggest issue, however, is the odd shape of the refrigerator/freezer area. Life would be much simpler if the box were cube shaped. My box has only one right angle. The outer wall conforms to the shape of the hull, which curves in from top to bottom and forward to aft. The inner wall is vertical, but slants away from the outer wall. This makes cutting the various pieces of foam and wood a lot more time consuming.

A case in point is the divider which separates the freezer section from the fridge. It is merely a 2.5” piece of rigid foam, cut to shape, and with a piece of laminate bonded to each side. If I were working in a shop with space to work and making a divider for a normal box, I would budget an hour to make the divider, plus half hour to allow time for the contact adhesive to cure. Okay – add in the age factor and make it an even two hours.

On Cups, I must first make a cardboard pattern for one side of the divider. Since the sides form all sorts of obtuse and acute angles, I have to make another pattern for the other side of the divider. It takes a few minutes figuring out how to align the patterns on each side of the foam before tracing the outlines onto the block. I use a hacksaw blade to make the cuts, carefully following the lines on each side of the block with the saw. Then I clean up the mess, clear the workspace and bond and trim the laminate. All done in a mere six hours and twenty minutes, a little over triple the time it should have taken.

Of course, another explanation is that it is more than just the angles that are obtuse here.