It’s been a while since we last blogged, so thought it time to give an update of where we are with the winter jobs.
We now have a couple of new mini radiators run from the hot water that Rupert (our Reflex heater) generates; one up in the forepeak and another in the aft cabin. Rupert is great at heating the main saloon but getting that heat around the rest of the boat has proved a problem; with these mini radiators we hope to resolve that and so far so good. We also have a towel rail also fed with Rupert warmed water built by Colin in the heads to keep the chill off in there.
Our forward heads used to have two doors – one for access from the main saloon and the second to access from the forepeak so as to provide an en-suite. The plywood panels in the doors were beginning to delaminate due to age and water ingress from having showers. Rather than put new panels in, we decided to get rid of the forward door completely and replace with a solid panel, onto which we could fasten the towel rail on the heads side and the mini radiator on the forepeak side. The inside of the panel we’ve tiled to match the rest of the heads, on the outside we’ve put some tongue and groove to match the walls of the forepeak.
For the door from the saloon, we removed the old panels and put in single sided teak ply for the saloon face. On the heads side I’ve created two mosaic panels which can be seen in the photo above.
Colin is currently connecting the pipework for the new bow water tanks. Earlier this year our stainless steel bow tank started leaking and we removed it in October as it was turning into a teabag. We investigated getting a similar shaped tank custom made but the costs were pretty astronomical. After days of research and measuring a million times to find something that fit the awkward V shape we went for 2 rectangular Vetus solid plastic tanks which sit either side of the space. We’ve lost a couple of storage drawers but gained some storage between the tanks that we can use for tools and spares. The old tank held 265 litres, the new tanks 220 litres so we haven’t lost too much and at a fraction of the cost of a custom tank. Colin has built and fitted flooring and walls to hold the tanks snugly in place whilst we’re bouncing about in big seas.

Bow water tanks in place