After nine years of ownership and two years of living aboard we have tweaked most of the boat but it is surprisingly still evolving. Having settled into 'normal' life on the Tahiti waterfront, waiting for deliveries, we needed some projects to get our teeth into and the fridge offered it's services.

The fridge has always worked well but been a horror to use. Following the line of the hull, it tapers towards the bottom and also towards the back. This created multiple wedge shaped slots that everything slides into when you move something.

We decided that custom shaped bins would make life easier so we set off. It seemed like a pretty easy job. We decided to go with plexiglass as it is readily available and you can see what is inside. We made rough cardboard mockups then I measured up the angles and drew plans to scale in Powerpoint. We have found this to be a remarkably useful 2D technical drawing tool and have completed a number of projects this way.



Unfortunately this was a complex 3D problem and extracting the sloping face dimensions from the plan proved troublesome so we assembled the other four sides and traced those panels.

Assembly was a slow process of one edge at a time. We had to use the end of the sofa as our perpendicular former.



The clear epoxy seems to be holding fine. We did not use plexi glues because they are not readily available here and require tighter joint tolerances than we can achieve. Anyway, it all took several days but we are very happy with the results. Time will tell if it is robust enough.

On the subject of boat improvements, I have put together a slide pack outlining all the major improvements and most of the small tweaks that we have done to make Leela more suitable as a world traveler. The file can be downloaded here.

We are now ready to start adventuring again so we are watching the weather for an opportunity to head about 400 miles south of here to Ravavai, in the very remote Australs archipelago. Satellite comms only down there so no pics for a while.

Stay safe