Bow Lockers

 

There are seven Bow Lockers on our boat, five forward of the bridgedeck on the leading edge between the front hulls (bow lockers) and additional ones further forward again in each hull (hull bow lockers). Only two are accessible from within the boat and they form part of the ‘bow locker’ assembly.

 

 

The ‘bow locker’ build is a little different than normal as the under face uses ply that is bent (roughly 750 up) to form the rounded front of the boat between the hulls. Vertical frames were installed fairly quickly, dividing the locker area into five equal compartments.

 

 

The plan here called for two layers of 6mm plywood rounded and glued onto pre installed vertical frames. We found an easier way which worked very well.The five ‘bow lockers’ are quite large (700x700x600) with the middle three fibre glassed, as they are prone to the external elements.

 

 

 

The middle locker will be our chain/anchor locker with electric anchor winch and for this reason we chose to use three layers of glass here. The intention was to layer the floor with a removable thick rubber lining, to assist in dampening the fall of heavier steel objects like chain and anchors etc. The two outer lockers will only be accessible from the forward bedrooms and used for general storage.

 

 

To save costs it was decided to build the hatch door assemblies, rather than purchase the hatches. The challenge faced here was obviously the ‘sealing from the elements’, even though these lockers were classed as ‘wet lockers’.It was decided to build a ‘U’ shaped edge below the hatch edges to capture any excess water and vent it overboard. This sounded simple in theory, however, the build took a lot longer than planned. Reasons here included the timber used which was treated pine, the general fiddling around and then finishing in a few coats of resin. There also a few little tricks with using this stuff, especially when trying to get the paint to stick.

 

 

To finish the lockers, two pack paint was used in a single layers, more for aesthetic appeal than anything else.

 

 

External sanding and glassing is being left to closer to the completion date. (Sounds good anyway, any excuse to defer glassing is good in our books).