Interior Redesign

[Kristal]

Had a couple of thoughts reading the Top 200 in detail - I noticed Mirelle was quoted as being "as original", which I would say was misleading as to my knowledge (and, Andrew, I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong!) she has had at least one interior refit, features some very cunning modifications for sailing and living aboard, and has a fair few fetching toys.

I have some fairly sweeping plans for Crystal's interior over the next few years, including totally gutting the forecabin and fitting a folding double-berth arrangement, which, when under way, folds away to reveal carefully categorised storage for sails, sail covers etc. I'm also going to try and spruce up her chart table arrangements, creating some nice panels with a dirty great slab of mahogany (ecologically farmed, of course). I wouldn't half mind a solid fuel stove, too. It will all be done sympathetically.

Thing is, explaining the plans in various pubs, a few eyebrows have been raised about altering her dramatically - despite the fact that I'm almost certain very little of her interior is original. I believe the alterations will make her much more comfortable, organised and better looking.

Does anyone think it's naughty to fiddle about with their old boat, or is it just barstool purists who've never tried to use our bloody sea toilet in it's current location?

/<

 

[Peterduck]

I vaguely recall, I think it was M.G. remarking that the placing of Crystal's head at the foot of the companionway ladder "in Grand Central Station" [so to speak] was most unorthodox, and could be difficult to live with. Interior layouts are one of those subjects on which every bar-fly has strong opinions, not always supported by experience. Every owner leaves something of themselves in a boat, and usually the following custodian disagrees with some aspect of it, and changes it. It is a very good layout, indeed, that survives a number of owners / custodians.
Peter.

 

[chippie]

Older boats were frequently modified during their heyday, why there is a theoretical cutoff point past which nothing should be changed is beyond me.
Your plan to keep everything sympathetic is reasonable. It is your boat, do as you see fit.

 

[ianwright]

I wish i could find room for a solid fuel stove on Patience, perhaps I will one day. Her Baby Blake gets little use, bucket 'n chuckit suits this single hander better and is more hygenic imo.
Change for the better is fine, just avoid nailing on a shed and calling it a deck saloon. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

IanW

 

[Kristal]

I haven't actually come across any of M.G.'s comments about Crystal, and would dearly love to know more. He is right about "Grand Central Station". Her original drawings (probably the ones you'll have seen in Uffa books etc., most of her 'publicity' is from the 30s) show a sort of quarter-berth arrangement atop the chart table, which would be even worse - that and a heart-shaped cockpit remeniscent of some Harrison-Butler designs, which sadly she no longer has.

It must be said that she isn't the most comfortable boat afloat, although the arrangements are quite elegant, and the fact that her saloon berths slope ever so slightly inward have finally convinced me that a new bed is in order.

Ian - from your comments, can I presume you saw her with an appalling shed slapped onto her cockpit before her previous owners tastefully removed it? I've seen pictures and the poor girl looked utterly awful.

I agree with the comments here, and would go further to say that perhaps owners SHOULD leave their mark on a boat. With Crystal, whom I cannot forsee parting with for some considerable time, yet is beginning to show a few little flaws after the honeymoon period, it is probably necessary. I love her dearly, but I wouldn't mind a really comfortable nights sleep once in a while!

Thanks all.

/<

 

[Mirelle]

You are right; I ripped Mirelle's internals out, bulkheads, sole bearers, cockpit - the lot, and started again. However most people think the layout below is original as I tried to use fittings, etc., that were available at the time.

In fact it could not be a period layout as most of the ideas were lifted straight from Illingworth's "Offshore" and from the ORC's excellent "Desirable and undesirable characteristics of offshore yachts". 1930's boats seldom had chart tables or leecloths. I once asked my father how people managed without the latter and he said, deadpan, "We always slept on the lee side as you usually needed all hands to tack!"

Mike Burn, well known custodian of Albert Strange's "Sheila", disapproved of my doing so on grounds of loss of orginality. My argument was that whereas the hull and rig were drawn by a naval architect of 62, the original accomodation was drawn by her first owner aged 27, and since I knew him when he was in his mid- seventies and he was the first to tell me he had got it wrong, I felt no compunction in making my own mistakes!

The mistakes I made include:

1. Galley too small. Larry Pardey says many people make this mistake and he is right. You spend a few minutes a day at the chart table but hours in the galley!

2. Ditto hanging locker for oilies. It's bigger than many, but still too small.

3. Should have run the pilot berth and the settee opposite into trotter boxes at the fwd end, thereby making more space for galley, wet locker, etc.

4. Coal stove should be fitted at sole level, not on a platform above it; in winter you get a little pool of freezing, stagnant air where your feet are!

There are four things that everyone wants at the aft end of the saloon near the companionway:

Galley
Chart Table
Oilskin Locker
Quarter Berth (s)

I don't know any good way to get all four in.

 

[Kristal]

Well, Mr Shepherd managed to get three out of four of those desirable items into the design, as in Uffa's book it says there is a quarter berth opposite the galley which "in time of peace is a sideboard". I pity the poor bugger who had to sleep on it - the "sideboard" is an admiralty-chart sized slab of mahogany and probably most uncomfortable!

I have noted the stove comment particularly, as we are planning to install one by removing the door of the lovely little hanging locker - it's my favourite bit of the interior, but too small to be of any real use and in the perfect place to site a chimney.

PeterDuck, I misread your post the first time I replied - this position for the head must have been some misguided innovation of a subsequent owner, as the drawings show it mounted in a more conventional place, facing aft in the fo'c'sle - as it is now. However, the seacocks have been seized solid since I have owned her, and the bucket method has predominated.

I'm trying to work out whether or not to bother incorporating a Baby Blake into the new forecabin plans.

/<

 

[Santana379]

Hello Mirelle

There's a boat you know quite well that manages to place all 4 required features near the companianway - Francis Fletcher. This particular Maurice Griffiths Golden Hind 31 has a saloon dinette amidships to starboard. Aft of this is a charttable, facing outboard, which is used by sitting on the engine box/step. Under the charttable is a quarter berth. The charttable can fold down for access to the berth for adults with compromised agility. Opposite on port is a large oilies/wet locker, and immediately forward of this a linear galley (on port of course so one can heave to with right of way to brew up). An absolutely brilliant layout of the 4 required features, but of course one has to put up with the dinette, which not ideal for lounging.

Francis Fletcher

 

[sailorman]

is the Francis Fletcher still on the East Coast ??

 

[Santana379]

Hello Sailorman,

She certainly is. We bought her from the previous owners in 1999, and kept their mooring on at Felixstowe Ferry. She leaves the Deben nearly every weekend in the summer for the Orwell, Stour, Walton Backwaters, Ore & Alde, and the Blackwater, with an annual jaunt to south Holland for a fortnight.

Francis Fletcher

 

[Mirelle]

Interior redesign

Hello!

You are absolutely right of course, but "Francis Fletcher" manages to find more room in her quarters than "Mirelle" does!

I rather like your dinette system; it has never stopped me sleeping at sea in your boat!

If I were going to split hairs I would suggest that the chart table does obstruct the quarter berth a bit, but that's not very serious!

 

[Santana379]

Re: Interior redesign

Hello Mirelle

The other factor I didn't mention which helps a lot in FF is the space afforded by the chine design - at the expense of increased wetted area.

I agree with you about the chart table, but you have never seen it unbolted and swung down out of the way - the only one of its area and chart/equipment stowage capacity that I have seen do that.

Francis Fletcher