Welcome to a quick update on Perdita. In June I got totally distracted with work, a holiday in Ibiza, buying a DJI Mavic drone and a weekend flying an old plane. So we had a fair bit to catchup on in July. In August I managed to get a week off work and used a few days to get in a bit of work on the boat.
In terms of jobs, we’ve been working on the cabin top, deck, saloon fit out, galley floor, forward berth, insulation through out and the rubbing strakes.
Here’s some photos and descriptions of what we’ve been up to:
Perdita in the boat house with Lorraine taking a break from painting the cabin top.
Here’s the cabin top before and after. Lorraine did some sanding and minor epoxy repairs to the fibreglass that covers the cabin before she painted the whole thing twice. International Brightside white. Thumbs up.
A slightly blurry Gopro photo of the cabin top, with masking tape still on and the grey deck paint.
While we’ve been deciding what to do with some of the exterior work, we’ve got ahead with some of the saloon refit stuff. Here’s a 3d mockup of what we were originally aiming for, we’ve simplified things a little and canned the big cooker in favour of a little gas burner/sink combo to save on space.
The saloon/berth wall has been stripped of the rotten tongue and groove wood, all the bits that needed replacing replaced, coated in a epoxy and then re-clad with some 12mm exterior ply. Some filler smooths the joins. Soon to be ready for sanding and painting. The big plywood sheets are just there temporarily, the galley top will be smaller.
Before:
Current progress:
Before, port side. Much mold and grime.
Here’s me actually doing some work on the wall.
Next I wanted to get rid of the existing little galley unit, which isn’t that old. We’re putting in new galley units and the sink will be re-plumbed. For now, I wanted to sort out the bilge beneath it, pull out all the these bits and fit a new floor panel ready for our units/fridge. The bilge area beneath the floor has been repaired, cleaned, painted and frames coated with some rubber barriers. Tearing out old stuff sounds like fun but actually takes a fair bit of effort.
Before:
After, ready for painting and insulation (looks rough at present, but important bit is the bilge and floor are done):
In terms of the finished floor covering, we’ve decided to go with imitation wooden plank which sounds pretty horrific but actually looks pretty good. This is rather than carpet. It’ll be fairly easy to clean, remove and replace if we have to. I always think boat carpets smell of damp, so hopefully using vinyl should reduce that. Here’s a sample, laid out ontop of our wooden flooring at home. This stuff has a decent texture to it, is hard wearing and looks good (and was cheap):
Here’s a photo of Lorraine and I sitting on the new little sofa surrounded by wood in various states of disrepair.
Next on the list was deciding on an approach for the rubbing strakes, the wooden trim that runs the length of the boat. This is a photo of the first exterior screw I took out of Perdita way back last year, this is the middle freeboard rubbing strake thats current made out of mahogany.
Instead of wood, I’ve decided to go down the route of PVC traditional finish 47mm rubbing strake from Wilks. The photo below looks like the dog pile emoji but is actually a coil of 15m of this stuff. It can be finished to look more like textured wood but obviously easier to maintain and install. I’ll have a go with this in the coming weeks. This will be for the top strake, the middle rubbing strake will be white pvc, 65mm in width and replace the existing wood. Again it should be easy to cut and fit. Doing it this way might not be very purist or traditional, but it’s less cost for now and should be straight forward to fit on Perdita’s curves vs steaming wood.
Here’s a sample of the pvc very roughly sanded next to some of the original strake that I removed.
Some of the other jobs on the go have involved cleaning out the forward berth which has been used as stored for tools and shite while I’ve been working. We’ve begun to clean, paint and insulate the berth. Next it’ll be painted and have plywood sheet covering added. Size wise, the berth is about 2m x 2.5m so it’s not a bad size for a little boat and should be a comfy sleeper when done.
Here’s a bit of progress below with the paint and the new ply sheet just laid up and all the shit back in.
Here’s a random photo from Pinterest of the style of interior we’re going for, old English white everywhere, wooden tops and plank floors. If we get anywhere near this, I’ll be very happy 🙂
Well that’s it really for now. There are loads of other tiny jobs going on that I didn’t photograph. We have put on hold completing some prop/stern tube work and antifouling until Perdita is outside again, just because of ease of access and in terms of paint, the smell. We’re making good progress at a pretty slow weekend rate. There’s no rush and the important thing for us is that we have a bit of a laugh while doing it.
I’m hoping that end of Sep, early October we can afford another few days back to back to make some progress on the electrics and work on the deck/forward hatch and rear engine compartment.
Thanks for reading and having a look!
Cheers
Rob