A Little More Room and a Twin Bed

It's interesting to me how I have to see something before I figure it out. Maybe that is why this whole virtual build works for me. I can’t imagine how much time and wood I would waste while I tried things that I thought would work.

First example today is my thoughts for two single bunks instead of a twin bed in the rear of the boat. We have a twin bed in the back of our vintage camp trailer. I don’t like the idea that the person on the far side of the bed, the side against the wall, has to climb over the other person to get out of bed. There’s no good way to do this without waking up your partner.

I also felt that four single bunks and a dining table that converts to a bed would be more versatile for guests. Maybe three of my buddies and I want to go on a fishing trip. Who is going to end up sleeping together on a narrow 3 foot 6 inch twin bed? Not a pretty picture ;-)

It wasn’t until I played around with the Joli floor plan sketch that I realized the single beds wouldn’t work. The companionway ends up with a tight, narrow jog. It’s almost like Philip knew what he was doing. Big Grin!

I haven’t given up on the four single beds idea, I just need to work on it some more, but there may not be a good fix.

The next area of concern for me was the exterior cockpit length. It seemed really short, especially the way I have the outboard configured. My last entry gave a little hint of how I want to do the outboard. I’m hoping it will end up with a wooden cover over it to further hide the source of propulsion.

I figure that at a minimum, I want two people to be able to sit comfortably side by side on the cockpit benches, or one person should be able to recline with their back against the cabin wall with legs stretched out on the bench. It turns out that I’m closer to that size than I thought. I measured the love seat in our living room and came up with 4 feet of length. I won’t need to add much to the overall length of the boat at all, certainly within the 10% that many people have discussed as the safe range of modification.

Well, I’m guessing a little on the space that is required for the outboard, but it looks like the boat would be 25.5 feet long. This would end up being 6 inches longer than the 10% increase that people say is a safe margin. Can we live with 6 inches over? We’ll see.

More to come.