Fwd Cabin

On to the forward cabin... did most of the rough-in for the fwd cabin over the last week and a half. This included some panelling, constructing a hanging locker and raised berth, and loading in a washer/dryer combo unit. This part of the boat has a lot of headroom, so we were able to fit in a raised berth (with enough room to comfortably sit up in bed) and still have room underneath for the combo unit and a lot of left over storage space fwd. We were on the fence about putting in a washer/dryer, but when we broke out the tape measure to see about access to get it into the boat, we realized that we were approaching the point where it would be getting increasingly difficult to fit large stuff like this into the boat without opening up soft patches, removing doors and trim, etc. As it was, it was a very tight fit in spots. Many thanks to our neighbors Christian and Jody for helping up get this beast into the boat. We had this washer dryer on our previous boat and, while we could have made do without it when cruising, it was convenient since the places we like to go don't usually have laundromats. The dryer takes a long time but we found that in reasonably dry weather, just a wash and spin, then hang to dry works well. Since this install was kind of an afterthought (post steelwork), I still need to work out the venting arrangement. A quick fix would be a storable vent line that can be hung out one of the port lights. Most of the time we won't be using the dryer function anyway, so this might be ok. I'll have to pull another AC feed for power - but water and drain lines are already run and capped off under the guest cabin sole, so I just need to bring these up to the back of the unit and do the hook-up. This thing weighs about 150lbs (which is good, as I need some stbd ballast to offset the port side house battery bank) so it is wedged in on a heavily built platform, and secured against the underside of the bunk framing. Once fully cleated in place, it's not going anywhere. We did the back of the hanging locker in cedar T&G like the others and added a mahogany trim board the the front of the berth to keep the mattress in place (once we get one). The lines you see running up the back of the locker are hydraulics for the anchor winch and water for the anchor wash-down. The rest of the trim and cabinetry will have to wait, as I am ready to get away from carpentry for a while and work on installing and integrating all of our old-school surplus Nav electronics. More to come on that shortly...