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Kurt, Dreamers we be! Is that your interior? Could be 338's, except I left the remaining bulkhead intact under the deck.
Feel that the lam oak bean in 338 is plenty strong for the span. Also removed the balsa under the mast step and filled it with solid frp. So the curve of the deck is well established.
Been using some 1/4" wiggle ply to stack and bend into curves designing the hard dodger. Took a bundle down below and clamped it up on the bulkhead. The stuff is easy to arrange into any desirable curve. I left it up so that next time I got down to the boat and glanced at it I could tell if it was ok. Sometimes you can depend on that. I can,. because the head is not buzy with the idea, and the rightness of it can get thru. It looks real good to me.
It means cutting away the 'legs' and transfering the downward forces to the legs of a lam arch that would terminate further outboard on the V-berth bulkhead. Whether the arch is more engineer correct as a roman radius or can be tweeked into a more pleasing curve I don't know.
Would leave some bulkhead, as much as possible to keep rigidity in the hull. The main shroud plates are there, and the others, so I would keep it solid under the side decks. Might add alot more and wider tabbing of bulkhead to hull.
Havn't really thought about it, doing other things on the boat. I have not attached/glued/bolted the existing lam beam to the roof. So it depends on its shape and struts for immobility. More support for the footprint of the mast imco would be good. So how much material and weight it would take is the problem. The part of the struts/legs that would remain comes down along the cabin side and just below would be married to the arch legs. This is the critical meeting point and requires some thinking.
Feeling is that it could be done. Must be done. It has to be as efficient and light as possible. Might leave the resulting triangular spaces in the upper corners open or hollow. Who knows. Maybe this is a concerted effort?
The impetus for this is really to get the whole horizonal sleeping mode out of the important part of the cabin.
My thinking on the main table, chart and dining, is to bring it out solid with the shelves and lockers but have it hinge UP at the appropriate place so that it would merely hook on the cabin side. That's as far as I've got on that idea. But I do know that the only real fore-and-aft seating on the boat will get much use! Gotta Go Now.
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