The album of Ariel #422

[CapnK]

Ebb - Curse you and your arched strongback idea for making me rethink some perfectly good plans... Went and looked at some Flicka interiors (really, see one of each (w/head and w/out) and you've seen 'em all - no mods going on in the Flicka community it looks like) for a refresher. They are simple, open, workable, and don't have a bulkheaded interior. It would be so nice to have that open feeling, which takes me back somewhat to what I was thinking several months ago. I guess that for me it'll come down to getting interior mods done either sooner, or going all out. I like the blank canvas you and TonyG have with your no-interior, sanded-to-glass empty hulls. Will I go there? Right now, only the Shadow knows...

I assume your interior stands much as it looks in this long ago pic: http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ntid=644&stc=1

Which seems to show a wider, more open interior already. You are talking about opening up the base of the bulkhead even more? See what you think about the GIMP'ed pic below - it would be easy to do with your existing bulkhead modification.

Sitting here on the port settee and looking through the bulkhead opening while imagining away the hanging locker and drawer cabinetry, I'm wondering now if, when I drop my mast for repairs/upgrading soon, I shouldn't go ahead with modifying the main bulkhead. Aaaarrrgghhhh... Something to mull over...

OK, one more pic after Ebb's bulkhead. Using the idea of sliding interior parts, it would be easy to make a dinette that slides out of the starboard side cabinet. Not done to scale or with any realism, it simply illustrates a possibility. The blue lines could be 2 seats and a table surface which pull out from the cabinet. Edit: I did some measuring - space between berths is 27" or so. A 20" wide pull-out seat/tabletop would leave enough room to one side that you could skooch by it without needing to slide it back in. The seat height could be placed so that it gave a view out the deadlights when seated. Seatbacks could easily be incorporated - either flip-up or pull-out (like the seat bottoms). Legs for the seats (which would bear weight) could also be designed in. As could a pull-out footrest, placed low (not shown in the drawing), which would allow one to brace if the boat was moving. Heck, it could even be made so that, depending on what you needed, you could pull out either a dinette, or a berth. Hmmm... I'm liking this idea - it seems as if it would be a good addition, especially considering the space constraints of our small interiors...

[ebb]

( s i g h )
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.

[CapnK]

Ebb -

I'll be digesting the rest of your post, but that pic is of *your* bulkhead. I copied the picture from #338's Gallery pages, then I used the GIMP to "cut away" areas of the upper, outer parts of it (I pasted in the hull using parts of your hull from up in the forepeak). I wanted to see what it would look like, and thought you might want to see it too...

[ebb]

Amazing and scary too. Like some gimp cut and pasting me out of the big picture - brrr r r, very sci-fi. But what a great tool it is that allows you to paint an interior - like the Ariel's - move things around til just right, and then get measurements. Put those measurements in another program and have a machine cut the parts, put em ina box, and fed-ex right to the boat! Done!

Until somebody interjects here pointing out some glaring fault (besides Carl A. looking paler than usual), the arch beam certianly seems like the perfect space opener. If only I'd had a gimp of my own back then! And the presense of mind.

The best way is to start empty, with just the bulkhead, make patterns, glue up two arches flat in the shop, one for either side of the existing bulkhead. Bolt and glue in place, cut out all the middle. With the bulkhead pieces filling out the spaces to the cabin sides and to the hull - I think you'd end up with an wide open space to play with (in) and an even stronger support for the mast compression, as well as the compression forces of the chainplates. Like Bingham's quantum leap.

You might stabilize the liner on the cabin side by drilling holes in it where the arch will bear and inject the space inside with epoxy and cabosil. Easy.

I'd play with the gimp now if I could. I'd see how the forward double bunk idea would work with the new arch and still allow the head easy access. Or not. (338 has a bulkhead now where the cross piece was in the original V-berth layput - keeps the anchors, ground tackle and warps separate from the accomadation - but it brings the bed WAY out into the cabin). If all sleeping by a couple could be up forward there as one single while under way, and one double while parked, it would be hard not to go for it. It would permanently free up at least half the cabin, The table could still be used and the galley. As for the head, a midget potti could be made available in the cabin or out in the cockpit.


Add that the hatch right over head is a clincher for this arrangement.
Another is that as a single, sleeping with head forward or head aft is an option too.

[CapnK]

Ebb - Now I have even more of your posts to think about. I'll leave you with this non-scary, no scifi GIMP drawing of the slideout dinette, while I go think about your ideas...

Mike - It's not athwartships, but I haven't ruled that one out yet.

[mbd]

Kurt, your GIMPiness is the coolest! One of these long cold winter evenings I'm going to do some GIMPing of my own. What a great way to preview your mods.

I think you're on to something with the pull-out idea. Kind of taking a pull-out chart table to the next step.

After reading you and ole Ebb go at it though, I must confess that I'm a little relieved that the stock setup mostly works for my clan. (Wife and 2 kids) Each of the kiddos have picked out their "beds". Hopefully, next summer we'll do our first overnighter. But this is your thread...

A couple of thoughts:
What if you had the cabin steps to the right instead of the left, so it would be a straight shot to the v-berth when the pullouts were deployed - or move the pull outs and storage to port...

I like the open feel down below as well, but it seems by removing bulkhead walls, you're also removing valuable surface area which could be used for cabinet/shelf/storage space. Fine, even desirable for us weekender/daysailors, but you long term guys might need every little crevice and surface you can eek out.

Lastly, I love dinettes, but Ebb has got me thinking for your purposes (long range cruisers) a pilot berth that could be converted to a double at anchor definitely has its merits.

[ebb]

Kurt.
Do I see two sinks in yer gimp - a round and rectangle?

Mike,
I'm all for the original layout. As conceived it's great for weekending and a fabulous boat for getting the young out sailing. It's a mystery why, nearing the other end, some want to leave their cozy apartments and TVs to go wander away into the jaws of the dragon. Stir crazy to star crazy!

The original bulkhead is a post and beam with two side struts providing triangulation to support the beam and spread the load of the mast.

It turns out, after spending some late nite on the net, that the arch and beam is as old and venerable as the post and beam. Some owners have to rebuild the compression bulkhead because of rot and shrinkage. I now believe that the beam in conjunction with an arch is the strongest structure you can have supporting the mast. It could be a much lighter structure than what I have ended up with in my rebuild. That bulkhead under the mast has one purpose and that is to support the deck stepped mast. If it can be done better, then it probably should. And if it opens up the accomodation, that's way cool imco.

For instance, the beam could be an I-beam or truss (instead of a heavy white oak lam as 338 has now) The remaining pieces of ply bulkhead (spandrels) could be 1/2" or 3/8". The arch would still anchor at the V-berth bulkhead, with the load taken up by the hull well tabbed to the remaining bulkhead. The plywood under the deck would remain for locker sides (and equally strange thru deck upper shroudplates.) The forward stateroom could now be partitioned with any material soft or hard. Any furniture would be self supporting and could be designed to ignore the arch/beam. I'll leave it alone now.