The album of Ariel #422

[CapnK]

Mike - Thx for the offer to measure, but I can get a good idea from looking at your pic, and measuring the same space here, so there's no need for you to "work" on my behalf. Or did you just need an excuse to go to your boat?

I'll GIMP something up on the athwartship dinette idea once I think about it a little more. I was flipping through my (recently rediscovered) copy of Ferenc Mate's "Finely Fitted Yacht", and saw an idea that might have some uses. It was a settee which turns into a pull-out double berth. I'll try to describe it:

The seat part of the settee (where your butt goes) is a series of slats all side by side, like piano keys. Even-numbered slats are fixed/don't move, odd-numbered slats can slide out from the fixed slats, and are attached to the bunks edge board. When you pull the edge board, the movable slats slide out, creating a surface twice as large as it had been. Folding or removeable legs are used to support the outer edge of the berth. Does this make sense? I'll look up the page number and post it later.

This would be a great way to implement an athwartships berth, there would be no board to have to stow/unstow when setting up the berth - for sleeping mode, just pull it out like a sliding shelf, put the cushion in place, and rack out, and do the reverse to go back to working mode. This might also make a good way to implement a seat also. A pull-out table is also suggested by this idea.

Lots of possibilities.

[ebb]

Slat idea sounds interesting. If access to the stowage is thru the top would that still work? Simpler is another piece of ply under the seat cushion that could be pulled across the aisle, or for access in sail mode the piece could be lifted up like a lid to get to the lockers.

Seatback lockers on one side could be dedicated to holding the bedding when in settee mode. That seat back could be slid down (maybe with the cushions velcroed on) to have the stow area open while bunking and make the cross asile piece less wide and rectangular, but support would be needed with added cross pieces. Or the front vertical of the settee could be designed to pull out for fore and aft support using the cabin sole.

338's q-berth is much lower that the existing settees allowing the unfortunate to raise the knees in a very tight area anyway. Space for the occupant to insert self has to be provided. That brings the q-berth out a bit into the cabin and also suggests that the foot of the companionway not be under the double bunk. Access up nad down via the ladder should planned for when the double is set up.

This is a good arguement for an athwartship double. If you are under 5'7", let's say, it may work great. Taller folk will need room nearly hull to hullside, and that would make upright lockers on both side not possible, or you'd have to empty them for sleeping. There is also the amount of room UP you need for the mattress cushions, feet, and raising the head.

Not willing to loose a cubic inch of stowage, I opted to fore and aft body arrangements where generally you have the central full height of the cabin. Some small boat interiors have the V-berth area as the sole double bunking possibility. I think Flicka, which has comprable interior volume, is one. Now what I'm going to end up with on 338 doesn't matter here. BUT

I've just about convinced self for various reasons to push the whole double bunk issue forward and bring the existing V-berth height into the cabin. I'm negotiating with self on laminating a true arch on the cabin side of the main bulkhead that would widen the width at bunk/seat level. It would still include the crossbeam. I feel the mast could use the support there anyway as it is but half supported by the compression beam. Would have to alter what is already an alteration. That's a bummer.

Looking out of the windows while seated at the dinette/chart table is absolutely necessary imco for cruising. Doing that raises the dinette seat to near the same height as the V-berth. Won't argue with the deeper lockers under the seats. The galley across the aisle at the companionway might be operable while sitting higher up. I like Kurt's full counter, 338's would be on the port side. It would allow a number of configurations including side access drawers and lockers, even a workbench. Altho self would not have headroom. And. perhaps, a remaining seat at the original level for wedging into in rough weather. And aesthetically having it as an open space in all that proposed buildup.

Anyway, athwartships might give you access to the head between the V-berths AND the foot of the ladder for weekending in essentially a traditional Ariel setup. Privacy in the head area is almost the most important consideration when both sexes are aboard. And the captain needs to get up on deck in a jiffy. If you decide not to have a shower ala franco in the V, maybe a sink is a good compromise.

[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.