Sailing Mintaka: FIRST OF MANY PROJECTS

So much for fun. We are hauled out in Whangarei now, busily working on projects. The first one I started on, some weeks ago before we hauled out, is now ready for final sanding and painting.

Gap between coaming on left and lazarette hatch

We really like William Atkin’s design of the Ingrid, but many details of any architect’s design are left up to or modified by the builder. This was the case with the cockpit coamings in the Ingrids built by Blue Water Boats in Washington back n the ‘70s. The coamings are a raised structure that stands between the cockpit and the side decks, effectively creating the cockpit. They chose to leave a gap between the aft end of the coamings and the lazarette hatch. The lazarette is a top-opening locker aft of the cockpit. The coamings actually ran past this hatch a bit, so the gap on either side ran fore-and-aft.

I don’t know what the builder was thinking when they designed this detail — How many times have I wondered what they were thinking? — but it was a bad idea. Whenever we were heeled over far enough to have water run down the leeward side deck, it would slosh back in through that gap and along the leeward side of the cockpit. Obviously, if we were sitting in the cockpit, it would be along the leeward side. If the weather was at all wild, we’d likely be wearing “foulies”, and a little salt water in the cockpit wouldn’t be an issue. However, if the conditions were milder, and we weren’t wearing foulies, an occasional dip of the rail would do the same thing, soaking our butts with salt water. Nuisance. Annoying.

So, after years of noodling on possible solutions, I dove in. I laminated some plywood into blocks, sculpting them into plugs which I glued into those gaps. That sounds easy enough, but it involved endless filling and sanding with epoxy putty and fiberglass. Its all smooth and fair now, just needing a final sanding and paint, which is on hold for the moment with other projects.