V Berth Storage

December 2002 - I had this 39 gallon water tank under the V-Berth,
and it leaks from the bottom fitting.
I already have 90 gallons of water in
the benches, so I'm going to convert this space to storage.

Getting the tank out wasn't that difficult, since nothing really sticks to polyethylene. I took a hacksaw blade and ran it around the edges, then gently pried it back and forth with a 2x2
piece of wood.

There's a lot of space in there!

I discovered the door into the V-Berth
is an inch wider than the aft door
by the galley. I'm gonna have to cut
this tank up after all
to get it out of the boat.

Eventually I'll probably divide the area into bins, but will do it in stages. To start, I made a pattern for a small bulkhead forward. That'll get built and tabbed in, and then I'll decide what to do next -- after staring at it a while I can't decide what I want. But the small bulkhead is important to provide support for the wood beam that holds up the V-Berth cushions. It's cracked (left). I'm also thinking that the tank *possibly* provided some structural support in the bow so I may add a second lateral watertight bulkhead.

Removing the polyurethane foam packing was easier than I'd have believed -- just run a wide putty knife down the sides of the hull and it just pops up.
There's still a little residue that'll have to be taken off with solvents. I don't want to sand it off as that would take off some laminate...

Whatever --
there's no rush.
Having this storage area done is really just a milestone on the
Nav station project plan! Now I can clean up the aft cabin and move a lot of stuff into this storage area in preparation for replacing the holding tank and rebuilding the head, which has to be done before I can build a proper Nav station...