Undercloth conversions - ideas wanted

[starman]

Our new boat is 58ft and about half is as they say 'a blank canvas' or more accurately a blank under canvas. 

We plan a steel under cloth conversion but cant decide the layout. Ideally it needs to contain a double bed, living space and 'outside' area. The obvious thought is cratch, bed, saloon but someone suggested bed at the front, saloon then a central under cloth zone before going into the existing galley, bathroom etc. 

Any examples or opinions welcome. 

[Sea Dog]

You may wish to consider the winter disadvantage of two separate living areas.  I'd be inclined to stick with your original plan in some form, keeping the cratch at the front, so that stove heat can reach all of your accommodation area.

[alan_fincher]

Can't help hugely, with actual suggestions.

Flamingo does have a kind of "under steel cloth" area at the front, (aka "the carbuncle"), but it is the very front, so no option for any kind of outside deck area.
 

In fact Flamingo has a pretty unusual layout altogether, having "the gap" between engine room and main accommodation, with all main access to the latter at that point.

By choice I would not try to work with what we have inherited, but placement of (mostly) ports, but also a couple of windows, and roof hatches, limited our options.

 

What I did find terribly useful is mapping ideas into the fre SketchUp software.  I've not yet tried it for the "under steel cloth area", because we have no immediate plans to remodel that internally, but for the rest of it, particularly kitchen and bathroom, I have found it helps very much visualise what is possible.

A shot from this blog post.....

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by alan_fincher

[BWM]

If you are thinking of keeping an open area at the front, an extended cabin may work better for usability and looks. Even on a large town class the sloping sides can be a pain, and if you allow for windows in the cloths they will eventually move as they shrink, ours ended up like half moons!

[IanR]

We are part way into our conversion. Our initial ideas haven't changed much apart from swapping the bedroom for the bathroom at each end. The sloping undercloth side simply won't allow for any corridors so for us the dead end rooms (bathroom and bedroom in our case) have to be at each end of the living space. Initially we liked the idea of the bedroom at the fore end, then the kitchen, then the living room bit, then the bathroom in front of the engine room. Behind the engine room is a traditional back cabin. We have no access through from the hold into the engine room, nor did we want any, keeping the traditional bit of the boat separate from our conversion.

 

As we worked on fettling the boat ready to start a conversion, and using it for two years as we have done, the systems we wanted, the rooms we wanted and also the rethinking we did led to the bedroom end being infront of the engine room, with the bath/shower room up at the fore end. Doing it this way for us gives us more space as the bed can now go across (which it couldn't at the fore end) and also the hot water system is all in one place. Our boat is quite deep drafted and the insulated wall thickness about 3" and there really isn't any room for corridors that would leave space for a side bathroom etc without things looking too squashed in.

 

We've got double glazed windows in the kitchen and living room, with entry doors from outside each side dividing the living and kitchen areas. Our windows and doors are covered with cloth 'blinds' which can be opened from inside or out so they are used as the curtains. I didn't want to be getting outside to open the curtains, likewise I wanted the boat to be able to completely disguise its internal use. Those four windows are all we have apart from a porthole in a hatch in the triangle of the bedroom wall, which is an escape hatch onto the back end planks infront on the engine room. This gap was again important to us in terms of both traditional looks and practicality. In the 'top plank' of the bedroom and the bathroom is a bullseye glass window, like those in traditional back cabins, although ours are mounted internally and are completely flush on the outside so all you see is a circular cutout in the topcloths.

 

Like I said, this is in progress and our ideas will no doubt change a bit as we go along, so I look forward to seeing any ideas that get posted on here!

 

What are your initial ideas?

 

Ian.

[starman]

 

2 hours ago, IanR said:

 

What are your initial ideas?

 

Ian.

Thanks for the useful input. We start off with a rear cabin, engine room, bathroom and galley in the conventional half of the boat which I'll basically leave.  The rear cabin isn't a Boatman's so first thought was to build one and use it as our main sleeping space with some sort of back-up extra space up front for visitors.  

However a few days sleeping on an air bed brought us to the edge of despair so we bought a double bed off Gumtree and stuck it under the front end - sheer delight!

So now we want our bed up front & the b.c. for visitors which leaves some decent living space under the cloths.

The dilemma is we want some open air space too - if we have a cratch, we'd have to squeeze past any sort of bed even a cross or extending. At the moment we use the bit immediately in front of the steel cabin for 4ft of fresh air with cloths up. A bed right at the front behind a water tank and cupboards would work well but the open area has to go somewhere. 

Other issues are windows - we are thinking large for max light plus hatch each side near the steel cabin. Like the sound of your window blinds - how do they work?