Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
Well, the book is new to me. In fact it’s a book from 1979 entitled The Finely Fitted Yacht by Ference Maté illustrated by Candace Maté. Current printing is the first time in paperback. I’m sure some of you are already aware of it. I like a quote from the foreword:”... all things in it have been tested,or built, or at least dreamt about thoroughly...” The book starts at the most important place, the galley, and then proceeds from there. It’s full of great ideas for simple mods for the head, the salon, lighting, stowage and many other nooks and crannies on the boat. Definitely worth a read or borrow from your local library or kindle.
Flipping through the book, I noticed an ingenious idea for the settee.
On Passage I have the dinette-style cabin with a settee on the starboard side and two dinette seats facing one-another on the port side. There’s a 17” wide aisle in between which is about 75” long.
I had constructed a filler board to span the aisle, but when I’m not using it (like 99% of the time) I need to find a storage location for it. It fits in the Vee berth, but takes a lot of room.
The book shows a very novel solution. The seat-top consists of 3”-wide interlocking slats with inner and outer rails attached. The slats are 1x3s with a rabbeted edges. The rabbet keeps the slats aligned together. The even slats slide out and the odd slats remain stationary. The outer seat rail is attached to the even slats and the odd slats attach to the inner rail. The slats pull out into the aisle to a stop to more or less double the width of the settee. The outer rail comes to rest on the dinette seats on the opposite side.
You pull it out when you want to take a nap, then you push it closed afterwards. Pretty doggone clever.
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.