More galley

I went to the boat show last week and bought a new chart plotter and DSC radio the. show was not as big as it used to be only utilising one hall and nothing afloat in the adjacent dock but as I had a free ticket and the deal from Cactus for the electronics covered the train fair and I saw pretty much everything that I wanted to see I have no complaints.

So back to work on the galley this week with further work on the locker behind the cooker, this will be on two levels I had already made the plywood panel for the front of the upper level this has now been covered with laminate and the opening cut out. I have decided to use some of the white laminate to make the sliding doors  as I have a lot of off cuts left this stuff is 4mm thick so should be OK and it will save a few quid on the price of the acrylic sheet. The upper doors are now made and I have sourced some twin channel plastic for the tracks. I need to paint the back of the locker front and the interior of the locker before I can go any further in this area but the current cold spell has put a stop to that for the time being.

Upper locker front and doors

In the meantime I have made the locker front for the lower level just needs the opening cut out and the doors making which will be a homework job for this weekend.

Locker lower level front panel

I have finally sourced some solid laminate 12.5mm thick for the work tops without having to buy huge amounts that I really don't need found it at B&Q still a bit pricey though but there will be enough to do the heads basin worktop and the little bit in the aft cabin I am just waiting for it to arrive.

Today I decided to rearrange the panel above the chart table originally I was going to install the NASA GPS repeater and connect it to the chart plotter in the cockpit which would give a position read out at the chart table however I had bought a Brooks and Gatehouse Vulcan 7 plotter which only supports NMEA 2000 as opposed to the repeater which operates on NMEA 0183 I know there are converters available but as the VHF has a built in GPS this will give a position read out at the chart table and also provide a back up to the chart plotter. I had to take the panel apart to install the concealed strip light and after I had put it all back together again assuming that I would be able to access the rear of the panel to install the VHF I found that it was extremely awkward to attach the VHF securing brackets so I had to take the whole lot out again but as can be seen its all done now.

VHF radio installed

LED strip light

The three way switch panel will be used for the  power supplies to the navigational instruments.

For the time being the navigational instruments will operate on a stand alone basis  the auto pilot uses Raymarine Seatalk data and even this comes in two formats my autopilot uses the older format and I don't know whether or not this can be adapted to operate with the B&G plotter further investigation is required. The existing wind instruments are not capable of any data output at all and I won't even know if they are going to work until the mast goes up but not having them all linked is not going to stop the world from spinning round.