Aft cabin again

I have spent most of my time this week in the aft cabin starting off wish removing the remainder of the flaking paint from the port side and cleaning up the inner moulding around the steering gear space, Once this was complete I moved on to the forward bulkhead between the aft cabin and the engine space there are two openings in this bulkhead the larger one for access to the after end of the engine and gearbox and the smaller one on the left of the photograph below which was originally for the engine exhaust system, as originally installed there was a cast iron water lock mounted in the aft cabin with a flexible stainless steel hose to the exhaust manifold and the circular hole above was for the raw water hose leading to the water lock.

Openings in the bulkhead

As can be seen the original openings are anything but square whoever cut them out must have been having a bad day I decided to leave the original openings rough as they are and build a frame round them to enclose a removable ply panel the smaller opening will give convenient access to the engine raw water seacock and the round opening above will be sealed off, there are a number of redundant holes of varying sizes in this bulkhead which I intend to seal up. Once this is complete the plan is to finish the bulkhead with the van lining carpet I hope that this may provide a measure of sound insulation.

Engine raw water seacock

To finish off a very cold week I cut out the covers for the two openings from some 12mm waterproof plywood which I had available after fitting them I sanded them both ready to be painted which will be a homework job when the weather gets warm enough for painting.

Cover for the small opening

The next job will be a cover for the opening in the cabin sole for the stern gland access which can be seen above