I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately. I’m not sure why, but it needs sorting out, that’s for sure. I don’t think Vreli’s lack of facilities is helping much; a daily intake of microwave meals is getting to me I think. More reason to get on with it and finish Kudu, ain’t it!

On that note, and because I’ve had a productive evening, I’m going to let you in to my plans for my little Corribee. In fact, as Corribee’s go, I think I might well be building the poshest. If you know of any rivals, I’d be delight to hear about them.

I’ll start off with a couple of pictures.

Here you can see something towards the end result. I’ve done away with the drab 1970’s dark plywood interior, and brightened it up with a coat of jersey cream paint. To balance the cream, I’ve used Deks Olje D1 on the freshly cut interior bits. The entire cabin will be finished off with polished stainless fittings.

Then there’s the sink! Note the mixer tap; this is because Kudu will have hot/cold running water. Of course, without an engine the hot water will only be available while on shore power, but I figured it’ll stay warm for 36 hours of so, so would keep things civilised during the odd night at anchor.

I’ve actually done quite a lot of work on her so far, but there’s still a few weekends left before she can go back in the water.

I’ve got a new stainless steel compression post, which looks so much better than the original galvanised (then painted) stick. I salvaged a scraped pushpit from the boatyard, found a straight length long enough, cut it to size with the grinder (removed the uprights at the same time), then cut the circular base of the post with the angle grinder out of some 3mm sheet in the scrap box, and got my mate to weld it for me. It transforms the interior, and is functional too, since it’s stronger then the previous one.

Excuse the mess

I bought a 200ah AGM battery, and built a custom battery box for it too. Actually, it’s not so much a box, but a tray with a couple of threaded bars to clamp the 61kg battery down with. This outfit will be epoxied to the hull, under the sink.  I’ve also cut new cabin sole boards out of 9mm marine ply. Actually, I’ve removed an awful lot of weight from Kudu in various ways. The flooring tile galley top that I thought was a great idea when I first fitted her out back in 2008 was pretty darn heavy. Instead of a sheet of 12mm ply, and the weighty flooring tile, it’s now just a single sheet of 9mm, sprayed to Rustoleum textured paint.

The cabin step the housed the original sink was a bit over engineered too. Actually, to be honest over engineered implies it was made stronger than required, but that wasn’t the case, it was just made with heavy wood nailed together. Using a bit of grey matter and investing in the time to produce the woodwork that Newbridge would have considered too expensive for their product, it’ll be both lighter and stronger.

I’m currently researching switch panels too. The standard shiny black rubbish that you get on chandlery shelves is not going to cut the mustard for this project. I’m currently deciding between a BEP panel, or a Blue Sea Systems panel.

Also, yet to be done is the insulation. I think this will make a huge difference to life onboard. I’m going to use Plastazote, after reading an article by Roger Taylor on the Unified Corribee website. It’s not cheap, but it’s safer than polystyrene (which incidentally, is not hydrophobic). I’m going to use this is “unsinkify” Kudu too. I.e. fill the useless voids like under the cockpit with foam.

That’s only half the jobs, but I’ve resolved to get her in the water as soon as possible. Ideally the deck could do with a lick of paint, but it’s not dire, and it can wait until next year; there only so much pre-season work a man can stand, you know.

So, lots of big exciting plans. I’ve not even mentioned the new rudder, wind vane idea, and rig, but I’ll get around to that in good time.