Building a mud room on Wind Horse: A dry place to hang wet foul weather gear outside.
The only detail we found lacking aboard Wind Horse last summer in Alaska was the way in which we dealt with wet shoes, boots, and foul weather gear. This was particularly true when we had visitors. Given that it rains a lot in that part of the world, we needed a place to strip off this gear and let it dry – outside of our interior.
Those of you who are from the wetter and/or colder climates will recognize this requirement as a mud room. The tricky part on Wind Horse was to create something which was functional, did not interfere with our starboard dinghy boom, and looked like it fit.
We started the process with PVC pipe fittings and tape. This gave us a rough feel for what we’d like to achieve. We then called on our friends at Ventura Harbor Boat Yard, who have their own stainless steel shop.
The point you see in the photo above was reached after a lot of hours of cut and try. It was not easy for Larry and Shane to satisfy their customers – who were very picky as to how things would end up! There are a series of different angles in the house we wanted to match, and then the framework had to provide the correct geometry to make the canvas cover work efficiently.
For those of you who are gear heads, check out this bit of machinery. This is a "notcher" and it makes cut-outs of various sizes and angles in stainless tubing. Larry brought it to the boat.
It works like a horizontal milling machine, except that as the cutting bit rotates, it also changes position during the notching process.
How’s this for a sweet looking fit?
The next step was to call Ron’s Canvas (at 805-658-6111). Ron is shown here with his assistant…
…Debbie (a cruiser herself), working up the first of their patterns.
And the finished product. We’ve got a couple of feet (60cm) of length now, plus…
…a much longer overhang to keep the rain at bay while we remove our rain gear.
There’s a place to hang our jackets and lots of Lexan (polycarbonate) plastic sewn into the Acrylan canvas for light and visibility.
Here’s our mud room put to the test, with six sets of rain gear.
Posted by Steve Dashew (February 24, 2007)
