The weekend? A complete bender!

With wiring unwrapped from all that it seeks to cling to, pull down, get snagged on the interfacing of Wotsit A to Wotsit B, C and D may, fingers crossed, be finished. The last job then is to fit the 14 kilo Icom ‘briefcase’ somehwere cool, near the chart table, near the power source and away from anything else that dislikes heat. Add to that the momentum that this will gain under movement and it turns into a structural engineering problem. The process of elimination begins – can’t drill here, not under the freezer, too low in the bilge, too big a cable run to the antenna, GPS, modem, control unit – eventually it all ends up back at the place we first thought of – the lucky void of dark matter invitingly unoccupied. But could it house water maker parts? Too bad this looks like SSB territory.

What shoe size, style, material and colour? Choices. Much juggling, clamping, drawing and measuring follows. Finally it is decided that the slipper sole will be made of aluminium in a style similar to the hull, joined to a marine ply upper in which the SSB unit can sit and toast away in peace surrounded by a cool clean vertical air flow.

Bring on the weekend bender! The 5/8″ inch aluminium flat bar is bent to shape to sit on the bulkhead, hull rib structure and to avoid existing power units. Imagination, measure, bend, measure, trial fit, bend, cut, bend, fit, remove for additional drilling and machining.