Poolio's sailing and travel blog.

While working on the chainplates, cabin top handles and traveler I also constructed a seahood for the sailboat.  Some folks call this thing a turtle and maybe it has other names as well?  On my boat it will serve a few purposes.  It will help keep water from working its way into the cabin through the companionway hatch, it provides a mounting point for a small solar panel that I wanted to find room for and perhaps most importantly it will make it possible for me to install a water tight dodger on the boat whenever time allows.

In building my seahood I closely followed the project documented by David Brown here.  I only had to make a few changes to adapt the seahood to the way it mounted to my boat.  One change was that I built the seahood so that it retained the aluminum strips that Pearson installed originally.  These strips will keep the sliding hatch from exposing the wood in the seahood which would allow for rot in the long-run.  I also embedded nuts into the seahood so that I could through-bolt it from inside the cabin.  I also added too much fiberglass to the seahood but at least it won’t crack or budge if an elephant wanders onto it..

Construction started with the woodwork:

Then I added plenty of fiberglass roving, mat, biax and cloth:

When I was tired of trying to fair out my glassing mistakes I added plenty of coats of paint:

I have a small solar panel that is primarily for keeping the batteries topped up while I restore the boat.  It will similarly be handy for periods when the boat is stored and should enable me to take the larger panels down to avoid theft or storm damage etc.  I set the panel up so that it pivots on the sides since the boom/mast will prevent it from charging well in a horizontal position.  I also raised it up a little to keep it cool and so that my will feet fit under it when I am doing things like flaking down the main.

With the seahood painted I could finally install it and get it out of the cabin so that I could work on other projects.  It was also nice to have the little panel off of the stern rail so that I could pull all of the transom hardware for rebedding, though that is for another post.