The Old Matelot



matelot;
noun,
sailor; from the French mat-el-oh (plural matelots)
A slang expression, chiefly in Britain, may also mean mate or companion.

Welcome to the Old Matelots' blog, my first (and probably last!) journalistic endeavour. Watch its development and evolution as I make the transition into retirement and the live-aboard, off the grid lifestyle on the sailing yacht, Circe. Follow my fortunes (and misfortunes) in the posts as I work to rehabilitate my home on the water.

UPDATE - Due major back-to-back relationship and health issues during 2017 & 2018 I was involuntarily beached and forced to let Circe go. The blog will remain up for the foreseeable future for informational benefit to other owners of these magnificent boats.


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2013-03-25

Microwave Relo.

When we first got Circe there was a microwave sitting on the shelf above the nav station. We enjoyed having the microwave on board but that location wasn't good. We wanted the nav station clear for.....nav stuff. What a concept! But, where to put the microwave? 


OK, OK, its a mess, but this was the only 'before' pic we could find, you get the idea though. Just disregard all the junk....we were re-organising a couple of tool boxes!



Following our usual strategy of not unnecessarily re-inventing the wheel, we borrowed heavily from other FOGgers who have already addressed the problem of finding a good microwave location. We had seen at least two Freeports with it set into the end of the galley counter and that seemed to be a good solution, so we decided to follow their lead. Once again we recruited Art Kleiner from The Boatsmith to help with the project.

Shown below is an example of a boat with the newer design galley, the same as Circe's, and a microwave set into the end of the counter.

One benefit of the newer style galley is the absence of the cutting board and drawer in the aft side of the counter, which makes this conversion much easier. We only needed a hole in the side of the counter and one new shelf to support the microwave.




It was an easy matter to measure and mark a suitable size aperture, use a hole saw to give a couple of starting points for the jig saw and cut our hole. 




Here the corners of the aperture are being cleaned up with a pull saw.

With the aperture cut we saw that the microwave would  interfere with the anti-siphon loop on the cooling hose to the engine heat exchanger, so we cut new holes and..... 



.....moved the loop over to the other side of the new microwave compartment.






The new shelf was aligned with the bottom of the aperture in the side of the counter.





Time for a trial fit. Just like a glove!







We ran a new AC feed to a new outlet and......







.......took a spare breaker on the AC panel to feed it. 








Art put some trim strips around the aperture to purty it up.




All done. We used a battery tie down strap to secure the microwave. An unexpected benefit was that we still had enough room for a couple of shallow pans in the reduced space between the old and new shelves.







Microwave Relo - Part Deux 

Because we had lost a big chunk of galley storage space by moving the microwave, we needed to replace it. Keeping with our plan to take Circe's specification 'back to the future', the logical solution was to have Art try and replicate the original Freeport galley design that had a storage area under the stove. That feature was eliminated in the later boats like Circe so we decided to reproduce it or something like it.




With the stove removed the area to be modified can be seen. Art is removing the kick panel to use as a template. 






Here is the front panel for the new storage area. 







In this one the top of the storage area is in place.


Here is the stove back in place and the drop down access door fitted. All ready for some teak oil and varnish. 



Using the new storage area is a bit challenging for Old Matelot knees, but it is more than equal to the space lost in the galley counter. On to the next project.