For those of you who did not end up totally comatose watching our engine room, workshop, and chart table videos, I have just put four more up on YouTube and imbedded them below.
Actually, a couple of commenters kindly said that the last lot were pretty useful, even for those who have no interest in buying our boat, so hopefully these will be the same.
The galley video has the most tips that will be useful and the other three should definitely give you some ideas for what does and does not matter, particularly when looking for a boat to live and voyage on for extended periods, based on our 25 years of doing just that.
As before, I have added links to articles that expand on gear that appears in the videos.
Salon
Show notes:
Galley
Show notes:
- Safer mounting brackets for Force 10 stoves
- Why we need three gas sniffers
- Thoughts on fridge/freezers and electrical consumption
- How to build the freezer fan gadget
Aft Cabin
Show notes:
Forward Cabin
Show notes:
Further Reading
Comments
If you have any questions, please leave a comment.
John,
I really enjoyed your video clips and the commentary. The welded ports is a great idea. Where was Morgan built?
My boat, Naarden, harbored in Newport, RI, is a 46′ McCurdy & Rhodes. It’s aluminum built in 1986 in the Habakke yards in Volendam, Netherlands. They did a great job with the construction and layout, very similar to yours but on a smaller scale. The Goiot ports have been my biggest headache.
Thanks,
Hank Kniskern
ten.xoc@nreksinkh
Hi Hank,
She was built in Cleveland Ohio. The company that built her also made precision machined stuff for the armed forces so they had access to computer driven milling machines to make the custom ports and hatches. Unfortunately not duplicatable.
Sorry to hear about the Goiot ports, I always thought they made good gear.
“Naarden” sounds loverly and the Dutch build great metal boats.
Very impressive, John. I’ve rarely seen space allocated both sensibly and creatively aboard a cruiser.
Hi Marc,
Thanks, that’s what you get when you don’t cram too many berths and cabins into a boat. Sad that almost no production boats have learned the lesson.
We have one head (Lavac) and four berths, two of them sea berths with lee cloths cut from former dinghy sails, over nearly 42 feet of boat. We could sleep more, but then it’s not a production boat! We also have a Thorden bearing in the stern tube and a Force 10 stove, so we’ll be referencing that fix you did. Funny how these commonalities not common in production boats crop up, isn’t it?
Hi John:
Nice video – like the others. That freezer fan looks great. Where did you get it?
-Peter
Hi Peter,
Sorry I forgot to put that in the show notes: https://www.morganscloud.com/2015/06/21/cool-gadget-to-keep-your-frozen-food-frozen/
Thank you! FWIW, I see there are $25 “RV” refrigerator fans for sale powered by 2D batteries. Your solution is far more elegant.
Hi Peter,
The “RV” fans work well in refrigerator/freezer boxes where there is room for air flow and air can be pushed around to facilitate even (or closer to even) temperatures top to bottom. This is not usually the case on boats. Boat’s refrigerators and freezers are usually so packed as to interfere with air flow: especially freezers where we all tend to throw things in in a pile and there is little room for air circulation.
The PVC pipe with computer fan works well when the cold is at the bottom of the space where the holding plate usually resides: bring cold air up to the top of the pile where things are warmest. On evaporator plate systems where the plates can (and should) be placed higher up along the walls of the freezer area (or frig box), pulling the really cold air from freezer bottom becomes less important: the “cold” is at the top to start with.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi John,
Thanks for the completion of the Morgan’s Cloud tour and making it all so thorough and informative! MC is quite the demonstration of how well organized a boat can be, with mechanical systems largely confined to their own space and much of the hull volume dedicated to storage.
Another lesson I think MC demonstrates is the utility of an aft deck. It seems like a very effective platform for accomplishing various loading & unloading tasks at the stern while keeping the activity away from the relatively fragile bimini and wheel. Also, that bit of on-deck storage space you have just aft of the cabin top seems to go a long way toward keeping the decks seamanlike.
I wish more boats had this spacious “center cockpit beneath the boom with a large deck aft” layout, but as you know it’s pretty rare.
A bit of a rant: I’ll go out on a limb and say that the unseamanlike “festoon” we see on so many aft cockpit boats is partially due to so much cruising-oriented functionality being ignored in the early stages of design. All the extra equipment then ends up crowded onto the last few feet of the deck, competing with the many functions of the cockpit. (Even some of the Dashews’ sailing designs seem to suffer from this overcrowding, despite their length.)
I believe that if more designers expanded their design brief to include the totality of all the equipment and work that needs to occur off the stern of an offshore cruiser, we would see more designs with a layout like Morgan’s Cloud.
Rant over, and GLWS!
Scott Arenz
Atlanta, GA
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, I agree that the centre cockpit with a clear aft deck area works well. We have certaly found it great to stow a JFD and the liferaft securely and well out of the way, as well as a staging area for tasks like putting in shore fasts.
I guess the issue is that to get those benefits it seems that the boat needs to be around 48 feet or more.
Anyway, I certainly agree that most designs just simply ignore the reality of offshore cruising.
Hi John,
Some time ago you published an document on the “care and how to maintain an alloy yacht” based on you time with “Cloud” Please could you provide a link to this document as I need to read it.
Sorry for the inject on the theme.
Louis.
Hi Lois,
Just use the “Topics” menu to find this kind of thing. The other option is the search icon, top left. With those two features you can find pretty much anything in our archives, particularly since Phyllis and I did a complete reorganization last winter.
Hi John,
I would like to have your idea about forward looking sonar. Is it a valuable tool? Especialy in places like Labrador where electronic maps have no depth in many places.
Thank’s
Hi Guy,
Put Echopilot into the search box (magnifying glass on the menu) to find all of our posts on the subject.
How would you compare the FLS 2D and the Platinum from EchoPilot?
Hi Guy,
The Platinum is no longer available, so the comparison is kind of academic at this point. That said, the Platinum on our McCurdy and Rhodes died, just before I sold here, so I installed a FLS 2D and it seemed fine, although I only spend maybe ten minutes with it, just to check it worked for the new owner.
Wow thats a boat!
Hi Michael,
She certainly is. We were privileged to be owned by her for 30 years.