Forepeak planning...

You can just about see the hawse pipe in front of the windlass

Moving forward from the heads compartment, you come to the V-berth, which, other than the slightly mouldy upholstery, appeared at first glance to be in good nick. I really wanrted to get this compartment right, as this would serve as my main berth whilst onboard her and wanted it to be as comfortable as possible. The previous owner had lived onboard for short while, and had obviously found the forward cabin to be quite cold, as stuck to the deckhead was a aftermarket insulation that had now begun to collect water and thus needed removing.

The other reason this needed to be removed was so I could re-engineer how the anchor drop worked. Originally the anchor had fallen down through a spurling pipe, down into the bunk and into the anchor locket below the bed, but in order to gain more leg room, the previous owner had cut this out and installed a hawse pipe in front of the windlass by the foot of the bowsprit. This meant, to haul up the anchor, you had to winch it up on the the deck and then manually push it down through the hawse pipe, where it fell through the locker in front of the berth and then down into a locker space further forward of the original design. Now nothing in itself is wrong with this set up, however, when I bought her, she didn't carry much chain at all, so the weight distribution wasn't being effected that badly by moving the chain dump forward. I plan to anchor more that I have to berth in a marina with Antares, and I am planning on adding a lot more chain, thus it is necessary to move it aft and lower in the vessel so she is trimmed better.

What little chain there is, flaked out

The mattresses went out first, then once again the seemingly endless lockers were emptied, cleaned, and sorted into the bin or keep piles. Next came the anchor chain. once that had been lowered fully down, the bitter end cut away from its strong point and the chain flaked and the anchor warp stowed away properly, I could get a full grip on the forward chain dump. I think i shall leave the windlass where it is currently, but I shall have to devise a way of allowing the chain to drop unaided down below, whilst not taking up too much leg room with a spurling pipe and obviously making it all water tight. But that is a project for another day. Another item that was removed from under the forward bunk, was electric calorifier that took up the whole of the starboard side.

Whilst having a bit of a look into the void space in front of the berth, I had leaned against the veneered plywood hull liner to brace my weight as I tried to shuffle in, and with a sickening splitting noise, it gave way. F*** it. This time the issue wasn't water ingress but the delamination of the plywood over time. I had made a nasty crack in it and could see that there was no point in trying to save or repair it, so spent a rather satisfying hour, quite literally punching holes through the lining and then simply ripping it out. Once it was removed and I had cleaned up the worst of the debris, it dawned on me that this was no bad thing, I could see and access the forward chainplates far easier now and could see that they would need to be beefed up, I also now had the opportunity to insulate the hull properly before installing a hull liner of my choosing and could now build a set of lockers along the top of the bunk, which would be needed for clothing.

The aftermath of stripping the cabin. You can clearly see the removed headlining that will need to be cleaned away further and the old entry point where the original spurling pipe went.

So, the saloon was now emptied as far as practical, the fire place and gas stove gone, the deck lockers had also been emptied, under all the bunks and settees were now clear, the heads had been completely removed, the forepeak's liner had been ripped out, but there was still more to remove. As I had been going along with the ripping out and throwing away bits, I had come to the conclusion that I was going to have to totally re-wire her.... the bodges that had been found, coupled with obvious signs of corrosion made this necessary. The plumbing was also going to need a revamp. Garden hose pipe had been used for the most part, and whilst i'm sure this is a cheap, functional way of doing things, they are not rated for domestic purposes and therefore not considered food safe and would need to be replaced with the proper rated pipe work. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I was toying with the idea of converting her to cooking with paraffin, rather than explosive gas, and when rootling through the deck lockers, and having seen the state on the gas pipes, my decision was made - they were buggered, and yes, I could have just replaced the pipes, but if i'm going to do this project how I want it, then I wont be cutting corners...... paraffin it is. The diesel heater was also removed, along with the relevant pipe work and ducting. This had been installed in the small lazarette behind the mizzen mast, and unfortunately the wooden hatch above it had warped and split, allowing rain water to penetrate. The heater itself didn't appear to be too badly corroded, but i'm hoping to be able to save at least some of it as I want to reinstall it later on.

It has been a busy, dirty, hot and sweaty few days down here on Antares, but she is now nearly empty enough to start on the major works that are needed. I have to return to work for the next few weeks so wont be back onboard her till early August, but when I return, the last few things need to be removed, water tanks ect, shes will need a bloody good clean inside and then its on with the main order of the day - removing that knackered old stink pot...........