Refit Three- The last one.
 At least, thats what he promised me!

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Personally, I blame Iron Maiden. Or Birmingham. Or perhaps a lethal combination of the two.

We went to see the Rock legends at the NEC in October 2006. While the gig was unfortunately nothing to get excited about, we had managed to pass a couple of hours before the show in a pub. The trouble started when we found the napkins.
We spent a happy time doodling on these napkins about all the changes we'd make to our beloved (and newly restored) boat if we had the time, money and energy. Please remember that we have only had her back in the water for 2 months and it was now officially winter.
So this whole conversation was only dreaming, speculation and a bit of fun. Obviously.

Still, a spark had been lit, and it as only after Kat had to extract a promise not to do anything until April 2007 that we realised these plans had somehow become fact- that we really were planning to rip apart our boat again. And this time we were serious!

We spent a pleasant Christmas with family, and celebrated New Year on the boat. We wrote our 'clean slate' lists, thought about resolutions to make and break and had just tuned in the antenna of the TV to watch the fireworks over London when Jason picked up a hammer...

...and smashed down the wall between the forecabin and saloon. "Well sweet, we'll have to rebuild it now."

Quite.

I have a cunning plan!

First of all, we took down the wall between the fore cabin and the saloon area- well, it was already half destroyed! We attached the door to the support post for the mast and moved the entire wall aft to this post- giving us an extra 2ft of bedroom. This space went into extending the bed by a foot (- a 7ft bed, what joy!) and to creating both a wardrobe and a cupboard for clothes and linen. It also provided us with more book shelves on the tops- happy days.
We made new walls using marine ply and expanding foam- hate hate hate that stuff! We re-headlined, re-wired lights and made a black-out blind for the forehatch.

Just for reference, the picture of the saloon is facing forwards., with the forecabin behind the door. This is the wall we moved. We then took out the settees and created a galley down the port side and made a wall on the starboard side which became our new heads. The pictures below show the wall for the new heads.

We moved the toilet (while the boat was in the water- as you do) and wallpapered our new bathroom. Its a fully enclosed shower room, with a waterproof lip all around. It feels like a sauna after a shower- very nice!
Kat is 6ft and was tired of having to work in a galley whose surfaces just about reached her knees. Its little things like this which you don't look at in a boat, and which can make a huge difference to your comfort level- and your reluctance to cook! Here we raised the worktops, moved the sink and changed it for a bigger one, added cupboards and created more storage space. The old toilet was cleaned out and has now become a larder (which we call skoda)
At the back we..... wait for it... cut the top off the aft cabin and turned it into our main saloon. We widened the space between the two sides, to allow for leg room when sitting. It was great to sit in there when the rain was pelting down- very dramatic! This story gets funnier when you hear that Jay was underneath the roof, merrily cutting it away with his chainsaw, when he suddenly realised he was right back at the beginning again, having cut all the way around and now it was free and he had to lift it off. And couldn't. The thing weighed about a tonne! Between the two of us we managed it- but there's a great example of complete lack of planning!