Building out the galley is the home stretch, but it will be a long home stretch.
The galley has been saved for last because it might prove to be the hardest space to build, but I'm ready to dig in.

Above you see the bottom of the pantry floor - looks like a skateboard with a rib along the center line.  The rib fits nicely in an aluminum track to keep the pantry rolling in a straight line.  

Above is the finished rolling pantry.  It fits the space perfectly and does not waste more than 1/2 inch in any direction.  The shelves are built custom for different size storage containers (canned food, grain bins, etc) and instead of mounting a handle on the outside I made a robust spice rack that is strong enough to double as a handle.   This whole project to me a good four days of cutting, epoxying, and assembling, but it takes us one step closer to prepping food in the back of the boat rather than on our desk up forward!

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I've had a few people email and congratulate me on the completion of our boat!

  Just to set the record straight, Sasha and I are not your typical boat owners.  We lack the time, money, and patience to leave our boat in the yard until it is "finished" so we decided to launch once the boat was livable and sea worthy.  Our boat met both criteria so we launched her, but we are only about half way through the building process.  

Our head is functional, and when we screw a garden hose to the sink faucet and pass it out the port light we have an outdoor shower.  If we remember to hook up the shower in the afternoon and let the hose sit in the sun for a couple hours we even get hot water showers!!

The stern section is still a wood shop +  fridge and freezer.  We have no immediate plans to move the shop until construction on the galley demands a change of venue.  

As we build our way from bow to stern life will continue to be more comfortable but we already love living aboard our little boat.  I shot a video  of the interior during our sail the other day. 

Watch the video here.  

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It's time.  

We've been shuffling around on the bare aluminum pilot house sole for months and we're finally ready for a real floor.  We decided to use three-quarter inch mahogany veneer plywood with a coat of epoxy (of course).  We went to the lumber yard during the Black Friday discount sale and all they had was five-eights.  We decided to buy the five-eights and are probably better off in the end because it fits perfectly.  

Unfortunately,  when you clear away a pile of very important junk on a small boat…. it does not go far.  So we are going to put in the floor one half at a time.

Next step was to cut and fit boards -- no pictures of that because it took all four hands to move these almost full sheets of wood around the boat!  Above is a photo when the starboard side floor was down,  and the port side is on the saw horses covered in wet epoxy. 

Finished product.  It's still a little hard to find the nice wood floors under all our tools and piles of parts, but they're there and they're done! 

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I have already talked about the new Grand Soleil 46 LC, that stands for long cruising, the first of a new line of boats. They will maintain the previous line, the GS, a more sportive one where they have a 46.
 http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2014/04/grand-soleil-46-lc.html

The GS line offers fast performance cruisers with great cruising interiors and certainly the 47 is a long range cruising boat but I understand Grand Soleil: They are on the business of selling boats and they have not sold many on the last years and they know that main market cruisers sell more than more expensive performance cruisers and that wives are normally determinant in what regards choosing a boat and wives look at boat interiors and care for little else. So this boat is about that, a bigger nicer interior and that means a beamier boat with a higher freeboard and probably a less expensive boat. For what I can see on the new movie the interior seems great and certainly will seduce a lot of wives ;-) being also a great interior for extensive living aboard with all comfort... and the new Grand Soleil will sail better than a Bavaria or a Beneteau, so, it can be the right choice regarding the family point of view.

But will sail worse than a Grand Soleil GS 47 and the 47 has already a great cruising interior even if slightly smaller than the one from the LC 46 that looks a bit nicer too. But if the interior of 46 seems nicer, on the outside it is the opposite, the 46 bigger freeboard makes it uglier . I would certainly try to convince my wive regarding having a 47 over the 46...but then there is the "small " question regarding price. Does anybody knows the price of the new LC46?

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In a small space like a boat there is rarley room to swing a door so we opted for sliding doors instead.  Harder to install?  Probably, but well worth the space savings.  While I made steps, Sasha worked on making and handing the door in the head.  The photo below does not do it justice but it's the best I could do.

The sliding door that separates the forecastle from the pilot house presented a couple problems.  1)  The ceiling is slightly curved and 2) there is a cut out in the ceiling that provides extra head space on the steps.  Not a problem for Sasha.  The door is shaped like an upsidedown "L" with points of attachemt on the two ends.  The curve of the celieng was slight enough that the cars still slid easily so we just bent the bottom track to the same arc.   

 

Door open.

 

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