Anonymous wrote:

However, the cockpit is coming together and you can see the latest photos on my blog, here.

AS always it looks great. As for bending the trim, have you tried the luthier's trick of using a hot pipe? A short 2 inch steel pipe with a torch set to put the flame through the centre of the pipe. Use the pipe to bend the wood against always moving the the contact point so that one part of the wood doesn't get to hot. (Yes that is how they put all those tight curves in a guitar body) Some discolouring is expected but should come off with a bit of sanding. The idea is not to apply a lot of pressure, firm is fine. Here is a demo.

He uses an electric pipe heater, but a torch inside will work too. I have seen them set with the pipe horizontal as well. IN your case you do not need to be as precise as these guys as you will be gluing and screwing it in place.

Anne Hill wrote:

As for the meths, while I can go into any village store and buy a litre, I don't want all the packaging.  I can take my 20l containers into Wynn Fraser and they will fill them with either meths or ethanol.  However, I don't want to be coming in and out of Whangarei every few weeks.  I actually will have 80 litres on board, but judging by past consumption, that will only last me for just over 6 months.  I must do a lot more cooking than you do!  But it will be nice to be independent of the city for months on end.

Interesting subject, the amount of spirit to carry.  As Annie says, it depends on how much cooking you do. I am a basic cook and I use about one litre a week.  But it is lucky we don't live in California.  If Cruiser's Forum is to be believed, the State Legislature of California has banned the sale of denatured alcohol and people with spirit stoves are howling with rage.  Some are threatening to start bootlegging from Nevada.

Yes, I agree. The Airhead that I had in Tystie came with such a 12V fan, and it was effective at extracting odours through a 1 1/2" hose.

This has reminded me that it would be a good idea to put an extractor fan + vent over the galley in Weaverbird, to deal with combustion fumes that I suspect of giving me a troublesome cough.

Extracting water vapour, combustion fumes and odours through a 1 1/2" skin fitting all seem to be worthwhile uses for these little 40mm fans, at a current draw of only ~ 100mA.

Anonymous wrote:

 I've given a certain amount of thought to additional ventilation in the boat.  While the Air-only dorade that I fitted should be adequate most of the time, I am concerned that in winter, with the boat shut up against wind and rain and the fire lit, there won't be sufficient air coming into the boat.  I have added a sort of dorade arrangement within the deck box.  Under the locker top and well inboard, it would take a catastrophe for water to enter - and I would probably have more to worry about than a few litres of water in the lazarette at that stage.  I used skin fittings - the pipe is very strong and glues into place with epoxy.  I just put them in temporarily for the moment, to make it easier to paint out the lockers.

Very good. I always intended to do that on Tystie, to ventilate the lazarette and reduce the amount of condensation in winter, but never got a Round Tuit.

A good way to get air moving through the boat is to use a small 12 volt DC brushless computer fan built into a vent. They are available in small diameters, are almost silent in operation and use only milliamps of power so can run constantly. They can be used to force air in or out.

Anonymous wrote:

 This  shows the port shelf with the locker for the meths containers also glued into place.  The latter appears to be at a crazy angle, but part of the idea is to make it easier for me to drag the full one towards me to swop for an empty one.  A 20litre container is quite a lot for me to manoeuvre around.

So is that 40 litres of meths you'll be carrying? When I unloaded the empty containers at the end of my summer cruise, I was surprised to find that I'd only used 10 litres in four months. Even allowing for your greater enthusiasm for on-board cookery, that'll be enough to get you to Alaska, easily!

Good place to stick some home brew.