S/V Wildthing: Main Salon Cabinets

I was able to get down to see the boat at the end of April. I had some meetings in Jacksonville earlier in the week and drove down for the weekend to see Brad and Carla. The spring time weather in Florida was beautiful.

Brad had been sending a few photos but I had to check on the progress of the cabinets in the main salon. Kevin the master carpenter was hard at it fashioning cabinets and face frames above the main salon settees. The previous cabinetry had taken on water from the leaky hatches and cap rail and basically disintegrated. They were all torn out, the bulkheads and hull were painted and insulated and the new cabinets are going back in.

Brad is in charge of varnishing the woodwork once Kevin gets them fabricated. The cabinet liners were all put in with ringed screws to allow them to be removed if needed to access chain plates and wiring. I was very impressed with the look and finish of the new cabinets. Brad has a lot more varnishing to do this summer and the plan is to have Kevin come back in the fall and mount everything.

The flooring and headliner will also be tackled this fall. They are using 1/4 inch Sintra PVC for the headliner, which is a plastic product, so there will no rotting or taking on moisture. The headliner has already been grooved and just needs to be cut into panels and fitted.

There is still a lot of work left but I was glad to see major progress this winter. The pictures below show the dry fit of all the cabinets. They still need to be varnished which will give the Maple wood a warm honey colored finish. The vertical slatted Tambour will be applied to all the bulkhead to finish them off similar to the aft cabin and pilothouse.

Brad is having the deck crew back to finish painting the pilot house and the cockpit area the first week in May. More pictures of that to come later!