The Saloon

The 'Saloon', such as it is, is really just the two settees with storage behind. Many Triton owners carve niches into this space to improve the onboard systems or storage space. My own desire is to run counter to this trend. I really want to keep two full length settees (6+ feet). I also don't want to crowd the space. Its a small boat. I don't want to make it even smaller by trying to shoehorn more 'stuff' in there. In my own experience, I find an open area on a boat is more useful anyway and is easily adaptable to the needs of the moment.

The settees

To that end, the plan has always been to keep the full length settees and improve storage behind and under them. Since insulating the hull was a confirmed part of the whole boat project, the first thing I had to do was cut out the settees so that I could gain access to the hull.

Under the settees, the insulation was installed ( for more info on the how you can visit the insulation page) and then a covering layer of 1/4 inch plywood was screwed down to provide a 'bottom' to the storage area under the settees. Then the whole area under the settee was primed with boiled linseed oil and three coats of white Bilgecoat paint.

When I cut out the settee bottoms I left about an inch of the original around the edges. This one inch lip became the attachment point for new settee bottoms made from 3/4 inch fir plywood. The originals were 1/2 inch plywood. Thicker is better right? For access, two panels in each side were cut out. Originally, there was a drawer in the forward end of each settees under the seating area. This square drawer was extremely wasteful of the curved area so I eliminated the drawer. After screwing in the settee bottoms I tabbed them in with six inch biax tape; not so much for the added strength but in case of water leakage, the water would be forced to flow out from the hull and not continue all the way down. I had a problem with leaking on my first cruise and it was annoying to have a leak up near the deck travel down the length of the hull to come out on my feet and soak everything along the way. This way a leak at the deck won't soak the contents under the settees. That's the theory at least. Then I oiled and painted the settee bottoms.

For the backrests, I cut out three supports on each side and tabbed them to the hull. When this was done, I attached fiddles to the supports to secure the liner that covered the hull insulation. Then I attached 1/4 inch plywood backs and oiled and painted like everywhere else.

With the pressure to launch increasing the settee project got put on hold. More coming...

The Cabin Sole

The cabin sole was pretty mushy when I got the boat and the hatches were getting ready to fail. I was also interested in putting a tank under the cabin sole so it seemed a good idea to just cut the sole out of the boat. That left a big gaping hole in the saloon with lots of headroom.

After the water tank was installed in the bilge area (see the plumbing section) I spent some time cleaning up the bilge - with my angle grinder. The builders were quite sloppy here and there were large drips of hardened resin that I wanted to clean up. There were two iron eyebolts imbedded into the ballast pig presumably meant to position the lead into the bilge at assembly. I didn't see a need to keep those eyebolts so I ground them off flush. Then I painted the bilge with Gray Bilgecoat which made the it look much nicer and cleaner. Before installing a new sole I added some small bulkheads to divide up the under-sole storage areas. The area right in front of the water tank is a 'cold storage' area - at least while cruising Maine and the Canadian Maritimes - so I glued down some small teak strips to keep food stuffs away from any water running through the bilge The idea of a completely dry bilge sounds impractical to me so my idea is to keep any moisture away from the stored goods and keep good channels for it to flow to the deep after sections of the bilge where it can collect and be pumped out. By the way, I also took efforts to keep channels open from stem to stern through the bilge for good airflow in an effort to keep the bilge from smelling like ... well, a bilge. I painted the forward bilge areas with White Bilgecoat just to make it look cleaner.

After a year or so of dealing with the deep hole in the cabin I took the time to cut out an under layer of 3/4 inch plywood. Getting the shape right took some time. There are no fair curves, there is no symmetry from side to side, and the angle from the hull to the cabin sole changes constantly and required a lot of fussy fitting. When the under sole was finally fitting well I took it out, and added a layer of fiberglass to the bottom of the plywood sole. I did this because I was worried about the area flooding and soaking the plywood, softening it just like the original. Hopefully, the bilge will stay dry but I have a friend with a Triton that has seen his sole hatches float away twice when the bilge completely flooded (a siphon in the bilge pump system was blamed). In that unlikely event my sole will be (mostly) sealed. To really go overboard I then added scrap pieces of insulation to the bottom of the sole. I am hoping this will help keep my bare feet from getting frosty when I first jump out of the V-berth. I don't like having cold feet. I don't know if the insulation will help much but it was extra and I figured it couldn't hurt. Then, I put the fir plywood undersole back in and tabbed it to the hull with 6 inch biaxial tape.

Note: It has been two years since the plyboo panel has been installed and I wanted to add a caveat in here.  Plyboo has a lot of organic materials.  What this means is that mold absolutely loves this stuff.  Leave it around for a week in a damp climate and it will be covered in mold spore.  You have to seal Plyboo well and quickly.  It has been an ongoing problem so far.  I still love the look but it isn't like other plywoods and care needs to be taken.

At some point I had to commit to installing the Plyboo and risk damaging it during further boat construction.  Its an unavoidable fact that the second something gets installed it starts taking minor damage. I do my best to limit the effects but I haven't had total success yet.  After deciding it was time for a commitment, I began by measuring and cutting out the access holes.  I cut the holes wider than the holes in the undersole so that the undersole would be the natural fiddles that support the cutouts.  As it turned out I didn't measure as well as I would like and the supporting lips around the cutouts are not at all symmetrical.  Oh well, they function fine and they are unnoticeable with the cutouts in place.

During the test fitting I realized that the tabbing along the edges was holding the Plyboo up off the rest of the undersole. I didn't want to fill that entire space with thickened epoxy so I laid down more tabbing in the clear spots just to create a more even surface for the Plyboo to sit on. With the cutouts made, I began the installation by mixing up a big pot of epoxy and coating the underside of the plyboo with clean epoxy and the undersole with a thick mixture of thickened epoxy.

and then it was time to squish it all down into position.  For weight I used five gallon buckets filled with water.  What I should have done was to fair the visible edges of the hull before I set the Plyboo panel into place.  I didn't think that far ahead though.  What I DID do was to apply epoxy with a sandable filler to the visible edges of the hull and around the cutouts since they were riding a bit low in their slots.

Next step was to paint the areas that had been faired with a color that matched as closely as I could get.  I am pretty happy with the results. The bad coloring on the sole is the result of sanding on the edges that took off the sealer coats previously applied.

Bulkhead modification

At some point in the project I started looking at that little 'nook' area on the forward starboard end of the saloon. The nook is the result of the two saloon forward bulkheads not lining up. Pearson originally installed a door between the saloon and the head/hanging locker area which I quickly abandoned as being too much clutter on a small boat. It seemed silly to have separate 'rooms' in only 8 feet of space. There is no privacy on a small boat anyway so why pretend? Anyway, the nook created matching doorposts for the door that was no longer there. Many Triton owners use this nook for book shelves or whatever and its a good use of the space.

The more I looked at it however, the more I wanted to open up the area. I find a Triton to be tiny and cramped and the more I could open up and de-clutter the better. I first took out the nook, and I liked the look right way. Then I got to thinking and eventually, after some consulting with a few fellow Triton owners, I took the plunge and cut into the bulkhead itself.

This bulkhead is not important to the structural integrity of the boat and is really there only to provide a separate space between the saloon and hanging locker. My hanging locker had been turned into an icebox (see the Icebox page) and the bulkhead had become unnecessary. Right away I liked the look and the increased openness in the saloon. It makes the boat somewhat less 'private' but as I have already mentioned, I don't think privacy exists on a boat this small.

And that is where the saloon project stands at the moment. The next step is really the final cosmetic panels on the bulkheads and settee backrests. This should provide a big impact to the overall look of the interior but alas I have no time to spare and the boat remains in the 'half-finished project boat' state. I am really looking forward to getting some panels in there soon.