Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Old Icebox and a good Sawzall aka Reciprocating Saw


Initially I really didn't want to fuss with the icebox. I was thinking to just caulk the cockpit hatch and screw it shut for the foreseeable future. But then I decided I wanted to change out the cockpit drain and deck scupper hoses.

Pic taken at arms length through the cockpit locker

OK no problem, just snake my way in to the port cockpit locker and remove the old hoses. HA, The Pearson brothers had a different idea mind, like never change them! I'm not a big guy by any stretch, 5ft 10inch, 150lbs, 29inch waist, 40inch shoulders and I couldn't get anywhere near a working position on those hoses. So remove the icebox! That at least will free up the port side.

The icebox was pretty easy to remove. First I took off the small top shelf, then seat back. With the seat back out there was a small piece of wood used hold the Icebox to a hull support. The only thing then was a couple screws that normally hold the engine cover in place. The front support bridges the icebox to the seat front.
Arrow shows the location where the icebox tied into the seat back.
Next was some serious yanking, twisting, pulling and shortly the whole box was sitting in the middle of the seat.

I thought about just hefting it out the hatch but a quick measurement said that wasn't going to work, so out came my Ryobi Reciprocating Saw from Home Depot, with a seriously bent blade from other abuses. A  Reciprocating Saw is one of those tools that doesn't get much use but when it's needed nothing else will really do the job. Well I suppose you could use a hand saw:)
2inch foam on a few sides. 
The foam insulation wasn't much. This shows the roots of the Triton as a day sailor. Well that and the fact that the cockpit lid for loading ice into the box just lays on top without any thing securing the lid. Just waiting to float away if the cockpit it ever pooped(filled with water from a braking wave).

Access to the ancient hoses. 
There we go ACCESS to the drain hoses!!! But this brings up another dilemma, I would like to make the cockpit lockers water tight like in James Baldwin's Atom. But if I put in a bulkhead where the back of the icebox was how will I access these hoses in the future??