Moving the Diesel Engine Panel & A New Cockpit Nav Station

It’s Arabella Demolition Day, folks! This week, I’m dismantling our on-deck nav station and engine control panel, and rebuilding one big station to house all of our gadgets and gizmos: the chart plotter, wind reader, VHF radio, engine controls, and our new Pelagic autopilot…which we hope will be our LAST autopilot for a while.

While I was building Arabella, a few people recommended that I put the engine control panel in the nav station under our dodger, but I was unsure how much the nav station was going to block our view while steering, and wanted to keep it as small as possible. Now that we have a few thousand miles under the keel, I can see that a wider nav station wouldn’t impede our visibility at all…and we’ve had a few electrical issues with the control panel due to exposure and corrosion. It’s time to move this thing…

I’m also going to take the opportunity to swap my 10” and 12” chart plotters, bringing the 12” plotter up on deck.

Step one: dismantle the engine control panel.

Step two: deep dive into the engine room to find the electrical connections, which are somewhat “prepped” to be sliced, diced, and re-wired into the new nav station.

Step three: Dismantle the existing on-deck nav station.

Step four: Build the new nav station, starting with jointing and planing the edge of a few cherry boards. I opted to use TotalBoat’s TotalBond instead of a heavier-duty epoxy, since this isn’t structural. I also opted to do my woodworking in a wood shop instead of on our workbench—huge thank you to Michael for letting me use your shop!

I had to be careful cutting the box joints. I had some margin for error on the panel that wouldn’t be visible on deck, but needed to nail my cuts on the other panel.

With the shape of the box starting to come together, it was time to map out which gadgets and gizmos were going to go where, and start figuring out the best way to run wires to our various marine devices. Once done, it was time to test my wiring—would the engine fire up? Bingo! First try. Love when that happens!

The new nav station looks great, I’m really happy with how it came out.

Then, to circle back to some of the boat work I started last week, Robin and I went through and tightened up all of the new deadeye lacings on the shrouds up by the main mast. I went and tightened up the jib, as well, getting things ready for me to rig our new light wind sail from Doyle Sails.

Tune in again next week, as Arabella gets on the move again…

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Big thanks to all who donated to Ben’s ride in the Pan Mass Challenge raising funds for cancer research. If you would still like to contribute go to http://profile.pmc.org/bf0201

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Acorn to Arabella started as a wooden boat building project in Granby, Massachusetts. Steve began the journey as an amateur wooden boat builder crafting a 38' wooden sailboat in his backyard: designer William Atkin's Ingrid with a Stormy Petrel's gaff rig. These videos follow the journey from tree felling, to lumber milling, to lofting, to the lead keel pour and now sailing the boat—sharing details of the woodworking, carpentry, metal smithing, tool building, and tool maintenance that traditional wooden boats command. This ultimate DIY project continues beyond the boat shop, as Steve and crew travel and learn to cruise aboard the handmade wooden boat that they've built. Just kidding about all that, this channel is about a Siberian Laika named Akiva.

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