FITTING OUT APPUSKIDU
ON DECK
Appuskidu came from Ullswater where she was used for day sailing only and was therefore pretty much as the maker (McNulty Boats) had supplied her a couple of years before to a rather basic spec. Apart from rather nice patterned Dacron bunk cushions, cockpit floor boards, a hollow mast and a swinging cradle trailer, the only extra she had was anti-fouling which was removed as soon as I could arrange it.
Fitting her out for cruising and rallies has occupied the weekends of three Spring fitting out seasons and as I have learned from the boats of many other Drascombers (with particular mention of Tom Richardson), so in turn others may wish to see what has been done to Appuskidu.
Outside, starting from the front :
1. Forestay fixing
At the very front of the boat is a snap shackle on the stemhead fitting which engages the eye at the bottom of the forestay. When I am standing on the foredeck and hauling the mast up I don’t want to be messing around with shackle pins. If I could do only one mod on a Coaster or Lugger it would be this one. The extra length is taken care of by shortening the adjuster at the top of the forestay.
2. Anchor & Rally cleats
I fitted the usual bulls-eye fairleads to take the crosswise rod part of the of the Danforth anchor flukes. A bungee over the top prevents sideways movement when trailing. In a steep chop the blades would bang up and down so iroko blocks were stuck to the deck with bathroom silicone sealant. I shall use sikaflex or similar next time as the bathroom sealant only sets around the edge. The iroko block that the top of the stock sits in has a bungee tie down and the block for the blade tips has a turnbuckle. You will see that the anchor is stowed at an angle to the centreline of the boat. This keeps the centre cleat free and allows more foredeck space. If you are not into DIY, Churchouse boats list a modestly priced ready made anchor stowage block in teak.
When rafting up to lots of other Drascombes at rallies it is helpful to have extra cleats available so I fitted a teak cleat on either side at the bow and another pair at the stern. These are bolted through the gunwale with 6mm stainless machine screws.
3. Anchor Rode
The main anchor rode is 10 metres of 6 mm chain and 35 metres of 10 mm anchorplait. It is all contained in a plastic box whose original use was to soak pre-glued wallpaper. The box is cut down to the same level as the gunwale and located on the forward end of the side deck where it is placed to allow the oars to lie inboard next to the cabin top. The bottom is drilled for drainage and the side is screwed to the gunwale with large penny washers spreading the load. A couple of bungee sail ties around the box keep the rode in place. When I retire I shall make a nice wooden box but for the moment this one serves very well and as you can stand on the top of the rode it actually makes the side deck easier to walk on.
Number two anchor is a plough type which lives with its rode in the cabin in front of the centreplate case where its weight is as far forward as I can get it. A piece of plastic drain pipe cut down one side lives in the lazarette. This protects the gunwale in the event that either anchor has to be deployed or recovered from the cockpit.
4. Breakwaters
The scuppers on fibreglass
Drascombes are rather small and if green water comes on board it takes a long
time for the water on the cockpit seats to drain overboard. When Jim Hopwood
was helming Appuskidu on the way back to Falmouth from the Helford
river, beating hard into a choppy sea on a breezy day, water came onto the
forward decks a couple of times and then sloshed back onto the cockpit seats.
The scuppers could not cope and a lot ended up in the cockpit well and was
pumped out. The water on the cockpit seats took a long time to drain out. I
remembered that Longboat Cruisers have a breakwater on the side decks at the
aft end of the cabin. Thinking about this in discussion with Jim it was
apparent that such a breakwater on a Coaster might be a good idea. If it had a
hole smaller than the scupper, the water could be kept on the foredecks and
allowed back only as fast as the scupper could let it out. Appuskidu now sports
a fine pair of such breakwaters. They are fitted near the aft end of the cabin
on the side deck just before it slopes down to the cockpit. These have worked
well so far but a possible future job is to improve the scupper arrangements.
However, this breakwater mod has to be considered as experimental since I have
yet to plug the breakwater drains, totally fill the foredeck with water and
test stability.
5. Mast
The picture of the tabernacle shows the addition of both a purchase for the down haul and a cowl over the exit of the masthead electrics cable. The single downhaul purchase makes it easier to get a tight luff for blowier days. The cowl, although it does look pretty, is actually there, not for appearance but rather to protect the masthead light cable from the yard parrels.
6. Cabin top cleats
Here the standard horn cleats for Main Halliard and Downhaul have been replaced by Barton cam cleats - because they make life much easier and quicker for single handed sailing.
7. Spray hood
The spray hood in cream acrylic canvas
was supplied by Stewart at Churchouse boats. This has
proved to be a near essential extra for coastal sailing and a couple of tweaks
have improved it further. The first was to use side entry style racing Clam
cleats to secure the tie downs. This makes it a breeze to quickly put the hood
up and down - even with one hand on the tiller. The second was the addition of
a Grab Rail. This was prompted by the loud splash in the dark when someone
crossing the raft of boats at a Beaulieu rally went into the water. To fair he
was quite merry at the time and suffered only a wetting. The rail however has
proved a godsend as it provides a comfortable handhold when stood up at the
helm batting into a chop or surfing down following seas. It is also great when
getting in and out of the boat or undertaking the dangerous task of going forward in the middle
of the night when anchored with the cockpit tent up.
The grab rail is home bent from the same kind of 19mm aluminium that the spray hood frame is made of. The ends are attached with readily available spray hood fittings and the stand offs are made from cord lashings which collapse when the hood is folded to allow the mast to lie over in its usual way.
A further mod I would make to the spray hood is to change the way the hood is secured to its frame above the window. It was suggested to me by another member that if you use flaps with 50mm Velcro, the hood can be folded without creasing, and eventually cracking, the window.
8. Bridge Deck cleats
I have uprated the centreplate
sheave box and uphaul rope to 8mm and fitted a cam
cleat on an iroko block. This has been very
worthwhile and I understand from Stewart that this mod is common in the
The Jib sheet cleat has also been uprated to a Barton cam cleat from the standard clamcleat. The reason in this case is that my thicker than standard jib sheets fall out of the clamcleat in light airs when they are flapping about. There is a down side which is that in strong winds there is a knack to giving yourself the tiny bit of slack you need to get the rope to engage in the cam cleat. The “keeper” for clamcleats is not yet available for this size but if it does become available it may be worth trying that instead.
9. Compass Mounting
I am very happy with the popular Plastimo Contest 101 compass I have fitted but there was a little problem. The back face of the cabin bulkhead where I planned to mount it was not quite at a right angle to the centre line of the boat. I discovered that I needed 2mm of packing on one side. A teak offcut from the transom nameplate was worked with a belt sander to make a tapered backing plate which removes the few degrees of error.
10. Cockpit stowage
There is a need for keeping all sorts of bits and pieces to hand in the cockpit. My solution is a plastic box designed for screwing to the back of kitchen cupboard doors. It probably came from IKEA but I think it looks well on my cream boat mounted as it is on the other side of the cabin door from the compass and I am not sure that I will replace it with wood. It has keyhole shaped screw holes so it can be lifted off its screws and put into the cabin with its contents (VHF, GPS, Camera etc) when leaving the boat briefly unattended.
11. Cabin ventilation & security
When the washboards are in and the hatch shut, no air circulates in the cabin. This was cured with a circular stainless steel louvered vent with a matching “hit and miss” vent on the inside. There is also a small hasp and padlock to secure the lid to the top washboard. This is still not very secure but it is a more visible deterrent than the one at the top front of the hatch.
12. Lazarette Floorboards
The trick with these is to make them so that they “lozenge”
and will thus fit through the lids. They have cut outs to fit around the log
and depth transducers which are 
fitted hard against the front
bulkhead of the lazarette. They consume a remarkable
amount of wood which in my case is cheap(ish)
mahogany substitute from the local builder’s woodyard.
There is also a chock fitted which serves to trap the fuel tank against the rear
bulkhead of the locker. Sideways movement of the tank is prevented by a stout
bungee strap which conveniently locates through the slats of the floorboards.
The 5L reserve container is secured likewise. Note that the front of the lazarette is sealed (see ‘lids’ below) which prevents
petrol fumes from migrating to the cabin but requires separate ventilation.
13. Lazarette Lids
This subject is a whole article in itself (See separate page for details and photos) but in summary the lids are hinged at the outboard edge and secured with special latches. Water ingress is prevented by self adhesive sealing strip under the lids where the lids sit on the lip around the hatch opening. The tubes to the cabin bilge (which also led the old lid securing cords forward) are now redundant and are plugged.
14. Main Sheet Horse
My Coaster has the Barton track
which is now standard in lieu of the old scaffold pole. However, on this early McNulty
boat, the mainsheet tail led over the top of the track which did not work very
well. Later boats had the moulding changed to raise the track high enough to
fit a bulls-eye fairlead underneath. To get my track higher I steamed a length
of 1.25” square teak and fitted it under the track. This worked very well in
use but getting it to fit the curve of the deck was a devil of a job. (It was
only later that Douglas Elliott told me that teak doesn’t respond very well to
steaming) It was apparent that my teak longbow was trying to straighten out the
deck so the next winter I had to replace it with the laminated teak version
which now graces the aft deck. Copper central heating pipe (flared with a ballpein hammer into a countersunk hole in the teak using
the vice) serves in place of the bulls eye fairleads. 22mm pipe for the
mainsheet and 15mm pipe for the mizzen sheet.
15. Main Sheet Jammer
For the same reason as the jib sheet cleat (see bridge deck cleats), I uprated the clamcleat on the tiller to a cam cleat mounted on a shaped Iroko block but in this case I used one of the tufnol cleats I had bought to replace the lugger’s jib sheet cleats before I discovered that I could “sharpen” the old ones. I also moved the fairlead as far back as I could get it on the bronze whilst still being able to screw through the bronze into wood.
16. Tiller Extension
This is the same style of teak extension that I made for my Lugger, planed into a curve to match the curve of the tiller and with a little “T” piece at the end. The extension is normally used to work the tiller from a position at the side of the cockpit but this extension has an extra trick. The extension was held in the fully forward position and then drilled through for a drop nose pin. When the pin is in position, the tiller is in effect given a locked rigid extension to make it easy to steer from the front of the cockpit, when you are beating to windward sitting on the bridge deck and sheltering under the spray hood.
17. Tiller brake
This season my tiller pilot failed (which is another story
that shows the makers – Simrad - in an appallingly
bad light) so I tried again to organise a suitable tiller brake. The bracket
for the tiller pilot prevents the use of the dinghy cruising association
preferred solution and I wanted finer 
control than a “comb” would allow
so I went into experimental mode. The first idea was a piece of teak under the
tiller shaped like half a dolly clothes peg to jam an athwartships
rope. This looked nice but it broke after relatively little use. The next idea
was to put a bulls-eye fairlead under the tiller, oriented with its hole pointing fore and aft so that the rope across the boat
has to make two 90 degree turns to pass through it. Tensioned with a short
piece of shock cord at one end of the rope this worked well but I wanted to be
able to get the rope out of the way when not in use. One of Mr Holt’s open base
nylon fairleads with stainless steel liner solved the problem. First a piece of
a Sea-Sure stainless steel strap was secured under the tiller to protect the
wood from the friction of the rope. Over this the fairlead was screwed at one
end only. Turned against a stop at the other end it is “closed” with the hole
in working position facing fore and aft and the pull of the rope keeps it that
way. Turned out to the side of the tiller it is “open” to allow the rope to be
inserted or removed. There is a knack to getting the rope in the right way
around but it is soon learnt.
18. Mizzen Boom
On the Lugger I found I could
reach the Bumpkin reasonably well and in any case I usually had family on 
board to take the helm whilst I
shipped or unshipped it. When I got the Coaster I found that when sailing
single handed it could be a dodgy process to leave the helm and crawl to the
stern on my hands and knees when I had remembered at the last minute to bring
it in whilst I manoeuvred on to a crowded pontoon. The result was to copy some
other Coaster owners and fit a mizzen boom so that all I have to do is to pull on
the topping lift to scandalise the mizzen and eliminate overhang in one simple
movement.
The boom is fabricated from a piece of Mk 1 Lugger yard but
I made it a bit too slim. The sheet attaches in the middle causing the boom to
bend when the wind approaches force 5. The bend was sufficient to give cause
for concern. This problem was effectively cured by a wire strop which spreads
the sheet attachment load over two points far apart and effectively doubles the
strength of the boom whilst leaving it still looking 
attractively slender. The gooseneck
comprises a simple S hook with a plastic bush to reduce the eye diameter where
the pin goes through, a couple of deck eyes with a bit of laminate to protect
the mast where the hook bears in the deck eyes and a couple of re-drilled
Sea-sure stainless straps to reinforce the slot in the mast end of the boom.
19. Mizzen Mast
(length)
Normally the foot of the mizzen sail can brush the top of the outboard when it is tilted up for sailing. No harm comes of this with the normal bumpkin arrangement. However, with a wooden boom swinging below the foot of the sail the outboard would get a bad headache! To obtain the necessary clearance, the mizzen mast has to be lengthened. Eight inches seems to be about right. Stresses on the top few inches of the mizzen mast are not great so the scarf only needs to be of moderate length. Some more of my Mk 1 Lugger yard was used - showing up the difference in colour between the old Columbian pine and the current spruce spars.
20. Bumpkin Hole
If the Lazarette was to remain dry now that the bumpkin is not in use, the hole that the inboard end of the bumpkin buts into had to be sealed. To do this a rectangle of iroko was placed inside the hole and turned so that it would bridge the hole. A square of iroko sized to cover the outside of the hole was backed with gasket material then screwed into and against the rectangular piece.
21. Fuel
My tank is kept in the lazarette with appropriate precautions. My hose needed to pass into the lazarette from the outboard well. A hose was made up with enough length so that the tank can be lifted onto the deck before disconnecting it so that any spillage from the connections ends up above deck. To achieve a good seal, the hole from the outboard well into the locker was drilled slightly undersize. The end of the hose was then sliced at an angle to make a long point and the lubricated hose pulled through with pliers.
Don’t keep the tank in the lazarette if you have any electrical connections in any airspace where petrol fumes can get and in any case make sure that the area is well ventilated. In fact the only really safe place for the fuel tank is on deck, especially if you make the Lazarette lids seal and latch. (I am experimenting with ventilators and remote tank vents)
If you make up or modify fuel leads or have them made up for
you, beware that there is a problem with the metal rings that are used to crimp
the ends of the hose onto the connectors. Order
some stainless ones from Bosunsmate.co.uk. As well as stainless, Andy also sells
the black nylon ones if you don’t feel confident to close the metal ones with
side cutters. (Unfortunately Andy now seems to have stopped trading,
but the black nylon ones are getting easier to find)
22. Sculling Rowlock
The overall cover that I tow with fouls the sculling rowlock if I leave it shipped so the rowlock has the traditional securing toggle and lanyard which is made long enough to allow the rowlock to live in a couple of pipe clips fixed to the inside of the transom. The regular rowlocks are also clipped into place to prevent movement when towing.
23. Name Board
Now that she has a mizzen boom, the holes in the Transom for the bumpkin and mizzen sheet were redundant and unsightly. The solution was a name board in ¼” x 5” teak cut to a pleasing shape and left over the winter cramped into a greater curve than the transom. In the spring it sprung back partially but it held enough curvature to allow it to easily be brought into the right shape on the boat. Its back was then pitted and heavily abraded and the transom likewise. Some acetone was applied to reduce the surface resins and after this dried the board was spread with epoxy and cramped onto the transom. After applying the name I later treated it first with Deks Olje 1, then Deks Olje 2 to give it a smart finish.