onboard workshop

[oldboat]

i am looking at a few different hatteras boats for my next home, and i am wondering how you all have set up on board workshops on your boats. the boats i am looking at are the 52/53 sportfish and 53 my/yf.

 

[Boss Lady]

I would suggest a larger boat. LOL

 

[Maynard Rupp]

The 60' convertable has 6'4" headroom in the engine room and has a seperate room in front of that for a workshop. You do have to share that space with a washer and dryer however. Those boats have a tough and lower horsepower version of the DD 12-71 engines.

 

[luckydave215]

Not all of them have the lower horsepower engines. I wish mine did.

 

[Starman]

Know a man, we call him Capt Jim, who had used his boat as a workshop. He carves spoons, fish, birds ect......out of Cherry, cedar and other woods. I would give him small pices of teak and mahogany scrap for his projects.

The salon was filled with dremel tools, sanders, carving knives and a ton of sawdust.

Not sure if he is still doing this, or if he ever used the boat for "just boating" .

 

[oldboat]

thank you for the suggestions of the larger boat. i would love to have an old super-sixty sportfish, it is the boat of my dreams. that engine room and the utility room are superb. the problem in the sfo bay area is a limited number of slips.
i was just curious where you all work on stuff on your boats. where you would put a vise or perhaps a small workbench for when the boat needed a bit of maintanence. on my sailboat i used the dinette table and the kitchen counter which was not the best of solutions.
it looks like the second aft stateroom on the 53 my/yf could be used as a small workshop. i can't figure out where to put one on the sportfish.

 

[chris piazza]

Hey Maynard, I guess I should have got a 60' instead of the 53 that I have now because I have absolutely no place for a "workshop" I have a small area between the Genny and the air units that is about 5' wide but my headroom is only about 4 1/2'. I am forced to store tools and spare parts all over the boat. Big complaints from the admiral when she opens a galley drawer to find eight new Racor 2020's and a couple of impellers.


Chris
Superior Nights
53C

 

[MikeP]

Our 53 MY has plenty of room for tools but as far as a "workshop," the advice to "look for a larger boat" is correct!

I've spent a good bit of time on a 58LRC and it does have plenty of room for a workshop in the engine room but the regular 53/58MY with their dual eng rooms do not unless you intend to convert one of the guest staterooms. Even doing that won't really give you much space. The "main" guest stateroom might be ok if you removed the beds and water tank but I would personally never consider doing so.

 

[luckydave215]

My 60'C has a workshop, but it's small.
With the air conditioning pumps, inverter, isolation transformers, fresh water pumps/manifold/accumulator/heater, washer/dryer and a big freezer already in there, there's room for a nice big roll away toolbox, a nice stout work bench, drill press and grinder, or plenty of bin storage. Choose which one.
At least I can fiddle with things standing up, and I can use the top of the washer for a work surface.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

I try to take as much of the work off of the boat as possible. Why make a mess onboard, when it's something that you can do on the dock or in your garage?

 

[Angela]

Our 53 MY has plenty of room for tools

Where do you keep the tools? I'm using my 4th stateroom and head for a tool locker, and I need to get those out of there so I can start using that room for guests. I have almost the same boat in terms of engine rooms, storage, etc. I've got the 58MY. Ed wants to build a cabinet of some sort in one of the engine rooms, but it's so tight in there! When the engines are hot, I can hardly get around them (and I'm not a large person) without getting burnt. In fact, I use a cane to reach across the hot engines to flip the air conditioning breakers and the lever on the water pump. I'd like to see what others have done with the space in terms of tool storage. Thanks.

 

[Boss Lady]

Hey Ang,

when I got into redoing my vents for the higher HP engines, I really looked at the airflow issue in the engine room. The system we designed provides with the fans enough air to feed the engines when they are fully spun up, and when they are not the fans blow engine room air/heat out as exhaust. The fans will be switched on for after shutdown cooling of the engine room so no additional heat in the salon. I don't like hot engine rooms either.

 

[MikeP]

I wish I could post pics but all the pics are on my NY home computer; none are on my (new home) computer here in Mexico.

Basically I have a heavy duty plastic three drawer tool chest sitting on a "bench" that is located ouboard of the starboard engine. THe bench is mounted on top of a galley maid waste treatment unit which is mounted to the eng room floor. It doesn't badly obstruct the outboard aft side of the engine - at least it hasnt yet.

ALSO, I have another (plastic) 3 drawer chest mounted on a "shelf" on top of the starboard intercooler unit. A couple of brackets firmly mounts the chest and shelf to the HE. If you look at the HE mounting itself, you will see that it will have no trouble at all supporting the chest. You could add another on the port HE and have more space for tools than you'd ever need. THese ICs are good spots for this because placing the box there does not obstruct anything at all - except removing the intercoolers, of course.

With the tool boxes and using a few other storage areas, like under the master bed, I have every tool on the boat needed to do almost anything, including 3/4 drive sockets/breaker bars for the heavy stuff.

Now if could just figure outwhere to put the MIG welder...!

 

[Boatsb]

hobart makes a small mig the size of a large handheld tool box.

 

[thoward]

I have a 60' conv as well and you can not have much of a workshop in there. As far as tools, I found some hanging tool bags which work great. I keep sanders, grinders, drills, impact, hand tools, and don't get me started on the electrical connectors, nuts, bolts, clamps, straps......The bags work great and I have them in multiple locations so tools are never too far away.

 

[luckydave215]

I have a Craftsman "top box" bolted down in the pump room, and another in shelf on the aft bulkhead next to the inverter. They pretty much take care of all the tools on board.
The spare bulkhead space in the pump room have sewn hanging bags clipped to them for little stuff.....very handy and out of the way. Plus, I hate crap rolling around - everything in it's place.
My large spares/parts/filters are stored in shelves/bins bolted to the hull outboard of the mains. They're pretty large, and not in the way at all when sitting on a stool outboard of an engine polishing something or other.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Where is the source for the hanging tool bags, I would like to get some of those?

I have less space than you guys, because the boat is so much smaller. I have drawers full of spares, plus two tool boxes- one for mechanical stuff like wrenches etc, and a whole separate box for electrical tools, meters, wire, etc. Over the last year I have weaned myself from the idea of having every tool I own on the boat (the table saw got in the way when I wanted to take a shower ), and tried to cut down to just what I needed to have for maintenance and emergencies.

When we moved the house batteries aft under the deck, just behind the main bulkhead, I left one of the battery boxes, the port one, in the engine room. For a long time I used it to store messy stuff like the oil change pump, funnels, etc. Then I moved the starting batteries and the genset battery into it- an 8D case holds three Gr24 batteries nicely. And we put an oil change system in. It's hard finding room for all this. If I have to make anything out of wood for the boat, I just make a sketch, drive home (15mins), shape it, and bring it back to the boat and finish-fit it with sandpaper etc. The only boats I've ever seen that had real workshops on them were trawlers, but with what they are trying to accomplish in the way of voyaging, they OUGHT to have a real workshop.

 

[Starman]

On a Hatt down in wilmington, we made a frame work out of 2" aluminum angle, supported on the inboard wall and suspended from the ceiling so the tool box ( a multi drawer craftsman ) was about 12 inches above the engine.

It was near the aft ER door , stb side ER. In that room he also has a small table in front of the engine with a small vice and another toolbox, same set up, but smaller.

On the aft wall he had an aluminum box built with all those small plastic trays for all those tiny nuts/bolts/ screws/fuses ect........

 

[luckydave215]

When I had the canvas guy out to the boat to measure for the new bridge enclosure, I took him into the pump room to make me a snap on cover for the shelves that hold the spray cans and other stuff I don't want to spill / fall off in heavy weather. (I saw Ross's, liked the idea, and stole it)
The hanging bags were the canvas guy's idea, and a damn good one. Since they're custom made, they fit the available space on both sides of the engine room door like a glove, and look great. I had him make them out of that "sunscreen" material that I have over the salon windows, but in white instead of black. They match the color of the awlgrip on the pump room bulkheads, and you can see through them a bit so it's easier to find things.
I keep fragile things in the pockets, like multimeter, IR thermometer, flashlights, pad and pencils, etc that seem to get damaged in tool box drawers.

 

[(Nobody You Know)]

Dear "Oldboat" guy,

depending on how big a boat fits into your budget this will decide how much space can be devoted to a "workshop" (allowing that with due regards to boating there can never be such a thing as ample space for properly working on and servicing failed equipment. Having a tug pushing a barge with a fully equipped machine shop and SS parts room may only come close to satisfying the need.

That said, your only practical choice is to follow the path of other exerienced boaters and IMPROVISE. Depending on the space you have at your disposal (per LOA) will determine how much of a "workshop" you can facilitate.

I digress, a piece of plywood laid over a wet bar makes a great work bench, and sometimes at the right height. Be creative in stuffing tools and parts in the many crooks and cranny of the staterooms, salon, and bilge.

The thing to remember is that, unless you win the Power Ball, you must strive to achieve a certain level of satisfaction in boating from your creative ability to accomplish more than mere self preservation.

Damn I'm good