Ventilation: Bad

Never thought you'd hear me say that?

When you are a liveaboard, and you live in Seattle, having your weather boards equipped with those ever-present teak slats is not a good thing - they let a lot of heat escape in the winter.

The Previous Owner addressed the problem by gluing a scrap of thin Plexiglas over the slats with (yes) silicone.  It was an ugly solution, but it did keep the heat in, and we had other priorities - it stayed like that for years.

Until, that is, the lower weather board (no slats - to the upper right in the picture) levitated itself in a seaway and dropped into the cabin.  Tho this did amazingly little damage to the cabin sole, it did break some joints in the weather board.  OK, so now there was a need to put the weather boards to the top of the list.

I repaired the broken joints with epoxy, and the loose joints in the larger, upper board as well.  I pulled off the Plexiglas, scraped off the silicone and removed the slats. 

The wood is 3/4" thick, so the plan was to use 1/4" on the inside and outside for flanges to trap 1/4" Plexiglas.  For safety, since pressure from a boarding sea will be from the outside, I decided that the solid flange should be on the inside.

I used a 1/4" rounding over bit in my router to make a finished edge on the inside of the opening.  And then a 1/4" rabbit bit to make a 1/2" deep 1/4" rabbit on the outside.  To make the outer molding, I used the 1/4" rounding over bit again on a teak scrap, and then sawed off the rounded edge, making a piece of 1/4" quarter round.  Bedding the Plexiglas in polysulphide, I installed the outer trim molding I had just made with small brass brads.

Six coats of polyurethane (what you see happening in the picture) finished the project.

---

Note: we have not made any changes to the weather board "stowage" (the boards just lay on a pad on the cabin top next to the sliding hatch) which caused this project to be bumped up in priority, so if anyone reading this has a good solution for storing weather boards under way, I really need to hear about it.  Add it as a comment, or submit it as a project, please.  Thanks.