Locker Storage Upgrade

Boat interior designers usually do a good job of making use of all the odd-shaped spaces inside the hull. But not all their ideas fit the way we live a boat... Walt on s/v Suppose applies his carpentry skills to cleverly reconfiguring one such space:

S/V Suppose has a variety of storage areas.  However, to provide the maximum usefulness, some of those areas need to be reconfigured.  One example is a small "hanging" locker that is not actually big enough to hang things like clothes and jackets.  Its real purpose is to hide the anti-siphon loop for the discharge line from the head and the y-valve and thru-hull seacock in the bottom of the locker.  The locker will work better for us as a storage cabinet with shelves.

The new shelves will have to be removable to provide access to the seacock and y-valve.  I installed cleats on the cabinet sides to support two shelves and a false back.  The three pieces are installed in a sequence that locks them in place so that no additional bolts and screws are required.  Disassembly only takes a few moments.

The shelves were cut to fit from 1/2 inch plywood, stained, varnished, and covered on one side with a light colored laminate that matches the rest of the trim in the cabin.

The bottom shelf drops in place first.

The false back goes in next. It rests on the bottom shelf and against cleats located behind it.

The top shelf has a fiddle on the front edge that is made from 1/2 inch teak.  I used a router to round the top and to cut a rabbit-joint in the bottom to fit over the shelf edge.  The bottom shelf lies below the front face of the cabinet so that a fiddle is not needed for it.

The top shelf drops in place next. The shelf rests on horizontal cleats and is wedged between the front face of the cabinet and the false back.  This holds the back against the cleats behind it.

Here is the finished project.  The shelves will be much more useful for us than the hanging locker and they can be quickly removed to access the anti-siphon loop and seacock.