Composite engine room doors

It’s taken us a while to install these! They were made by a very talented boat builder for us 3 years ago and we’ve sailed with them all the way from Europe to the Caribbean and back again without actually installing them where they should be. They have been living under Ayden’s mattress if we’re being honest with you!

The old timber doors did not seal the room properly and were heavy so it is time we replaced them with those extra doors we’ve been carrying around. The first step has been to clean the hydraulic steering oil from the bulkheads and bilges. We have issues with the steering hoses leaking and covering everything with oil. Before we can do any work we need to clean everything properly.

Next is to cut the bulkhead to fit the new carbon fibre door frame. It is pretty close but we just need to neaten up a few bits to get a good fit. Then we can glue in the frame. Shayne used sparbond to glue in the frame and then put a layer of fibreglass to make the flange in the engine room.

Then it was time for filling in the holes in the bulkhead with foam and fibreglass. We want to rerun all the services (water and electric) through Paikea so we will close up all the existing holes and start fresh when we decide exactly where we want them all to run. At the moment there are holes everywhere and none of them are done neatly. We want the new location of these services to be hidden but also easily accessible for maintenace.

Once all that is done we can sand and prepare the surface ready for some flow coat. After that we can install the insulation on the walls and mount the door to the frame.