Any owner of a Whitby 42, or one of its Brewer close cousins, will know one of the boat’s few shortcomings as an ideal liveaboard yacht is the lack of a cockpit table. Yes the salon does have a very user friendly, fold down table quite capable of hosting a dinner party but if you cruise tropical waters, as we do, sundowners and most meals are generally enjoyed in the spacious centre cockpit above. Here you fast become sick of juggling your dinner plate on your lap.
The available space all revolves
around the binnacle located in the centre of the cockpit which provides a
challenge when it comes to coming up with a table solution. On the internet we
have seen a number of innovative designs produced by other owners but all
seemed a bit complicated to us. We wanted something simple to use at anchor that
could be easily stowed away when sailing. It took us a while but eventually it
was Karen that solved our table dilemma.
While Rob was away for a few days
working, she’d been poring over online marine suppliers websites and spotted
something that really grabbed her attention. An Australian company, Sam Allen
Wholesale, www.samallen.com.au, had a genius
design wonder that was the key to solving our untimely lap dance issue. It was a stainless steel mounting
plate, bar and table bracket that she saw the potential of and ordered on the
spot.
The start point is the mounting plate which was secured to the cockpit locker in line with the centre of the binnacle. |
Sam Allen's actually sell these separately so it's possible to have more than one position around the boat where the table could be mounted. |
The bar slides easily and securely into the mounting bracket. |
The next step was a trip to the hardware/homemaker
centre to find a suitable table top. Sometimes things are just meant to be and
there, on display in Bunnings, was a small outdoor table that was not only the exact
right size, but also sat on a single centre leg supported by a wide base. After
parting with $129 it was hers.
Back on ‘Our Dreamtime’ the
pedestal base was soon unscrewed and discarded. It was necessary to slightly offset
the Sam Allen's centre mount so the table top rested against the grab bar of the
binnacle.
The centre mount was offset slightly to position the table top against the binnacle. |
The mount slips onto the pole and is held with a spring loaded pin in a locating hole on the bar. |
A stainless hose clamp was installed to support the edge of one
corner of the table top but there was still a certain element of “wobble’
happening. It was clear the other corner also required something to secure it
to the binnacle.
The edge of the forward corner of the table is supported by a hose clamp. |
It was then back to the online
catalogue where Karen discovered the perfect fitting. The female end is screwed
to the binnacle and the 90degre, male side secured to the table. And the job
was done.
Karen adapted another Sam Allen's fitting to support the aft corner of the table. |
The female half of the bracket fits neatly on the binnacle. |
This was the final piece of the puzzle. |
When Rob arrived back to the
marina after four days away making television, he was greeted by a fantastic sundowners
spread of fine nibbles and a nice bottle of wine on Our Dreamtime’s awesome new
cockpit table.
It has since proved an
outstanding success. It does require the wheel to be off but we normally remove
it and stow it below when on the dock or at anchor to make movement around the
cockpit easier. The table breaks down into the flat table top and stainless bar
for easy storage when underway.
It’s safe to say our cockpit
table has provided the one missing link to make Our Dreamtime the perfect
liveaboard cruiser for us. It has entertained many a sundowners and dinner guest
aboard and made Karen’s already wonderful cooked breakfasts even more enjoyable
when we’re not worried about maple syrup spilling off the plate and running
down our nether regions.
Our new table was all Karen's work and makes her wonderful breakfasts even better. |
We even discovered that by
putting a box on the portside seat we could extend the table to make it large
enough to hold a typical Aussie style Christmas cold seafood lunch.
Aussie Christmas lunch in the cockpit. What could be better. |
Ted Brewer did an outstanding job
designing these boats. We absolutely love Our Dreamtime and mouth our thanks to Ted often. If only he’d known about Sam Allen’s and Bunnings
back then.
Our Dreamtime's new cockpit table has made entertaining friends so much more comfortable. Crispy skin duck by Karen. Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌 You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment Do you want more? Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first! Another way of support is through buying from our store. Checkout the range of books we have available |