Boat Plans African Queen | Flooring

Boat Plans African Queen

As much as we wanted to put off installing finished floors, the last two days found me installing the Cork flooring in the wheel house and salon. The flooring down below in the cabins is going to be carpet, and it for sure is going to wait until we go through some sort of sea trials and a few shake down cruises.

Weve committed to the last week in July for our launch, and with the launch date rushing upon us, I started to finalized a few more systems. AC power comes on board from shore via two 30 amp service cables and is distributed via two AC busss in the main on board electric distribution panel. During construction, Ive been using an extension cord to power the on board distribution panel and as a result, I have loaded up one AC buss. Because we intend of having an inverter along with our generator, I want all the inverter loads on on AC buss, and all the heavier loads on another AC buss. This way, when an inverter is added, it should be a fairly simple upgrade as all the correct loads will be on one buss. So today, I took an hour of time and switched all the heavy loads like the battery charger and air compressor to the correct buss, and move the fridge and microwave to the other buss. The real reason I did this is because I had left over Chinese food for lunch, and I wanted to heat it  up in the microwave without using an extension cord. The other big ( heavy is a better description) was to mount the two 30 amp isolation transformers. Each transformer weighs 75 pounds so I doubled up the plywood on the forward wheel house bulkhead to help spread the load out some. The forward bulkhead is stout in its own regard, but having another 3/4" of plywood to give the lag screws something to bite into made sense. The transformers are not wired to the AC system yet, but this is a simple job that will take about an hour of time.

The flooring we chose is a natural Cork plank measuring 5 1/2"W x 36" L. As of right now, theres nothing bad I can say about Cork flooring. The stuff feels great under foot, its sustainable, supposedly extremely durable, has great insulating and sound deadening values, and was a breeze to install. We chose a floating floor vs a glue down floor, and again I could not be more pleased. The floor is designed to be installed over a foam underlayment that adds  more sound and insulating  values to the floor. The underlay is also designed to help the floor from not moving. It is recommended to leave an expansion gap along the width of the floor, and I just used 1/4" plywood between the flooring and the wall to hold the floor firm while I did the install. Once the installation was complete, I removed the plywood spacers.

Because of the expansion joint, Im going to have to trim things out with a shoe molding. Ill contact my lumber guy in the morning and see about having some Cherry  milled in to a clover profile. Ive not measured, but it wont take  much, and Id guess 100 should do it.

I held all the cabinetry case work up off of the metal floor, by about a 1/2", and that elevation turned out to be barely enough. I was cutting things a little too close. All the drawers and doors are good for clearance, but in the wheel house, the door under the wheel is clearing by less than a 1/4. The fridge is also going to be a tight squeeze regarding height, but it too should go. Well know soon enough on the fridge, as its supposed to get delivered sometime on Tuesday.

Now seemed like a good time to get rid of the construction grade steps going from the salon to the wheel house. The steps are 26" wide and have 12" treads with 5 1/2" risers. In regard to steps, thats about as good as it gets regarding the ratio between rise and run. Because of how much room Im afforded with the steps, we decided to  hinge them to make a decent storage cabinet for either canned goods or bottled water. Im going to guess, well be able to fit two cases of bottled water under the steps. I milled the lumber for the steps in the barn early this morning, and spent most of the morning building the steps before family duties called me away from the boat. Granted theres no finish on the steps yet, but the color difference between the aged Cherry and the freshly milled stock is quite a difference.

Of course theres still a boat load of work that needs to be finished prior to launch, but getting the floor down really gives us a sense of finish. The counter tops are being fabricated and once their completed, the  level of finish will be where we want. There are a few critical jobs that have to be completed prior to  launch, and one of those is the ballast. Ive built a melting furnace, and have my molds  welded up and have a few ingot pours under  my belt figure out what I need to do. I have two molds that each form 5 ingots. I have all the lead I need in the form of lead sheathing from an MRI demolition job, and weather permitting Im planning of pouring ingots all day next Sunday.  I dont know if Ill get all 4500 lbs of ballast poured, but I think Ill be able to get the lions share done, and hopefully enough to safely launch her.

How will she sit on her water line? Hopefully, well find out soon enough. In  case anyone is curious, the anti foul is 2 1/2" above her drawn water line.

 Cheers

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