Sleeping on board Bayraider 20

[MarkDarley]

Can those of you who have created a reasonably comfortable sleeping platform on board a Bayraider 20 please post photos.
I need to sort something out.

I assume it is some sort of an infill platform between the forward ballast tanks.

Richard Walkerly of "Ula" has suggested the attached solution.  Any other suggestions with illustrations please!


Thanks
Mark

[Graham W]

Mark,

Here's a picture of the yard's solution on a GRP BR20.  I think they all come with a standard white GRP infill under the foredeck that sits on the wooden rails along the top of the seating.  Then as an option, there's a cockpit table that doubles as a wooden infill, turning the front part of the boat into a very large single or small double berth.

[MarkDarley]

Thank you Graham. That is a great help.  I just need to work out how to firmly fix the fillets to support it without cutting yet more inspection hatches.

I can see the white part living there fairly permanently. Where do the varnished midship panels stow?

Regards
Mark

[Matthew P]

Hi Mark

I'm not sure how the wooden Bayraider differs from the GRP version so the following may not work. Gladys has a grp sheet that fills the triangular space between the cockpit seats and the front of the centre board case.

I use a 6mm ply sheet that rests on the teak rails along the inside of the cockpit well at the sides. At the bow end it rests on a simple wooden block placed on top of the centre board case and at the stern it rests on the back of a "console" box at the rear of the centre board case.  The console box (known to Gladys's crew as "No Step" because the skipper gets testy about  crew stomping on it) houses the VHF, electrics switch and fuse box and supports the chart-plotter on top.  But that's another story.  If necessary an extra removable "beam" support can be placed across the middle centre board.

The bed board has a brass piano hinge in the middle so it folds in half and fits into the cockpit lockers.  A piano hinge is better than several normal hinges because it spreads the load. I epoxied some 6mm x 30mm  battens to stiffen it.  Despite being fairly light this arrangement has stood up to my 100 Kg + crew weight for over 7 seasons.

I hope this helps.

Matthew
BR20 Gladys

[Graham W]

I can see the white part living there fairly permanently. Where do the varnished midship panels stow?

The standard white infill lifts up at the back so that you can access the space underneath, albeit with some difficulty.  It's quite a big space to leave relatively inaccessible, so I've now replaced my infill with a wooden version that has a large hinged flap in its middle section, under which I keep my Fortress anchor and electrics (photos below).

The varnished panels in the photo in my previous post are stowed in an old army kit bag in the port locker.

[Bill Rollo]

Mark

the yard solution works well - sadly the cockpit table aspect gets an outing probably once a year and then only to prove that gracious living on board a BR20 is possible..

The infills fit into one of the side lockers. Thinner ply as used by Matthew and Graham is obviously more space and weight efficient.

BW

Bill

[Graham W]

What Matthew and Bill forgot to mention was that Matthew's removeable board sleeping system saw some serious use last summer when they sailed 'Gladys' on a Viking cruise from Denmark, up the west coast of Sweden to Norway.  I haven't seen their account of the cruise mentioned anywhere else and since it is tucked away in the library section, I have only just found it myself, so others may have missed it too.  It's well worth reading http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=1800.

There's lots of other interesting and useful stuff in the library, which I suspect isn't visited very often.

[Rock Doctor]

I have a sleeping board setup similar to the one shown in the original post. It rolls up and sits up front behind some of my gear and is held in place with a cargo net. I used it for 10 days when sailing around Shark Bay a couple of years ago - with a Black Wolf air mattress on top it was bliss. In fact there would be enough room for 'er upstairs if she chose to come! The extent is from the end of the GRP insert back to about the end of the centreboard case. The only problem is I must remember to get all I need out of the side lockers as on the GRP version the hatches become inaccessible once the bed board is down and resting on the wooden rails.

[Richard Walkerley]

Any pictures of your approach Rock Doctor please?

[Rock Doctor]

Richard,
my boat will be back from the yacht club in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I have some photos of the bed boards on my driveway for info. BUT I cannot load them to the forum. Size is OK but have bombed out so many times I think it best if you PM me and I will e-mail them. Sorry about that.

[MarkDarley]

Rock Doctor, would you be kind enough to email me the photos of your solution. Now that I am back in Devon, I need to build a solution in the next couple of weeks. Thanks, Mark
markdarley@mac.com

[Rock Doctor]

Mark,
sorry about the delay, finally brought my boat home. Again I cannot post photos so will send them directly to you.

[Rock Doctor]

Mark and Richard,
finally sorted out how to get photos onto the website. I have resized them to e-mail size although they were not that large to start with. Anyway here they are.

Also, Google Chrome is no good when trying to post on this website.