CRAFTSMANSHIP Boatbuilder’s Notes Dorade box
Gap for drainage
Retaining nut
Stainless- steel foot
Nut and washer to form a spacer
Deck
Stud made from a 6mm bolt
EXPERT ADVICE Fitting a dorade box BY RICHARD TOYNE
A dorade box is a water trap with a cowl vent that catches fresh air and channels it down below into a vessel’s cabin while ensuring that any rain or sea spray stays outside.
The way it works is simple. The cowl vent is at one end of the box. At the other end is a ventilation pipe, which runs down through the deck, and between the two there is a baffle that projects down from the top of the box. The air caught by the vent blows into the box and is then forced
under the baffle, up to the top of the pipe and down into the boat. Any water gathers in the bottom of the box where it drains away. The most common method of evacuating the water is through small drainage holes at deck level, cut in the box’s sides. Although these allow the water to escape, they have a drawback: the water can become trapped in the corners of the box, leading to damp patches and ultimately rot. When we wanted to fit some dorade boxes to Sigfrid, we decided to follow a design from the ‘fobato
Above: The dorade boxes have stainless- steel feet supported clear of the deck
Above right: A cross-sectional view of a stud and a foot at one corner of the dorade box
dossier’, a collection of designs by the French Meta yard in the 1970s. Rather than being fitted to the deck, and having the water draining through holes in the conventional fashion, these boxes have metal feet and are supported on studs, so that there is a 1/8in (3mm) gap underneath the box. As well as negating the possibility of damp patches and stagnant water, fitting the boxes this way means that they can be easily removed for cleaning or maintenance by simply undoing the retaining nuts and sliding them off the studs.
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Reclaiming wood 1
2 BY RICHARD TOYNE
I was recently quoted nearly £2,000 by a UK timber merchant (including delivery to Gibraltar) for the teak to make a table 3ft 8in (1.1m) long and 1ft 4in (0.4m) wide. It showed us yet again the benefits of reclaiming and reusing secondhand hardwood. Over the years Magali and I have made for Sigfrid, our 34ft
6in (10.5m) ketch, deck beams from an old oak dance floor, cabin trunk sides from mahogany banisters and a boarding ladder from timber floating in the harbour. We have also done countless small jobs from bits found in boatyard skips.
88 CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2012 3 A few days ago we reclaimed some brutally-removed
mahogany doorframes from a motorboat nearby. The first step was to remove all the old nails, screws and other metalwork. This is the most important part of the process, as any old fastenings left in the timber will damage woodworking tools. Using a small table saw lent to us by a friend, we cut the
T-shaped doorframes to a rectangular cross section. Finally, any damaged lengths were cut off and the usable wood cleaned up with a plane before it was stored away for future use. There is nothing complex in any of this and it is surprising just how much high-quality timber can be saved.
2 3
The pile of timber that we found in the skip. At this stage it still looks more like rubbish than anything worthwhile
It is important to remove any metal fittings and fastenings to avoid damaging the cutting tools
After final cleaning up with a plane
MAGALI BELLENGER
RICHARD TOYNE
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