Storage

One of the many things all cruising yachts need to worry about is storing supplies and equipment. Multi-hulls have an advantage in that they don't tip over very much, but they have a disadvantage in that they need to be kept light. Nonetheless, some supplies, like fuel and water, are heavy but essential.

If you need to carry heavy things, it is best to store them at the back of the boat. Ocelot comes with three compartments at the back, between the hulls. Unfortunately, one of them is filled by a life raft, and the other two did not have covers. We wanted to store jugs of fuel back there, but we needed some way to hold them in while sailing. My mom and sister put together three cloth covers for the compartments, which are strong but lightweight. My dad also helped to attach snaps so the covers can be easily removed and replaced.

Dad, Amanda, and I starting work on our bookshelves One item that was becoming quite difficult to store was our collection of books. We all like to read, and since Ocelot came without bookshelves, it was getting quite difficult to keep our library organized. Our solution to the problem was to have a carpenter in Margarita make us some custom bookshelf kits. Amanda and I, with some help from my dad, put the bookshelves together and varnished them. They are now mounted on the walls of our cabins, and our novels aren't scattered all over the boat anymore.

Well, that is fine for books, but what about clothes and such... things that everybody needs to keep in their bedrooms? Ocelot's cabins include several cabinets each, but most of them are hanging lockers! Aside from foul weather gear, we have little that can be hung, and we could store much more stuff in our cabinets if they had shelves.

Again, we hired some carpenters. However, for this job we had the professionals do the whole installation. Most of our cabinets now have custom shelves installed, and they have helped organization immensely (in my cabin, at least.)

The same people who installed our closet shelves also installed our HAM radio in its current (and hopefully permanent) location in our electronics compartment. Until now, the tuner, modem, and radio itself were lying on the counter next to our electronics compartment. This meant a lot of unsightly equipment and confusing wires. More importantly, however, it made the radio difficult to secure. The tuner was large enough to probably be safe, and the modem was under the radio, but the radio was simply sitting, somewhat precariously, on the notably smaller modem. Now, the modem and tuner are mounted with their face panels flush to the surface of the compartment, and the radio is mounted in such a way that only the faceplate, external speaker, and mike are visible. The radio's main body is securely mounted and wired up to the external components from completely within the compartment.

The last concern is for our documents, reference books, and schoolwork which is stored along the side of our salon. If a wave picked us up sideways, many of those books and binders could come crashing down. To secure them, my mom and sister made cloth barriers which can be used to hold the books in position while sailing, or rolled up at of the way while at anchor.

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