Dorade Boxes | Test Fit & Wiring In

While waiting for the boom gallows tube support blocks to cure I started on the Dorade box test installation.

I started by doing what the build manual says, which is to mark a vertical line for the side of each box outboard of the cabin roof carlin. Here we are doing this on the starboard side, using a level to make sure it is plumb.

Then I loosely wired in the Dorade box side pieces, to get a feel of how they fit.

Here is the port box.

I had lifted the angle of the fit between the box sides from the drawings, to be sure to get the right fit. I made a cardboard pattern to test the fit, as here on the port side.

You can see that we have a perfect fit here. However, you can also see that the forward face of the box is only very slightly slanted forwards towards the bow. In the drawings the slant is much greater, which raises a question. Which is correct - the fit of the box side pieces as supplied, or the drawing?

This is a real conundrum. How come I have got the correct angle of join as specified in the drawing, but have a significantly different angle of slant of the forward face of the box towards the bow?

It can only be because the parts as supplied are different to those set out in the drawings. I can't be more specific than that, but to have the same angle of join between the two sides of each box and to have the forward face slant at a greater angle towards the bow would require the side face to be fixed to bulkhead 2 further outboard than specified in the manual.

This in turn, following the instruction to locate the side face just outboard of the cabin roof carlin, would require the companionway to be wider.

It just didn't make sense. For the first time I was convinced that the drawings are significantly wrong, and asked for comments on the PocketShip forum.

I didn't get much feedback, to be honest. I looked at a number of other builders' blogs and their Dorade boxes looked just like mine - almost square on to the bow, with a very slight slant forwards.

So I decided that the boxes were just fine the way I had them, like this.

You can see here that the forward faces of the port and starboard boxes are almost square with bulkhead 2, with a barely perceptible slant towards the bow.

Satisfied that I had come up with the right configuration I wired the box sides rigidly in place for permanent installation, as in this pic of the starboard box.

And finally, here is the pattern inside the starboard box showing the correct angle of join.

  
PocketShip certainly has her fair share of eccentricities!