Cockpit console

On its face, the cockpit console looks like the typical bait prep/fillet station but we also added several custom features which make it into a unique cockpit beverage bar.  Main features are:

• Large bait prep and fillet surface
• Built in cockpit sink with macerator-equipped drain 
• Hot and cold running water
• Water spigot for dispensing chilled reverse osmosis drinking water
• Triple beer tap for those floating kegger parties anchored off the beach
• Back-lighted ice chest/beer cooler with automatic open/close lid
• Multi-dispenser for hard liquors
• Halon fire extinguisher storage locker

Since we wanted something that would have nice rounded corners as well as insulation properties for the ice chest, we used some medical grade glass infused foam material that was taken from some discarded boxes used for human organ transplants.  Of course we washed it with chlorine water...  The material is quite sturdy on its own but is kind of nasty to use because cutting or sanding this ultra high density foam releases a ton of fine fiberglass particles that are guaranteed to make you itch for at least a day or two after working with it.

After stripping off the outside plastic sheet we epoxied the halves together and then made a similar base for the unit out two more of the boxes and then stacked them to achieve the desired height of the cockpit console unit.  We then positioned the new sink where we wanted it and cut the hole for it.

We then took 4" PVC pipe and inserted it in the lower unit at a downward sloping angle so that the fire extinguisher could never slide out even in roughest of seas.  That angle was cemented in place with "Great Stuff" foam in a can.

With the base unit well defined, a divider was placed in the top half between cooler section in the top right quadrant of the unit and storage section in the top left quadrant.  Lower right is where the fire extinguisher would live and lower left would be another small storage cubby. Once this was all determined, we wrapped it with multiple layers of 17 oz cloth using West System epoxy resin.

We then cut up the lid units into three pieces as shown below, left.   The piece with the cutout for the sink will sit atop the left side of the console unit while the other two pieces form the hinged cooler lid.  Note how hardwood was epoxied into both halves of the cooler lid pieces in order to give us something to screw lid hinges into later on.

In order to ensure all lid surfaces would eventually form a perfectly flat top, a sheet was created consisting of several fiberglass layers and the pieces were epoxied to that flat sheet.  When cured it was then subsequently cut out into two pieces: the top and the lid.

The top without the lid was fitted into place and you can see the location of the hardwood hinge attach points.

With all of this in place, the top was glassed into the main unit as an integrated piece and much sanding was done with a long bar in order to ensure the face and sides of the unit would be flat.  We are talking days and days of work here, not hours.

Spraying gel coat is one of the best ways to find all the imperfections in the prep.  And so we sprayed and sanded the unit at least 3-4 times before it started to look really flat and finished.

A final coat of gel coat allowed us to test fit the doors.  Of course this is not done yet.  It all needs to be sanded with 220, 330, 600 and then polished in order to make it appear that this unit popped out of a mold.

This close up of the top cubby and the lower fire extinguisher compartment (with emergency flares, etc. destined to go in the left compartment next to the extinguisher) shows how much hand sanding we did in order to achieve a nice finish.

With the base unit well on its way, it was time to make the 3/4" thick King Starboard top.  The Starboard was laid down just how we wanted it, lightly taped in place to get the position perfect and then Kyle climbed a ladder and then carefully stepped straight down on the plastic so that I could use a router to cut the sink hole using the sink itself as a router guide.  The edge was subsequently routered with a round over bit to achieve the finished result.

The result was a pretty good looking sink access hole.  A big advantage of this design is that fish goo generated when filleting or prepping bait can be swept directly into the sink basin while completely bypassing the ridge where the sink flange is adhered to the underlying top of the unit.  The back half of the Starboard was fixed to the console while the hinged front piece of Starboard was adhered to the cooler lid using JB Weld plastic adhesive.  In order to prep for this glue we had to heat up the glued side of the Starboard with a torch (you can watch a video about this here; it is the only way that adhesive will stick to Starboard...).

We had some old teak left over from my prior boat and so it was glued together and sanded flat.

The teak butcher block was then cut to size, cut for the sink hole and then trimmed with a rounded over teak strip.  The 316 stainless cooler hinges were added and so was the sink goose neck as well as the reverse osmosis water faucet.

The cooler lid's linear actuator was then installed and tested.  Too much geeky fun!

In the video you can see the exchanger for chilling the reverse osmosis water is already installed in the bottom of the cooler.  To make that we just sweated together lengths of 1/2" copper pipe.  Of course the proper solder was used for potable water plumbing. The heat exchanger was then installed into the cooler portion of the unit and then gel coated to protect the copper from getting a patina and also to give it a more finished look.  

Colored LED strips were then epoxied into the bottom of the cooler.

Now it was time to install the chilled booze containers which would later be part of the hard liquor dispenser built into this unit.  We found some nice square glass jars with stainless lids .  We glassed them together leaving vertical strips open in order to be able to see the booze levels at a glance.  Flexible food grade tubes glued into holes cut into the container lids were then routed to holes in the top starboard where deck fills would connect to them.  In this way the jars containing chilled hard liquor would be very easy to monitor and keep full.

And what's a party without at least a couple of choices of draught beer?  Here we are installing the stainless triple beer tap tower while running the feed tubes though a slot in the very high grade insulation foam which the console unit is made of.  The backside of the unit will not be visible once installed so the tubes were foamed in place with more Great Stuff.

With the beer setup in place, we also added a Sidebar model 6500 push button electric booze pump system.  The pump was installed in the top cubby under the sink and the tubes were run for most of the way out of sight except to bridge the cooler lid hinge.  You can see that the blue push button dispenser pops up nicely to eye height when the cooler is electrically opened by its linear actuator.  The booze dispenser head needed space cut out in the top of the unit to provide clearance when the lid is closed so we created a tray with a built in drain where we will store bar tools and have a small tray of bar fruit.  With a little more thinking we will come up with a good place for storing a few cigars, cutter and flame thrower...

We then wired an LED strip and control switches into each of the storage cuddies and then hooked up the color LED controller for the cooler backlight.

It really looks nice at night and is very flexible depending on the mood of the situation.  It can do static colors, different patterns, or bounce to the music.

Here is the cockpit console rough installed in place showing the linear actuator, cooler LEDs, and storage LEDs. In this video, the Sidebar booze dispenser was just barely hitting the cutout we had made for it but this will be fixed in the final product and the lid will fit flush down on top of the base.