This is the boat compartment where you spend most of you conscious hours which means you need to get the design right. Despite a couple of near errors I think we did get it right. At 14ft long it was the largest compartment and was brightly illuminated with eight ceiling LEDs and four adjustable wall LEDs . Having a good sized saloon is particularly important during winter when the days are short and you can go “stir crazy” in a dark and damp confined space.
The Refleks diesel stove was positioned centrally in the boat which; in combination with the good insulation; warmed the entire boat. One unforseen consequence of positioning the stove against the wall between the saloon and bathroom was a lovely warm toilet! It was a very rare occasions when we needed to run the stove higher than the lowest setting. We would turn the stove off at night and the boat would retain most of the residual heat until the morning. Actually the boat was so warm we slept under a summer weight 4Tog duvet all year round.
Although we had finrad heaters down either side of the boat the only time they were used was first thing on a cold winter morning prior to lighting the Refleks and when Jan was drying laundry in the saloon during winter.
Ray & Diane (nb Ferndale) gave us a great suggestion just prior to our first winter on Waiouru. They suggested we fit chrome towel rails under the gunwale. These were located above the finrads and Jan used them to dry the laundry during winter.
The floor covering was ‘Flowtex’, a type of soft vinyl flooring with a suede surface. It felt like carpet but had the advantage of being waterproof.
I can’t think of anything we would want to change with the saloon design.
The Bed
The idea of using 5 cent coins as spacers for the drawer fronts appears to be a success. However I have to be very careful with the temporary gluing of the Jarrah faces. One fell off when I attempted to open the drawer to fix it with the wood screws from the inside face.
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