Progress on installing the cockpit of my Didi 40cr is going well. The plan is to complete the cockpit while the hull is still upside down so that I can router the edges and glass the seams while working down hand. In Duldey’s 40cr design one side of the cockpit is a 12 mm thick plywood panel which goes all the way from the deck to the hull forming one side of the huge quarter berth in the process. To make it even more robust on one side is a wet locker which stiffens it up vertically and provides support for the front end of the cockpit which hangs in mid air on the other side. Well it does not really hang in mid air but one side of the cockpit is supported from the deck which is not installed yet so I will install a temporary strut in the quarter berth to keep it all steady until the hull is turned and the deck completed.
Didi 40cr cockpit sides being installed in the up side down hull
My Didi 40cr has a wide stern that Dudley has drawn for me and that allows an extra 250mm of cockpit width. It means the quarter berth is 125 mm wider and the locker correspondingly slimmer. It is a much more complicated structure as behind the last frame my cockpit widens out to almost 1.6 metres for a more racing oriented layout. All this discussion is to explain why there is a 45 degree corner on the front of the cockpit and not the standard 90 degree one. Tomorrow I will try to fit the floor in the front half of the cockpit and start the wide section at the back. The first part will be easy as the 12 mm plywood cockpit floor will fit on the 30 mm triangle cleats and just be slid through the 12 mm gap on the frame into the aft section where it will be joined to the 1.6 metre wide section of the floor.
Didi 40cr cockpit sides from the stern showing the cleats on the last frame ready to take the wide floor section
This photo shows the wide aft cockpit section with the sides sloping up to match the angle of the cockpit coamings. It will look very modern.
So tomorrows job is just four bits of plywood, 850 mm wide front cockpit floor, 1.6 metre wide aft cockpit floor and two aft cockpit sides.