Improving Interior Storage

by Dave Jones (NT37-212)

There never seems to be enough convenient storage space for food on a boat and Sir Tugley Blue was no exception. While we had a large corner cupboard in the port stern corner of the salon, it was very deep and only had two shelves. Items stored there were never accessible and moved all over in rough water. We removed the two shelves and added seven roll-out drawers on heavy duty full extension dawer slides. The drawers, all identical, were constructed of Baltic Birch ply with teak fronts. They were installed at different heights based on what we would store in them but very close together to maximize storage space. We also added a positive lock on the doors to prevent them opening in beam seas.

We easily tripled our storage capacity in this cupboard and every item is accessible. Since this area is heavily loaded, we did re-trim the boat by shifting items in the lazarette.

We also added two shelves under the sink, one on each side, leaving room in the middle for the garbage bin.

Roll-out drawers were also added to the cupboard at the forward end of the galley counter with similar results in improved storage capacity.