Storage

Storage Upgrades

For a 1970s vintage cruising boat, the Pearson 424 came with better than average storage accommodations. There are huge lockers behind the settee backs in the main cabin, large drawers under the aft cabin berth, and multiple drawers in the galley and forward cabin. Still for extended cruising, and especially living on board, there can not be too much storage (that is not a true statement when it comes to optimal sailing performance - but that is not the subject of this page).

Below is some documentation on the storage enhancements I have made to Sarah. Most, if not all, of these improvements were copied from other Pearson 424 owners.

Shower Locker.

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Outboard of the fiberglass shower pan is a huge open space. Most 424 owners have taken advantage of this unused space by installing a hatch in the shower pan. I copied those installations on Sarah, using a Bomar access hatch. It is necessary to use a hatch that seals water tight for obvious reasons, but it is not necessary for the hatch to be very strong. The Bomar hatch I chose is probably overkill.

Before I can use this space I need to install a shelf, otherwise anything I put in there will slide under the shower and end up in the bilge. In the meantime the hatch will give me access to the area behind the current shower mixer (really a sink faucet with a shower hose attached). I intend to replace this faucet with a real shower mixer control, which should allow more accurate and quick setting of the water temperature. Hopefully it will look a lot less klugey than the current arrangement.

Mast Storage Baskets.

One of the areas I have been repeatedly considering for its potential storage space is Main Mast in the cabin. The dinning table surrounds the mast, which means the space above the table is largely unused space. Especially the starboard side of the mast, which is not an effective walk space, and therefore anything hung on the mast would not interfere with movement through the cabin. My plan has been to hang open baskets on the mast as produce and bakery product storage. Until recently I had not been able to find any commercially available system that would work on the mast. Just before my departure from Fort Pierce for the Bahamas, when finding additional storage space became critical, I noticed this storage system at the local Home Depot. It is a wall-mounted storage system, normally for shelving. However these baskets were designed for the same system, but only use one wall-mounted track. This allowed me to hang them on a single mounting track on the side of the mast.

The track is mounted with machine screws secured to tapped holes in the mast wall. The baskets slide into slots on the track. To insure the baskets remain in the place, they are held into the track by a piece of shock cord running around the mast.

I also used a set of short shock cord pieces to provided a hold-down over the open top of each basket. Heavy items will not be placed in these baskets. I intend to use them primarily for produce (onions, fresh fruit, potatoes) and bakery items (loaves of bread, sandwich rolls, sweet rolls, etc.). I hope the use of these baskets will free up a lot of locker space for boxed and canned goods.

Under Shelf Storage Basket

Always looking for ways to increase the storage space on Sarah, I've tried several different ways to use the space at the foot of my berth in the aft cabin. There is a deep foot well under the two large drawers on the aft bulkhead.
Previously I hung a couple of chart rolls with elastic cord in this space. The well is tall enough that my size 11.5 feet didn't hit the chart rolls, even though I'm generally a thrashing sleeper.
In early June, 2008 I was in the Container Store and noticed the Elfa under shelf basket system and realized the the shallow basket was no deeper than those chart rolls and would likely fit in the same space.
So I purchased a 45cm basket and the shelf mounts then installed the basket under the outboard drawer.

The basket is not a perfect fit. It extends out from under the drawer by about 1 inch, but that is small enough that stuff will not easily fall out of the basket.
In the picture on the left I've filled this basket with underwear and socks. The basket slides on runners. There is a stop on the basket to keep if from sliding all the way out, off the runners. I'll need to add some elastic cord to keep the basket secured under the drawer when at sea.

The picture on the right shows how much of the foot space the basket occupies. I do not believe this will be a problem for me. If I'm satisfied with this arrangement I may add another basket inboard of this one.

The first basket worked so well I've added a second. This basket holds a full set of sheets and pillow cases.

Here you can see the runners on which the baskets are mounted.