Death of a Cooler

I hate the cooler in my keelboat. I have always hated it since I bought the boat. The reason I hate it is simple: its insulation sucks, and I can't keep a block of ice for more than 12 hours in the summertime. This puts a serious damper on my cruising style. Since I bought the boat 3 years ago I have been planning to rip out the cooler, fill in the deck hatch, and build a new top-loading cooler which doubles as extra counter space in the galley.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago when my friend Joe was visiting, I worked up the nerve to rip out the old cooler. Here's what the hole where it used to be looks like:




Big hole in the bridge deck...a bit spooky.












These 2 pictures show the area where the cooler used to be and where the new cooler will be built. Lots to do...but it's not as important as getting the new motor in, so I am not really working on this. The destruction is the easy part. Now that's done, so I have to start thinking about the CONstruction...

Next step: fill the hole in the bridge deck!