The sky is falling

Yesterday I came aboard and saw that one of the ceiling panels in the deckhouse had come down.

It was still hanging from the autopilot control, but otherwise it had come completely loose.

Oops. There’s a speaker in it, which hangs off the panel and makes it extra heavy. Last year I’d asked for this speaker to be mounted better, as it was always a bit loose. Someone at the yard had solved this by fitting little support battens with sealant, and that sealant was stuck to foam. So not exactly strong enough.

Otherwise the ceiling panel is held in place by round clips that snap together and hold pretty firmly, but they wouldn’t click into place everywhere, so here and there I put an extra spacer underneath.

And then comes the moment you have to put it all back up again. How do you hold that panel up on your own and press it back into exactly the right spot? First I built a support out of crates and cushions, but then you’re stuck with that panel wedged in a corner, and then what? How do you get the pile to push it up? Luckily our settee can tilt! So I put the settee in the position we use when it’s on the leeward side of the boat, i.e. all the way back and up!

After a fair bit of toil it was all back in place. Only the light doesn’t work? And the USB doesn’t either? Oh no, that one was already broken. So everything came down once more: aha, a wire had come loose. I swapped the light with the one at the back of the guest cabin, so that we can finally charge via USB in the deckhouse on the port side, and then did the whole operation all over again.

And after that I’d definitely earned this one: locally brewed, and a perfectly fine beer in this hot weather.