Lottie’s gas bottle is housed in a self-draining box inside the stern locker. In retrospect it is much too big and over-engineered. The box was made of 18mm ply which was covered in grp mat and flowcoated with grey resin. Simple glued 9mm or 12mm ply would have been quite adequate since the object is simply to hold the gas bottle steady and collect any gas escaping and allow it to drain out the bottom rather than to produce a box capable of containing a gas explosion! It has a simple (unsealed) overlapping lid (like a shoebox) and a brass skin fitting at the bottom to connect it by rubber pipe to a skin fitting just above the water line. With a bit of experimentation, we found that if the box was bolted to battens on the the bulkhead inside the stern locker so that its aft end rested on the hull stringer there was just enough space beneath it to connect the drain and to slide the lid on and off. Doing up the jubilee clips on the rubber drain hose required the services of contortionist but sadly we had to manage as best we could without one.
One little job still to do is to make a little bracket to hold the gas spanner in the gas box so it’s always ready to hand when needed to change the bottle over.
Lottie's Log 