Today I went over to see Ray and Anne Brown's Jumbo. They've been doing a great job. They were actually smart enough to build the inside of their boat before finishing it and using it. I have some lessons to learn from them as the inside of my boat remains unfinished two summers after I started using it.

Ray has the same interior layout I will use. His pilot house is 7 feet long where mine is 6ft. 3in. long. I liked his hanging locker and will do the same in mine. Perhaps a shelf on top as well. You can never have enough little places to put things on the boat. I'll try to track down the nylon hinges and latch he used. They looked great.

His galley has a nice sink that will drain to a jug underneath, thus avoiding extra plumbing and thru-hulls. He made the height 36in. which was perfect. He has some good ideas for using all the space including a large storage area in back of the sink and a cooler on the right. He got the top of a 12v. powered cooler and it will fit in the top of his built in cooler. Pretty cool...

Ray and Anne found some cool (literally) seats at GI-Joes for $50 each. They are gray plastic with a mesh insert. They fold down and are comfortable. The seat base on the port side of the boat will slide so that it can be part of the dinette. Ray also has room to stand in front of the starboard seat as it slides back too. Both fuel tanks were moved back enough that there is standing room in front of the tanks. The aft ends of the tanks extend into the fish deck area but are in a box encased by the seats that will be there. I wish I had thought of this.

The cuddy area has been a topic of discussion on the list this last week. Here's a good photo of Ray in book reading position. His woodwork is amazing with the hatches and bulkheads. There is room for several 5 gallon water jugs under the center hatch. This is a very nice layout for the bunks. I like my more traditional layout too though. The bottom line is that the Jumbo cuddy is huge and you can do whatever you want up there and you won' t run out of room.

Ray made a chain locker forward of the cuddy with this cool arrangement for handling line and chain.


Here are the photos that will convince Bruce to build his Jumbo. It's a Cummins Diesel that will power the Brown's boat. What a nice engine. Fuel use is supposed to be 1 gph at cruising speeds. I can't wait to see what that will be.

Here's a closeup of the part of the engine Bruce will like.

Ray and Anne have cruised the Lower Columbia many times and we spent time talking about plans for the PNW Tolman Gathering scheduled for the last week in July. We've got some good places to go. This will be a great trip.