New Helm station

[RicM]

After a long dark winter the tide of chaos (see below)

seems to finally be ebbing. I spent the (beautiful) weekend pulling wires and applying the final coats of "Rejex" to the hull and white areas above the rub rail (is there a more nautical name for that area?) The helm panel was test fitted and (surprise!) it fits rather handily with all equipment in place.

As soon as the guy shows up to paint the bottom (there are some limits to what I'll do) she can splash, hopefully some time this week!

[jcollins]

And I thought my cabin was bad.
But, that dash looks great!

[RicM]

After a lot of blood sweat and tears the finished panels are in place and they are beautiful! I'm still finishing up the wiring, consolidating all the stuff added by last owner into one 12 circuit spade fuse box, rather than the motley collection of inline and glass fuse boards that was left to me. I hope to be back out on the water later this weekend with auto pilot ready to calibrate. Note the added dimmer on the helm side at the 1:30 position inside the wheel. Great addition to any 28 TE that might ever run at night. Also I separated the "Start" and "Stop" buttons to opposite ends of the dash. They felt exactly the same when you had your eyes on a fish and I pushed the wrong one on several occasions! Anyone suggest where I might get a cherry wheel?

[Pitou]

Spectacular job!!!

Great idea with the dimmer .... is it connected to the wheelhouse dome?

[RicM]

Thanks for the kind words. No, the dimmer is a separate circuit. On my boat the dome light is on a switch of it's own on the fuse panel, then there is a 3 way switch on the dome for white, red, and off. You could probably add another dimmer to that circuit if you wanted to. I generally just leave it off and use the courtesy lights for getting around the deck.

[jcollins]

Ric,
That is a beautiful job. It's obvious that you put many hours into it. The wheel would finish it off.

The wheel Albin used on the Gatsby is from Vetus. http://www.vetus.nl
You can order direct from them. It was around 350.00 with shipping. This is a picture that Albin (Andrew?) sent me. That is not my dash. Same wheel though. It took about 10 minutes to install.

[RobS]

Beautiful work Ric. Nice having the enclosed pilothouse to keep it all protected and like new for years to come.

When I finished all my winter work on the boat and finally brought home all of my tools and misc. stuff to put back away in my garage I felt like a kid on the day after Christmas - I'm sure you can relate - quite the tool shed you had going down below...

[RobS]

VERY similar layout on my new dash with the only difference being that I have the OEM warning light cluster (bottom right) vs. your strip of individual LED's. And my bilge pump LED's. It was a great winter to do this, working in a T-Shirt at times! Here is the old & the new.

[waterhound]

Guys, these are incredible. I'll add it to my list for next year.