As Herons Flight was due to come out one winter I decided to do something similar as I liked the idea of getting more rays when the sun shines, as it always does here in Jersey, and still leave the protection of a wheelhouse. Needless to say it was not as straight forward as first envisaged.

The wheelhouse windows were getting a little bit tired the joints were leaking so I decided to strengthen the whole structure by making a frame for each new window to fit in. This meant fitting corner posts and two central uprights with strengthening knees to accept the forward facing windows and two uprights from deck level following the same angle as the air lines for the side windows which are now much longer. This has now strengthened the wheelhouse frame work dramatically.

Now to the sun roof. Some years ago I removed the roof panel in order to remove the engines for overhaul and was surprised by the sheer weight, it had to be lifted by a hiab, it was too heavy for the four of us involved to move.

Before removal this time the centre panel was cut out and the mystery of the weight was answered, it was waterlogged. Water had been seeping in to the balsa core via various fittings over the years and the weight had steadily increased. The next job was to separate the inner and outer skins of the roof and remove all the rotten balsa. The balsa was replaced by 3/4 marine ply strips where needed for fittings etc. and held in place by silkoflex the two halves were then refined and the sun roof hole cleaned up and squared up.

I fitted a three inch upstand around the hole and have had a cover made to fit over this to ensure no leaks can occur, which is held by lift dot fasteners, the whole lot looks very smart with a new stainless mast and paint job. At the time of writing I am still waiting for the windows to arrive and am just starting on re connecting the wires which I have re routed through the roof panel.

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