Tour inside Meriwether

While we wait “down below” for some rain to pass through, I thought I’d start a little series showing the interior of Meriwether. Considering how much time we spend down here, I’m surprised at how few photos I’ve taken/shared. Here you’ll start to experience the full-fledged ridiculousness of boater terms. Some are necessary. But when it comes to interiors, there are already so many perfectly good words that are just as applicable!

The salon/saloon (main living/entertaining area)

We removed and old fussy diesel heater added a @cubicminiwoodstoves in early summer. Our approx. 75 gallons of fresh water tanks are under all of these benches. Unfinished projects visible: Leaky butterfly hatch (the skylight that opens).

Other side of the dinette—also Tim’s workspace. Unfinished project: We cut the table in half to fit the wood stove, and are still deciding on the perfect table configuration.

The settee (couch) area. More water tanks under there. And, of course, the bar.

The galley (kitchen)

Sailboats are usually designed with a tight, enclosed area for cooking so that the cook will have places to lean against and steady his/herself while cooking underway. The galley still has the original 40-year-old Shipmate gas range. It’s a workhorse, and also has a double broiler—I haven’t had a broiler in over 8 years!

When we bought the boat, it still had the original icebox, which we converted to a fridge. It’s incredibly efficient, as these old ice boxes were built with inches and inches of insulation.

V-Birth (bedroom)

What would be called the “stateroom” if this were a bigger, statelier boat with a bigger “master suite”. Our primary sleeping area is the V-berth, so called because of its shape created from being in the bow of the boat. One of the things that sold us on this Baba was how roomy it felt compared to other v-berths. It’s standard to sleep with your heads face aft — out — on the wider side. But we find it more comfortable, and have plenty of space, to sleep with our heads forward in the crook of the V. The head (bathroom/toilet) door swings open to become a door closing off the area. There’s a good sized hanging locker (closet), and a small bench (that bench really sold me on this boat, too, for some reason).

The navigation station and quarter berth

The navigation station is built as the traditional place to plan routes on your paper charts, along with being the “control center” for down below. When we’re route planning together, though, we use the dinette. Mostly the nav station is used as my office during the work week. The quarter berth (room for one — even though a standard berth for two is not called a “half berth”), currently holds a bunch of our junk, like our staysail, dock cart, toolbox, etc. We pull everything out of there and reorganize every couple of weeks, so I’ve got a photo of what it *should* look like. Dream goal is to hone in our stuff situation so it always stays clear, but since that’s not likely to happen, I may get a curtain to hide it all. This boat has a ton of storage, but not a lot of storage that fits larger stuff.