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Elessina - Layout Plan |
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Elessina's layout, 60ft long by 12'-6" wide with 10ft 'walk through' aft cabin.
This layout is drawn using a standard excel spreadsheet. All units (furniture etc) can be moved (drag & dropped) around with mouse. Each excel cell represents 6 inches, it can easily be lengthened / shortened to suit your own requirements by inserting / deleting columns and / or rows. If you would like me to send a copy of the file to you, just send me an e-mail by clicking here. You will need Microsoft excel software, unfortunately Microsoft Works is not sufficient, not sure about Lotus or any others. To download this ms Excel layout click here
The top drawing shows the main floor plan, the small drawing above right shows the wheelhouse floor plan, which is 4'-0" higher than the main floor plan, with the engine room around 5'-0" high. The walk-through passage roof is the base of the wheelhouse seat. Blue lines indicate flat floor width, red lines indicate cabin / gunnel sides.... We have a convertible dinette / double bed in the rear cabin (narrowboat style).
Front and rear cabin walk-through passage.........We had been discussing and analysing this with Piper Boats on the CAD drawings for some time during build, but it was not until the bulkheads and floor chine angles were installed and physically measured that a decision could be made to go ahead with it's installation. The passageway has 6'-0" headroom.
Having taken delivery of Elessina, we have found the walkthrough passage fantastic. It opens up the whole interior for everyday use. This is one of the 1st of it's kind. I am sure it will not be the last, why it is not more popular is unclear, although barge design limitations make it impossible on many barges. The main benefits are :-
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Being able to walk directly from the main front cabin into the rear cabin without walking through the wheelhouse (and up/down the wheelhouse stairs).
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Increasing available kitchen appliance space. Alongside the passageway we will install the fridge, freezer and washing machine. This passageway will be 'open' from kitchen making the kitchen area much larger, with 22ft of floor unit / work top space (we only have 14ft in our 3 bed house!!!).
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Greater utilisation of space in the wheelhouse as there will now only be two full size doors, one external and one down to the front cabin (instead of the planned 4 doors - two external, one to rear cabin and one to forward cabin). This will give a much greater seating area availability. A 3/4 length external door on the left side of the wheelhouse over the seats (approx 18" high - above the passageway) has also been installed. From the outside it looks like a full length door.
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Access to the engine room is via a 6ft high door from the passageway, making it much easier to enter / exit the engine room, so eliminating the need to have a lift up floor hatch in the wheelhouse (although a removable floor is installed for engine removal). A 6ft high doorway is possible as this is also underneath the wheelhouse seats.
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Improved security, with only one external door in wheelhouse and one door to cabin area, better security is easier to install, without the need for lots of keys.
The down side is we only have one full size external door (on the right hand side) of the wheelhouse, making going through locks and mooring up on the left (port) side a little more difficult. To get to the port (left) side we can exit through the 3/4 size door, over the left side seating or walk around the 10ft rear cabin. In practice, exiting through the 3/4 port side door causes no real problems at all for either Leigh (5'-3") or myself (6'-2"), certainly not if a quick exit is required, eg in locks etc..
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