Aft Hanging Locker Conversion

After picture - I don't have a before but it was a jumbled mess

Hanging lockers are not really needed on a boat.  Okay, one for foulies but other than that, they don't make sense.  They are a waste of good space for most cruisers.  We don't have clothes that need hanging.  If we do, they are folded and then brought out well in advance of wearing and 1.) hung to get the wrinkles out and 2.) to get the boat smell out.  And let's be really honest.....well in advance of wearing?  This just doesn't happen and thus...hanging clothes are very rarely worn.  Also, constant movement of the boat and thus constant movement of all things in the boat causes hanging clothes to swing (even tightly packed) and this cause rubbing and wearing.  Nothing like finally digging out your nice hanging shirt to find a hole worn in the front shoulder.  D-oh!

Patterns

For some reason most boat builders have not gotten the message that hanging lockers aren't needed or wanted.  The average cruising boat has more an one hanging locker.  If you are lucky, the other two, three, four lockers have already been converted to shelves by the previous owner.  *Something tells me that readers of this blog are used boat type peeps vs brand new boat out the factory door owners. However, if you are in the latter group, you will have customized  your boat anyway with shelved lockers vs numerous hanging so we are good.  We had three hanging lockers.  None had been converted to shelves other than using hanging cloth shelves as a temporary solution.  We converted hanging locker number two in our stateroom during season two in Antigua.  Tomo in Antigua did the conversion.  My Tom watched over his shoulder to learn the tricks.

Making the patterns

Shelves in place

At the end of this season, Tom started the process of converting our aft hanging locker (#3)  to shelves.  He completed it yesterday.  So very nice.  Before, it was chaos.  No matter how we tried, things ended up getting shoved around and stuffed in.  Now we have a nice, orderly locker with shelves for all our safety gear.  Lovely! 

Fiddles