Beauty is Cabin Deep

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Now, imagine the most magnificent classic boat, something from the Age of Exploration. What is the first thing that appears in your mind’s eye? Hold onto that beautiful thought while I drop some knowledge on you. Knowledge that will blow your mind hole. There is one thing that appears in every thought that crosses your mind when you imagine these boats. Can you guess what it is?

Wood. Nothing but wood. Miles and piles of wood. Obviously, once upon a time pre plastic, wood was the primary material for crafting vessels in which you wished to cross an ocean. There is something classic about that. But, in my opinion, nothing modern about it. Quite frankly, I hate the wood vomit look. By that, I mean it looks like someone threw up wood all inside the cabin of a boat. Even our lovely Catalina 30 is covered in wood! And here where I state the thesis of this post, I will tell you that beauty is cabin deep, and that doesn’t include wood (in my opinion). I want a hip modern aesthetic, and that matters to me. Now, buckle up, tighten the halyards, and enjoy the adventure about why I believe interior design of a boat is important. (And why wood on every surface isn’t.) 

When we began this epic poem of a journey, we thought we would snap our fingers and our cabin would just become this modern spectacle. But no fairy gaymother showed up to sing us a showtune and make everything perfect. Instead, we began a project that would take nine months and countless man hours to accomplish. But, the first question is why? Why would two amateur sailors who don’t know much about refitting a boat care so much about how it looks. Well, to put it bluntly, we are going to live on the freaking thing. No one wants to live in a shack surrounded by a forest of wood. For us, that meant having a space we felt comfortable in that

reflected us as individuals. We have spent countless hours ensuring that everything around us reflected who we were. From our wardrobe to the furniture in our apartment to the cars we drove. We didn’t always drop loads of cash on those things, we just took the time to ensure what was around us was comfortable for us. On a more personal level, it’s important for our space to one hundred perfect reflect who we are. Being in the closet for so long, you create this facade of who you are. It’s gilded, and fake. So when you come out, you want to ensure that nothing around you is ever fake again. Thus you want your space to be genuinely you. This is something we sought out to achieve. It’s a work in progress, but a journey worth working towards.

Now that we delved into the inner workings of my mind and discovered the why, it’s time to tackle the what. What does this design look like? What does this modern aesthetic look like? Well, google any modern day expensive boat and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Though, here I will mention that doesn’t include cabin layout. That seemingly hasn’t changed since the dawn of time. The interior layout of production boats are pretty much the same as they have been since the seventies. What I’m referring to is material, the lines, the light. The contemporary realness that these vessels are serving. The frameless port lights. Yeah, I said it. The thing that we spent months working on. Here, I’ll do the work for you and post a picture of a modern day boat down below. This is exactly what we want our space to look like. This is the style that we both fell madly in love with and want to marry. Our love of contemporary architecture in houses has translated to our love of sailboats. So, I have no shame in saying, that we want to be in a polyamorous relationship with a modern aesthetic. There I said it. I will always admit that fact, no matter if people shame me for it. Some will hold to their belief as to what a boat is supposed to look like and to them I say step the effe back and calm down. Also, they should shut their judgey mouths. Everyone one of  us can have what we want and there is no one way to design the inside of a boat. One design doesn’t make it less of a boat than the other.

Beneteau Sense 55 - Don’t own the photo - from sailing-anabella.com

Now that we are all done drooling over the photo above, let’s get back to business. The why and what exist in the two paragraphs above. If for some odd reason you have decided to jump down this far because of the gorgeous awe inspiring picture above, I implore you go back and read the above paragraphs. It’s a whole story and you need all of it. So, lastly comes the how. It’s arguably the hardest part of this whole darn process. Dreaming up the project and why we want to do it is the easy part. It’s all in the brain and as someone who has exercised that muscle for thirty years on a daily basis, we are both quite good at it. Using the muscles in other parts of the body doesn’t come as easily for us. Though, Nick has done more physical labor than myself, so he is better at it than me. Nonetheless, boat work is something neither of us had done before. So, our first project was the port lights. Previously we had these ugly galvanized aluminum port lights. The kind that came standard on the boat back in the day. (I don’t care if that phrase makes me look young. We need more young people in the cruising world, so I will embrace it.) It’s not to say that they can’t look great when they are done properly and not ancient and slightly falling apart. When new, they look quite stunning (especially if they’re black). But, as mentioned two paragraphs up we love that contemporary look. Clean lines, minimalism, all that jazz. So frameless port lights are the way to go. They are a staple of modern boats and they just look freaking amazing! So Nick designed them, we built the mold, crafted the port lights on the mold, and then proceeded to install them on the boat itself. If you watch the playlist below, and this week's episode where we finally finish them, you can see the whole process. These videos describe the how of this project. Unfortunately they weren’t cheap, and it took us months to accomplish this project. We had no idea what we were doing, had never used fiberglass, and adding frameless port lights to a boat that didn’t have them is virtually unheard of. But these two gay sailors whooped that projects ass! I’ll say it again, these two gay sailors whipped that projects ass! So, I implore you to watch those videos to see the hard work we put into this project, and how we began this journey of turning this boat into the modern day aesthetic that we are both desperate to obtain in Ixion. 

Like any good essay, we have come to the conclusion, or summary. Here I will wrap this mother out. If you have made it this far, give me a hug! That means you care and I love that about you. The why, what, and how of our cabin hopefully has become more clear for you. We have a massive road ahead of us,  since all we have done is make the port lights, the rest of the cabin still needs to be done. It will probably take us beyond next spring to accomplish all we want to complete on the inside. Some of it will start with some Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales on throw pillows. (They’re oddly expensive and we can’t afford them. So big sales are necessary. Though you can hit the donate button down below to help us out!) Our living space is important to us, and we want to be comfortable in that space. A part of that is liking what we see when we look at it. It’s not just about being vapid and only caring about beauty. It’s about having something that is a reflection of who we are. We spent so much time pretending to be something we weren’t, that it’s finally time for everything about us to reflect who we are inside and out. We are glad you are on this journey with us. If you have suggestions of how to make our cabin more modern, comment below with those ideas. The completion of this project is the first step, but I’m excited to make the next ones. So, subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel to join us as we continue our adventure and make our new home truly ours.

Cheers,

Jake