Ericson26 Starboard Berth Improvement
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Ericson Port Berth Improvement text.doc
Ericson 26 Port Berth Improvement
S/V Its About Time
rwpajak@comcast.net
My wife and I didn’t like the somewhat small V-berth for sleeping and the larger starboard side salon pullout was also a little narrow, so I made a small cut at one corner of the plywood pullout berth support and substituted two slightly larger seat cushions and made the berth wider for more comfort. Not bad for a zero cost improvement. Te only tools needed were a hand saw and a drill with a 3/8” bit.
The figure 1 below shows the opened berth with a mattress pad over the seat cushions – a nice extra bit of padding over the buttons on the cushions. The mattress pad was cut down from a full size cover and my wife did the sewing. Note the extension of the mattress beyond the mast support post is about 4” greater than original design.
Next photo 2 shows the modified berth using the original port seat bottom cushions and a second pair which are not from the port side seat backs (can’t remember but I sized the pulled out dimension to fit the wider cushions.
Photo 3. The slideout plywood berth support required only an additional 4” (square piece) cut out to allow it to pull further to the left of the mast support post. Note that there is a small “v-shaped” area to the right of the locking bolt where the plywood fails to meet the seat structure. This never seemed to be a problem once the cushions were in place, especially since it is at the end of the bed where little load is ever placed.
Photo 4. A closer view of the deeper cut into the plywood support panel is shown below. A new hole needed to be drilled in the bulkhead for the nextended locking bolt position. Not shown is a pair of roughly 12’ high Tees made out of 2x4s, just high enough to extend from to floor and support the left edge of the plywood base to prevent it from tipping when someone sits on the edge of the berth.
