Gas bottle storage
Liveaboards Mark and Nicky Green create stowage for extra gas canisters
Making plinths to store extra gas safely outboard
A few seasons ago I hastily constructed two gas bottle plinths off the stern of our Cobra 850 Waterlily for a short cruise across the Channel. Now the time had come to do a proper job.
With two bottles in the dedicated gas locker the plinths enable us to stow an extra pair. Four bottles not only gives us greater range – we have ambitions to cruise further and longer into France’s inland waterways and eventually to the Med – but also enables us to carry both Calor Gas and Campingaz bottles (you can’t get Calor Gas refills in the EU and Campingaz is expensive in the UK).
We’d previously installed a gantry for a 90W solar panel on the stern, so I had utilised its stainless steel tubing fixed to Waterlily’s transom to support the two plinths: one 4.5kg Calor and one smaller diameter 907 Campingaz.
The originals were made of 12mm plywood offcuts painted with a couple of coats of white bilge paint. I used teak offcuts fixed to the underside of the plinths with 25mm stainless steel pushpit brackets to act like shelf supports over Waterlily’s stern. Some 6mm bungee with a loop and clip secured the gas bottles in place, and I also tied the gas bottle handle to the pushpit with para cord.
The plinths worked really well, but over time the elements took their toll and the plywood began to delaminate and rot.
The solution was to use the old plinths as a template to make the same again, only better. Armed with my trusty jigsaw, I cut another 12mm plywood offcut to make a base and fiddle upstand for each different diameter cylinder.
I made sure the fiddle internal diameter was around 10mm to 15mm larger than
necessary to allow for a size reduction for the fibreglass and paint layers, then screwed and glued the two component parts together.
Next I filled the countersunk screw holes and smoothed the edges with 80 and 120 grade glass paper.
I paid particular attention to the port-side Calor Gas plinth, which had to be shaped around the diesel fuel tank filler cap, and this time around I added a generous size countersunk drain hole in the centre of each plinth to discourage the collection of rainwater, the omission of which had been a design error on my first effort.
I cut medium weight woven fibreglass cloth to size and mixed up enough polyester resin to coat one side of each plinth. I brushed the resin onto the plywood and laid the woven fibreglass mat in place, taking care when dabbing it with more resin in the corners and over the edge of the fiddle upstand.
After the resin had fully hardened in the sun, I rubbed down the sharp edges, flipped the plinths over and repeated the process.
With all edges smooth and burr free, I filled and faired any resin lumps and crevices, then rubbed everything down again, cleaning off the dust with acetone.
Two coats of blue International deck paint from boat stock finished them off.
I fixed the plinths in place by drilling pilot holes in the deck above Waterlily’s gunwale and screwed in stainless steel self-tappers, bedded down on blobs of Sikaflex. Underneath, I reused the same teak offcuts from the original plinths, secured with ‘top hat’ stainless steel brackets, again screwing into the teak from above through the plywood plinth. The screws countersunk into the plinth were then skimmed with Sikaflex.
The new plinths allow the same easy access for changing gas bottles as the originals, but should last much longer. Total cost was around £30, most of which was the woven fibreglass mat and resin kit.