Finished Project

Romance II – the inspiration

The project

The old trademe table

Cockpit Table Project
As I tend to do I had been admiring & gathering ideas for a cockpit table for Raindance for a long time. Then one day I was aboard Harold Kidd’s launch Romance II & I spied his set up. He had the table ‘hanging’ of the stern & a drop down leg. This was enough inspiration to start me off.

I bought an old table on trademe for $30 (horrible yellow formica top & a bloody big drop down leg) & I started playing around with how I could adapt it to fit on Raindance. Being a bit of a wood butcher, I was lucky to discover a wonderful wooden craftsman, a perfectionist, by the name of Lional Barkle & we started the project.
I already had the bronze stern mounts, bought in Germany from the marine chandlery ‘Toplicht’. I striped the table & had custom-made s/s brackets that fit the bronze mounts.
Lional being much cleverer than me came up with the idea of an arched / cantilevered leg/support. It’s almost like a tiller & slots into a foot. Makes the area so much more open & frees up the space underneath.

Lional made the leg from 116-year-old kauri timber I discovered underneath my grandparents home in Herne Bay, actually ceiling boards. These (x8) were cleaned up & steam bent & laminated together. The leg fits into a teak & kauri base with pins to hold it in place. It took an unbelievable number of hours, as everything had to be tailor made – measure, make, dry fit, adjust, dry fit, adjust etc. We had to rebuild in the stern locker to take the strain of the leg set up. I love the suspended look & its just so practical. The leg also sits in a ‘boot’ under the table to secure it more.
The finished unit is perfect & has so much more Lional B in it than Alan H 😉  he is just so talented. Also makes other wooden products – toys, chopping boards etc – his website is http://www.woodspark.co.nz & on facebook as well, reach search woodspark.