When cruising, we have most of our meals on board. We prefer dining in the open cockpit whenever possible. The P-19, as shipped, uses the companionway hatch as a cockpit table. It's a clever second use of the hatch, it's simple, and doesn't require another "thing" on board. The only problem is that it's in the wrong place, blocking easy passage between the cockpit and cabin. Also, since I added a second set of hinges to the hatch to ease storage, it doesn't really work anymore.
The aft end of the cockpit is the obvious location for a table. An aft location would also work well for covering the six gallon fuel tank I installed. The design goals included the following.
The only tricky part of the design was dealing with the winch handle. Here is a photo of the completed table in the stowed position. It looks a little off because the factory installed the winch slightly off center.
Construction was pretty straightforward. The table is built from half inch mahagony plywood. The edges are trimmed with 1 x 3/8 mahagony strips, which also form the fiddle. The aft edge is built from heavier stock to provide material for the hinge screws. The rounded off section is for winch handle clearance. The legs are made from 1" x 1/8" aluminum bar stock.
When stowed, the table hides the fuel tank and keeps it from sliding forward. It is held in place with a simple latch made from HDPE. Here is a photo of the latch.
The top of the transom is curved, so the hinges rest on thin wedges of wood. The hinges are thru-bolted - the flat head machine screws pass through the wood and transom top. Since the transom top is cored, fillets are required for all holes. Here is a photo of the hinge detail.
I wanted to keep the opening for the winch handle as small as possible. The tradeoff was to slightly complicate the table setup. First, the winch handle is raised, then the table is lifted all the way to vertical. With the winch handle up, the opening just clears it. To lift the table with the handle down, the opening would need to be much larger. Here is a photo of the table fully raised.
The winch handle is then turned down and the table is lowered onto the legs. You end up with a smaller hole but the handle still out of the way in the down position. The table legs angle back to give more room for crew legs. Here is a photo of the table fully deployed.
Even the smaller opening is less than ideal. It cuts into the table area and small items tend to fall into it. A fiddle around its edges would conflict with the winch handle. The solution was a small insert, which was built to serve as a wine bottle holder. The insert just drops in after setting up the table. Here is a photo.
