Potter 15, "Wee Adventure"

A custom West Wight Potter

By Ralph Carlisle

This is an attempt to make my 1977 Potter 15 more usable and comfortable for daysailing and overnighting. What made this job more difficult was raising the roof on a 14-foot boat 15 inches and still maintaining a pleasant nautical look while also allowing good visibility forward through the cabin doors. This took much thinking and many sketches.

The construction materials used were sourced through Home Depot, a local lumberyard, and True Value Hardware. One sheet of 1/4" and one sheet of 1/2" plywood, both AC Exterior were used. About 20-feet of 2 x 2 was used primarily for inside corner bracing and fastening the new structure together.

Once I got the look I wanted on a scaled sketch I proceeded to make up cardboard templates for the side walls and the back of the new cabin. The roof and back of new cabin are flat, without any bending or curves. They were constructed of 1/2" plywood. The sides were made of 1/4" plywood so they could be bent to match the curve of the original cabin.

The windshield is angled back both from the bottom up and from the center out. This makes the boat more aerodynamic and better able to handle the high wind while trailering. All of the large pilothouse windows are amber tinted plexiglass. The fronts swing up for ventilation. I would someday like to beef these windows up with shop-built aluminum frames and reinstall them. The round ports are screened and are basically deck ports from the inside if the cabin. There are also vents on each companionway door. These doors are hinged and self-store against the cabin bulkhead.

I used Pittsburgh Paints’ best quality exterior paint on the plywood parts of the cabin extension, not to save money over marine topside paint, but to get a close match to the original gel coat. All plywood parts were completely primed and painted (two coats) on all edges and sides.

Outside of drilling a hole at the very front top of the original cabin for the lateen sail-rig conversion, there have been no changes to the front third of the cabin, the hull, the deck, and most important, the cockpit.

Regarding the interior, I will give you my version but am sure there are different ways to do it, What I’ve done is cut the two main cabin cushions in half. I leave the front cushions in their normal position and store the rear cushions on the top of the forward ones along with any sleeping bags, pillows, etc. This leaves the whole raised part of the cabin with no cushions on the all-original floor. There is now room to deploy two small folding chairs to sit in comfort, with headroom to spare, for my 5' 11" frame. With a tiller extension, one can steer from inside on a long tack or, while motoring, with only one door open.

The porta-potty can now be used inside the cabin, where it is stored under the cockpit seat. Remember this is a well ventilated cabin. The only time I deploy the aft part of the cushions is right before bedtime. •SCA•