As we know, Cockpit Envy is a affliction which strikes iceboat pilots, especially men, in later years. Frequent trips to the doctors, escalating aches and pains, even persistent dizziness--the symptoms are manifold. Alas, it is especially hard to cure since the patient is often in denial of, or even proud of the affliction.
Here's a pill which might be helpful:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jorysquibb/BuildingAnEnclosedDNCockpit#5308426296173308018 Take a piece of 1 X 12 and clamp it to the cockpit coaming. Pencil the edges of the coaming on it and saw out two 'sills' and then clamp them to the boat so the outside edges are exactly plumb with the outside of the coaming. The cockpit shell we are building will be completely removeable, and will be captive because the skin will pass below the coaming edge. The whole shell will be held down with a classy leather belt and buckle like the hood of a Buggatti. Maybe some exhaust pipes too.....

Please note those Jorgenson clamps. My neighbor called me: Her dad had died and she couldn't bear to include his beloved clamps in the estate sale. Would I give them a home? In an uncharacteristic fit of humility, I took home 5 of the 30 clamps.....
Get yourself a 4 X 8 sheet of eighth inch luon. I don't know what this stuff is, but it's very bendy in one direction. So saw off some 2 inch wide strips from the 4 foot edge. Now your ready to sculpt!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jorysquibb/BuildingAnEnclosedDNCockpit#5308426296730434754 Keep the tiller extended, if it's adjustable, where you like it best. You're still going to push thru the calms with this tiller. Tillers are great. Just don't limit the travel too much. Make sure it moves widely in the new space. When lifted to the max, it should run parallel to the tops of both bows. Put that first bow enough forward so that your knees clear it when you start to stand up. Put the way-forward bow so that, when the sheet block is angled back 45 degrees, the sheet has a fair lead, under the eventual cockpit skin, right to the pilot's hand. Eventually the area ahead of this bow will have an ingenious system of allowing the tiller to move, the sheet to run, but very little wind enter.
The main thing is not to have the slightest clue where all this will lead you. Armed with this ignorance, you can follow the advice of St. Augustine: Sin boldy and count boldly on the Grace of God....
That's the limit of today's attention span.....off to the skating rink....
