21 days to go: kit list

Unbelievably, there are only three weeks to go until we depart for the Baltic Sea Circle rally. Final preparations are underway and checklists are getting made and ticked off all over the place. The final set of vinyl for the car has been ordered, passports are dusted off and kit is being organised, packed, then reorganised and repacked.

It’s hard to know what to bring on these rallies, you never know what will happen or what you need to be prepared for. The easy answer is to prepare for everything; that might be simple if we had a van or 4×4 with plenty of luggage space. The reality we face is that all of our kit must fit into the boot of the Porsche, and every cubic inch needs to be used as efficiently as possible. We also have weight to consider: the suspension on the car hasn’t been lifted at all so we need to keep everything light; the roof tent alone adds 45kg to the car.

The first stage of packing this eighties legend was to remove as much unneeded weight as possible, and that meant removing the folding rear seat section and the boot carpet. Those alone must weight 15-20kg! With that out the way I was able to make some templates for a lightweight plywood base that would create a long level platform, the idea being that we could slide our kit in and out with ease and make the most of the rear seat space. Cutting the thin ply was tricky with the jigsaw, but after a few trial fits and adjustments here and there the wooden floor was snuggly in place, and even featured holes for easy access to the battery terminals. The flat section now leaves some small cubby holes on the rear seat and behind the front seats that we can stuff clothes, sleeping bags, blankets etc, while keeping the rear space for boxes and bags.

I’d purchased some excellent Plano storage boxes last year and taken them on a camping trip. They fitted perfectly in the rear of the 944; enough space to fit three boxes! These are air/water tight so great for keeping food and equipment in. One serves as our kitchen, with our stove system, plates, cutlery, first aid kit, cooking fuel and fire extinguisher. We’ve got one with our Expedition Foods freeze dried meals, which is only half full right now, and will be able to take any other fresh food we get. The last crate might be filled with other equipment, tools, spare parts, emergency items – that will stop it rattling around in the boot. The boxes will also double as seats while we’re rallying – everything has more than one purpose!

A few weekends back we did a practice run, packing the boot full to really test how much we could fit in (without the plywood platform) and this is definitely going to help maximise the space in the car.

As we had leftover plywood, I came up with a plan to make a camping table; this also had to be lightweight and simple. I cut a rectangular section as the table top, then a small 6 inch piece to act as a “toggle” which could be threaded through one of the holes in the spare wheel. A length of paracord and a few holes drilled and we had a table that hangs out the rear hatch, perfect for cooking! This worked really well on our practice camp.