Benches

After flipping the boat a first put in cleats (10 in total) to support the aft bench, rowing bench and the outer edge of the side benches. My carpenter friend had to rip some at three different angles. I had to sink a few screws into my beautifully finished transom and sheer strakes until the epoxy set, and will have to fill the holes and touch up the paint later. Then I cut all the bench tops and side bench risers and dry fit them, as you can see in the first and second photo.

In the second photo you can also see the fore bulkhead (although the wide angle lens makes it look small) with the white inspection port cover. I cut the hole with the bulkhead in place, cutting through 24 mm plywood with the jigsaw held vertically.  It would have been far easier to cut it before I built the hull but I wasn't sure where it should go, plus I hadn't yet bought the port cover. Be that as it may, I cut the hole without any disasters.

Then I cut, glued and nailed fourteen other cleats for the side bench tops and risers. In the last photo you can see all 24 of them, and if you look carefully you can spot the access ports I cut in the bench risers for reaching into the storage area under the benches.  Just simple holes, no doors or removable ports, for getting to life jackets, bilge hand pump, air horn, etc. I found from experience that hinging locker doors don't protect gear from the water and porthole covers can easily be lost.

Next steps will be to epoxy the insides and undersides of all benches and fill the rowing and aft benches with styrofoam for flotation before nailing and gluing everything in place.

I would then still have to:

• put on rubrails
• build a king plank for the foredeck
• build the mast partner
• cut and lay on the foredeck (after epoxying the insides)
• reinforce the inside bottom of the boat with extra strips of plywood
• build supports for the side decks
• put on side deck carlins
• cut and lay on the side decks 
• put down a mast step

After all that it will be time to epoxy and paint everything white, and deal with spars and rigging. I can see the end but it will be a lot of work.

Right side up

The boat is now turned right side up and I'm ready to start building the benches and decking. After giving it a second coat of paint, I got the keel and stem band pieces from my carpenter friend, glued and screwed them on, puttied the screw holes and finished them with two coats of epoxy. The stem band needed to bend and I didn't want to build a steaming apparatus for such a short piece, so I used a method that has served me well in the past: I made some small saw cuts on the inside of the piece which I filled with epoxy compound. The stem band is visible in the thid photo.

After giving  the garboards and second strakes a third coat of paint, the boat was ready to flip. It is so light that two friends lifted it so I could remove the sawhorses, which, being cheap and flimsy, had almost collapsed; only two of them are even repairable. I also removed the strongback. Then the three of us flipped it and put it on two home-made cradles (first photo).

In the second and third photo you can see the frames and bulkheads: one in the front, two in the middle which will form the rowing thwart, one aft for the rear bench, and two partials for supporting the side benches. Now it will be time for some serious carpentry, but it should go pretty fast. Wish me luck!

Back to building, bottom almost done

Back in Greece! I've been here a couple of weeks. It took me a few days to settle in before I started back on the boat. Before I jumped into the filleting, sanding, epoxy coating and painting, I tried to design the pivoting rudder. I wasted a little time trying to figure it out until I thought, I should look at this blog to see what I did last time (duh!). It was easy after that, and here are the three pieces, top, pivoting bottom and pivot cheek. There are more layers to glue together but that can wait. I also cut one layer out of three of the centerboard, fitted it and drilled the pivot bolt hole. I tried it and it works fine for now. Both CB and rudder bottom will have holes cut into them, to be filled with molten lead for ballast and to stay submerged. Later.

Now it was time to plane and start filleting the seams, including the ends of the strakes at the stem, with epoxy compound. It is smelly and messy work, and I had to mix small batches to avoid a runaway reaction. Fortunately the weather has been pretty cool. I noticed sloppy epoxy work from putting the strakes together, and I added more with the fillets.

Then I sanded the imperfect scarf joints of the strakes, which I leveled with more epoxy, sanded and smoothed with wood putty. Then I set the nails as best I could (at the laps it is hard to sink them), puttied, sanded, sanded again. Sanding hardened epoxy is tough and I used the hardest sanding pads I could find.  In the end, and because I didn't want to damage the plywood, I had to accept that there would be plenty of bumps and imperfections, since I am not fond of sanding, and I figured my boat does not have to look as if it came off a boatyard, fresh from fiberglass molding.

There are two photos of the boat after the first coat of epoxy. It brought out the beauty of the wood, but that was short lived.  After a second coat and more sanding, I started on the painting. Once again I opted for standard exterior oil-based enamel for ease and economy. I don't expect to keep the boat in the water unless I'm out sailing or fishing, so no anti-fouling paint is needed. The epoxy took the paint like a charm, and the last photo shows the boat after the first coat. I wonder if it will even need a third coat of paint.

The next step is to screw and glue on strips of tropical hardwood  called iroko along the keel. Two narrower strips will go on the bottom of the centerboard trunk. Since I don't have a table saw her, I asked a carpenter friend to cut them for me. Then I will flip the boat to work on benches and decking. I am almost done bulding a two-piece cradle for it to sit on.