Murray

A boating mate was over looking at progress. "It's going to be a piece of furniture" was his comment. "So important to get the shadow lines between the rich dark timber and the white gloss deck spot on...'. Or it will be gloss when the next coat goes on. So a bit of head scratching, and a couple of hours sanding I hadn't counted on, and now at least the coamings fit agreeably against the inside of the decks. It really good to get someone who has done it before and knows some of the pitfalls. Of course, when the gunwale goes on it will be the same thing again on the outside of the decks, but now there are only 8 pieces of wood to glue to the boat.... then paint. and sanding. and more paint.

Thanks Dave - much appreciated...

@Hirilonde Dave two quick questions, when sailing alone, where do you find yourself sitting when going to windward? And secondly, do you have any photos handy showing your footstrap arrangements? thanks, Murray

...another year has passed. And another year - with not a day spent in the shed. then one day I found myself back in the shed, with epoxy in my hands. I attached the rub strip on the lower edge of the top plank and liked the way that looked. I had found a guy who had a bit of Jarrah, so bought a bit, and ran it through the bandsaw making 'planks' 2mm thick. I laminated these over the top plank ply. why? - Cos I thought it looked pretty. I figured out that decks were next, but first I needed to get the coamings fitting perfectly, ready to glue into place, which meant back filling thickened epoxy around the hand cut support, then sticking plastic sheet over the coamings and clamping into place. that would allow me to remove the coaming and have a nice surface to flush trim the decks against. Then they could go on, and then the coamings. So I did that, but the plastic I wrapped around the coaming had a few wrinkles, so we did that bit again - this time with a bit more success. Now the decks are on, and the curved coamings at the front are on. I put a vertical piece of Jarrah behind where they join - should make it strong. The rest of the coamings are cut ready to go on, the gunwales are dry fitted, now ready go on, and I've looked at decoration for the bow. As I cut out the piece for the bow, the offset fell to the ground in such a way that I thought about putting it on the frontside the of the coamings. thoughts? Tomorrow I'll paint the decks in a gloss white, glue on the coamings, then the gunwales can go on, then - well it's suddenly getting there. Loads of internal grey paint and varnish to go one the brightwork notwithstanding. The masts are ready, booms are ready, sails are ready. Soon, it will be fittings time and the only thing to make will be the tiller. So hopefully, unless I change me mind, we could hope to get on the water by the start of summer - say Sept/Oct...? but which year?

Did you go ahead with the Tabernacle Dave?

Certainly the original design hatches are far more effective than this Bowman item. I suspect it was a post build mod - probably they either wanted to keep a watertight tank for bouyancy or were at the 'I can't be bothered' stage when applying decks. A question tho Don - how do you find the duckboards forward? Not seen this before...

Also keeps the balance of sail pressure over the centre of lateral resistance. A jib tends to make the helm go light to negative...

And here we are, August '24, and I haven't done a single thing on the boat... sometimes you need a break just to smell the wind. I think mines about to come to an end...

no picture Dave?

Thanks for the kind comments guys, and Dave for the tip on clamps - sometimes you feel as though you are getting somewhere - then you get confused again. Ah well - always tomorrow...

cheers Ken

Coamings cut roughly and steamed into place; 2 pieces of Jarrah cut into 3mm strips. I'll epoxy them together with filler from the sawdust; it's pretty fine so should work. But the next real step is the rub rails at the bottom of the top strake. I've cut the strips out but still not sure how to hold them in place while the epoxy goes off. Brad pins will stop them sliding up or down, but will not hold them close the plank. While I ponder that I'll carry on with getting the deck trimmings ready to glue on. So rubrails, then decks, coamings, and gunwales, followed by deck trim. Then the wood is basically all in place. Sanding and painting the interior, varnishing the timbers and - well - getting close!

I've been meaning to show the stem since I fixed some time back. I cut a batten the width of the finished stem, drilled many small holes along the centreline, then wrapped it in plastic. Then I marked out the centre line of the stem of the boat, and the bits that would extend past the batten and sanded those back. Then after nailing with little pins, the batten bent to the shape of a straight stem. Backfilling with epoxy and fillings between the batten and the hull was relatively simple. Removing the batten and the stem looked like the photo below. A bit of cleaning up and now it looks like the second photo. haven't been able to work on the boat for some weeks but now the sails are here, and the trailer ready to collect, I better get back to it...

Carlins sorted, a little shaping left to do on the transom top to blend all the differing angles in, next on the list was Gunwales. I had thought I'd scarf two bits of Jarrah together, and have a single piece I'd bend to the inhales. Jarrah is so short grained though, it wasn't long until I heard the unmistakable sound of a single piece of wood becoming two bits of wood again. So I resorted to laminating strips together. Makes a glue-up and positioning of 12 pieces (???) against the boat a lot more complicated, and the 3mm bite the tablesaw blade takes meant I was not sure I'd have enough wood to get it done. I did, but that was all that was left over. Oh - a man can clearly never have enough clamps... I've taken the gunwales off to sand clean, hope to complete that tomorrow, then the decks can go on.... Still a long list but we are getting there.

As Dave ( @Hirilonde ) says, the plans call for it to go through the hull, after thinking on it, I thought why not?