Taping

It's very cool to have the cabin top in place. It really feels like the boat has a cabin now. I even have to use a light inside because it is so dark! So now I've just filleted the joints and then taped them on the inside. I've also sanded the outside joints to make them smooth and straight and taped them as well. The picture makes everything look really crooked, but in real life things are actually quite straight and fair. (trust me, they really are!) At this point, I can still grab the boat at the back transom and pic the back end up. So despite using the 3/8" ply, she's still going to be a pretty light boat! Yay--I'm caught up on my blog! (of course, I could of been out actally building tonight!

The Cabin Top!

Tada! That actually wasn't all that bad. It was a bit akward working with 4'X10' sheets by myself getting them into position to mark

but once I got them cut down a bit, things pretty much fell into place. I would just temporarily screw a big piece into position, and then use a 12' long piece of 1"X2" vinyl trim piece I picked up at home depot as a batten. I would lay this batten in position to get a nice fair curve. Then I'd trace it and cut it. Then put the panel back up and use the batten to mark the other edge. Did this three times, then was able to just use the panels as patterns to cut out the three for the other side. Actually ended up pretty symetrical. I then drilled holes and zip tied the whole thing together and filled the gaps with thickened epoxy. I'm hapy with the look of the thing. I like the look of a lot of the European ocean racers--the minis, the open 40's etc and I think this will have a bit of that look to it.

Getting Ready for some Progress!

I finally made the trip up to Bellingham to get more plywood for the cabin top. I decided to go for 3/8" for the top. I'm sure I probably could of gotten away with 1/4" but I want this boat to be strong--I figure the top should be as strong as the bottom since I tend to puch things a bit when I sail and the top could end up being the bottom at some point! The panels for the cabin top will be 10' long so it was time to do some scarffing. I'm starting to get pretty decent at this whole setup. Even with the fact that I was down to my last belt sander belt, and it was getting a bit worn, it still went pretty quick. After pulling off the clamps, I was very happy with how straight and true the panels and joints were.

Building a Beefy Bulkhead

After much careful consideration, calculation and concentration, I finally took a guess where the keel is going to go. Now I am able to build the main bulkhead that will act as the lateral bracing for the keel box. I cut the pieces out of 3/8 and 1/4 and laminated the whole thing in position to make a 5/8" bulkhead. Eventually, I will cut a slot and the keel box will be centered in this bulkhead.