July 2013

The rear crossbeam supposedly gets assembled in situ, by the plans, but I decided to make the beam up on my workbench and fit it in one go. It is a combination of ply with timber inside it. I put a small curve ,side to side, across the top just for fun. I had to make up a jig for my router to cut the slots in the deck so the beam could drop into place. Some of the stringer woodwork inside the upper hulls was also in the way of the beam so I had to rout out a bit on the edges of the beam here and there. Cutting with the router and a jig is much tidier, but of course cuts could be made by hand, or in some cases, a jigsaw.

As regards the cabin, there are two sizes shown in the plans depending whether a larger cabin is wanted, or a larger cockpit. I chose the standard smaller cabin, larger cockpit since I knew I would be mostly using the boat for day sailing. Even so there is enough room in the cabin to sleep 2 not to mention the possibility for a boom tent over the 1.8 m long cockpit. I also think the boat will look more balanced with the smaller cabin.

With the 2 large front cabin bulkheads, (the upper parts of BH2 and 3) I decided to make them as one full panel each, which meant making up patterns from MDF board to avoid expensive errors.
 The BH2 and BH3 upper panels are made up full width to match the width that the boat has ended up at, minus the thickness of the cabin outer wall ply each size. They extend through the deck (with a slot) down to the bridgedeck.

The deck had to be slotted with the router much like as per the rear beam. Parts of the bottom edge of these panels have to have rebates where they meet the bridgedeck support stringers, and also at the edges where they go through the deck to allow for the stringers there. Plus the heavy stringers that transverse the base have to have a small rebate at the back of them where they also meet the above mentioned bridgedeck support stringers, similar to with the rear crossbeam. The openings through the front BH2 panel I made about the size per the plans but with a large opening in the centre .

 A lot of the deck of the boat inside the cabin can now be cut away as the bridge deck becomes the cabin floor. I left a bit of a lip all around the remnants of the deck panel about the width of my jigsaw base against the bulkheads and a bit more on the outer cabin wall edge. It was just easier to keep everything tidy like this as cutting off flush would damage the ply and timber beside it.

With these 2 panels fitted the boat has taken on a very ungainly appearance, especially from the front view. Let’s hope it improves as we progress.