Interior work....

Interior progress

: One of the trickiest : choosing paint colours! Charlotte has now finished most of the interior painting, this has included many hatches and odd squares of ply-wood - it is amazing how many there are in a relatively simple interior!

I have now finished the chart table / navigation area . I have added a seat. This will also provide a place to sit when cooking in the galley.

In order to get this seat to work i slightly changed the shape of the port water tank - made it a little narrower but added to its hight to keep volume the same. Above the chart table are lockers, a panel for electrics and a shelf blow the portlight.

The galley now has all the main lockers/cupboards made although i have not yet made the doors and a few draws. I have used a few reclaimed draws that had been taken out of a local work boat i have been working on, this was well worth doing as they take time to make and are even dovetailed together.

I could not find a galley sink that I liked so I decided to make one out of ply and build it directly into the worktop. this seems to have worked well . i made it double - luxury. one side is small the other largish. Should be good for conserving water - i bet the small one is used most (about the size of a large ice cream tub). the whole lot is glass clothed with epoxy. They should drain above the waterline and so no need for a pump.

I found a nice chrome pump, double action, on ebay for £10 the perfect galley tap. I have plumbed it the tanks - i used domestic copper pipe with soldered joints bit of a experiment - i hate the taste of plastic pipes. I was looking at a well built 1960’s boat of traditional construction that has copper pipes for fresh water and all were in good original condition. The Taylors Parafin Stove is also fitted. So we now have a fully functional galley perfect for tea breaks!

My ply wooden sink...

Tap/pump off Ebay - £10

It has a pannel that slots in to cover it up also acts as a chopping board. Whole lot is woven glass clothed set in epoxy.

12 Months on

12 months since starting so its worth a look. Have had a few days back at it in the new year- have got the second final layer

of ply on the deck (with help from Ash thanks) and so the hull is officially complete in its main structure. - I used up the last

3 sheets of ply on this from the original 70 odd! not a bad guess. Then managed to get all the port holes/ lights cut - this was well worth doing to let in light and air for the interior painting job that charlotte has started. For the port hole openings I rough cut with jigsaw then finished off with a jig/ template for the router. Also cut a big hole in the deck for where the dome will sit above the companion way. Not sure if to make this slide or fix it shut- i think i

know which option will not leak....

Deck Down

I decided that it would be great to get the deck on before christmas so that we could have a 'christmas party' in the boat. Laminating all the deck beams took some time - the knees have 9 laminates each and main beams have 6. All epoxy glued together.

My brother Nick and I had a fun week of jointing and fitting all the deck beams and then finally nailed down the first of two layers of the ply deck just in time for a celebratory drinks party. A good stage to have got to just before christmas. - 12 months ago we had a christmas party in an empty shed celebrating erecting a 'temporary shed roof' !! amazingly the roof is still there after so many gales.... touch wood

Mast partners

Main mast partners . This component holds the mast up so has to be strong.

3x layers of half inch ply followed by the deck (2xlayers 3/8”) Because of the raised deck this over nine foot long by two foot wide making it quite heavy to handle on your own! I thought about making a mould to laminate it over but concluded that it would consume too many materials. It turned out easy enough to mold it in pisition on the boat. Starting with scarfing the ply to make three 10’x 2’ sections. I put one of these in position on the boat and then spent some hours putting props under it from the cabin floor/galley units/water tanks pushing it up into a smooth curve that i was happy with. It looked quite a lash up but worked well. Once the props were in i took the ply off and added a mass of epoxy to create the usual sticky laminate sandwich and clamped into place.

cabin sides

At last the cabin sides are now finished and the boat is really showing her shape now. It is amazing how different she looks with the sweeping cockpit sides that are mirrored at the bow.

To get this shape I started by making a hardboard template to get the shape right without committing to expensive ply. I then scarfed together two 8’ lengths of ply to get a 16’ section that would bend and twist around the cockpit in one hit (it makes the transition from leaning into the cabin to leaning out to match the hull angle at the stern post/stem while curving around the cockpit/bow) These are then screwed, glued, nailed and tortured into position followed by a second layer. At the same time I used 100mm glass tape and epoxy to smooth in the joint between deck and side.

Its getting cold!!

Over the past few weeks the temperature has been plunging to below freezing. The epoxy needs pre heating with a fan heater then i stand it by my workshop stove to keep it warm for the day.

The workshop has not been the only cold place - the cottage where we stay has also been cooling down. In light of this i have spent a few evenings making a little stove. I used an old diving bottle for the main part, some cast iron gutter as a flue and some 8mm steel plate to make a door/vent/lid/hinges. Its is top loading and has a removable griddle made from re-bar (from keel framework) and the legs are the off cuts from the keel bolts.

The plan is to fit it into the boat when it is finished - i will add a stainless steel fiddle rail to keep a kettle on top at sea.....

It works well and heats the little cottage well using very little fuel (Coal or wood).