Stern Buoyancy/Storage Compartment

After turning the boat over the frame was removed and the boat set up on blocks so that it is well supported and level both fore and aft and across the beam. The next job was the tedious one of cleaning off the squeezed out epoxy from the plank laps on the inside. Some of the squeeze out I had removed once the plank was in place but there were places that I couldn't reach and bits I had simply missed.

With the hull cleaned up I started on the buoyancy and storage  compartment in the stern of the boat. I used the building frame as a template with short pieces of scrap ply attached to make an exact fit with the inside of the hull. Here is a photo of the completed template still in the boat.

 

Several more jobs had to be done before the new bulkhead could be glued in place. A rail was fitted to the transom to support the rear edge of the top of this compartment and another rail was glued to the top of the new bulkhead to support the front edge. The position of the box that supports the foot of the mizzen mast was marked. In the next photo the new bulkhead is glued in place; the 4 strips are scrap ply braces to hold in in position while the glue sets.

 

In between the cutting and shaping of the template and the new bulkhead I made up the box that holds the foot of the mizzen mast. This is a simple box, 4 sides and a bottom but I found it quite tricky to make. The plywood sides need to be shaped to fit the bottom planks of the hull. The front, back and bottom of the box are solid timber. I glued the five pieces together 2 at a time. First the front and bottom. Then the ply sides, one to the front and one to the back. Then finally the last 2 sections were glued together as shown in the following photo. It is hard to see the box past all the clamps holding it together. The last sections of the box were given 3 coats of epoxy before the final gluing and the inside of the box will be painted before the top is fixed on the compartment. Once the top goes on the inside of this box will be inaccessible.

 

Because water can get into the box around the mizzen mast there has to be a drain hole through the transom. The hole can just be seen in the photo above, towards the top left of the hatch opening - click on the photo to enlarge it. Like the ballast tank holes in the bottom of the boat, described in an earlier post, this hole has a plastic sleeve epoxied in the hole. This sleeve will protect the edges of the hole and provide a better seal of the endgrain inside the hole.

 

The last of today's photos shows the template for the next bulkhead working forwards. This bulkhead is in 2 halves separated by the centreboard case and, together with another similar pair of bulkheads about 400 mm forther forward provides the vertical faces of a compartment that stretches across the boat.