Fore and Aft Decks

I like the idea and appearance of planked decks. Another benefit is that, with an oil finish, they will not be slippery. Some web searching turned up a couple of "how to" guides by builders of John Welsford Navigators. One is Barrett Faneuf's write up and the other is on Joel Bergen's blog. After studying both of these I made a start on the aft deck as it is smaller and an easier shape to deal with. Because I was working by trial and error I didn't take photos until the deck was finished. Here it is.

 

The result looks good to me and so I have made a start on the fore deck. The next photo shows the marking out for the pieces around the mast hole and samson post.

 

Before I cut the plywood deck I made a template from strips of scrap ply stuck together with hot melt glue. Fortunately I kept the side pieces and was able to reuse them to make templates of the margin planks at the sides. Here are the templates on the port side. These planks have to be in two pieces because my planking timber isn't wide enough to fit the curved shape. The joint is in the sunlight above the samson post.

 

 

Having cut all the pieces for the margin and the mitred pieces for the mast hole and samson post surrounds I started gluing them in place. This is a bit tricky because the planks tend to slip about on the epoxy. I'm using pavers to hold the planks down and being very watchful for signs of slippage until the epoxy begins to go off. We are having a run of 30+ degree days at the moment and so this doesn't take too long!

 

There are still two pieces of the side planks to add but, as you can see, the pavers get a bit crowded. Tomorrow I will glue them in and start filling in the space in the middle.

Back in the Boat Shed

Towards the end of August I went to the UK for 10 weeks. While I was there I managed to meet up with a couple of people who own boats like the one I am building. First was John Sharpe and his SFD Able called Michy Lou for several hours sailing on Lake Ullswater on a cold, wet and windy day.

 Second was Nigel Modern and his SFD Kane (one plank less than Able) called Osprey for a warm sunny afternoon on a reservoir near his home.

I am very grateful to both these guys for the effort they put into taking me for a sail and can't thank them enough. These two days went a long way towards convincing me that I chose a good boat to build; normally you don't get to try the design you choose until you finish building the boat!

I've been home for 6 weeks and it is only in the last few days that I have restarted my Able project. I was jet lagged, I went away visiting friends, I went sailing and then, finally I started sanding the inside of the boat. Today I finished the sanding, taped and protected the areas where I don't want paint and put the first coat of primer on the inside of my boat. The tape and paper is for protection but also to remind me not to get carried away and paint parts that I shouldn't! Here are a couple of photos at the end of the day.

You can see that I am not painting the fore and aft decks and the seat tops. I am going to try and plank these areas. Definitely the decks and maybe the seat tops (if I like the decks).

That's it until I finish the painting. It might be a week or more before I post again because photos and words about paint drying aren't very interesting!