Down The Hatch

As far as Rat Pack movies go, Robin and the Seven Hoods is, well, as good of a Rat Pack movie as you have a right to expect.  At one point in the movie, the innocent Bing Crosby character is accepted into the mafia.  The runs out yelling, as only Bing Crosby can, "Oh boy! I'm a hood, I'm a hood!"  That's what was going through my head as I tackled my latest project.  As I continued to procrastinate on sanding and eventually flipping the boat, I decided to tackle constructing the sea-hood and companionway hatch.

This mini-project did not get off to an auspicious start.  The first step it to take some scrap wood and create a patteron for the forward end of the sea hood. The piece is set at 66 deg to the cabin deck s contour.  So, I grabbed a piece of scrap wood, set it up on the cabin deck at an angle of 66 degrees, and traced away.   I cut out my pattern and fit it to the hull.  Not bad.

Using my pattern, I laid out the shape on a piece of 3/4" mahogany that I'd picked up earlier in the day from Martin Lumber.  I set the table on my bandsaw to 66 deg and went to town on it.  Well, actually, due to the way the angle meter on the bandsaw reads, I set it to 90-66=34 deg.  Catch the math error?  After reseting to 24 deg, I made the cut again.  It felt a little clumsy to make that cut, and the bandsaw emitted strange R2-D2 noises, but the operation went fairly smoothly, and the finished result looked pretty good.  It look good, that is, until I held it up to the boat and realized that while I had cut the correct angle on the bottom, I cut the bevel the wrong way on the top surface.  Off to the scrap heap with that one.

The hood sides and and early iteration of the front

Fortunately, I had another piece of mahogany of the right size laying around.  So, I tried again.  This time the angles were right.  Success!  I the laid out the shape of the sea hood sides and cut them out.  A dry fit on the boat revealed the I hadn't been as successful as I had thought.  Ssomewhere in the process I had mis-measured and mond attempt at the front of the seat hood turned out a little too short.  I didn't see a good to save it, so I bit the bullet, scrapped that guy, drove down to Martin Lumber, and bought a new board.  I joked a little with the guys down there about it being a measure-once-cut-twice-scrap-it-measure-again-cut-twice-scrap-it-measure... kind of day.  They smiled.

Round three.  R2-D2 noises from the bandsaw, cut, cut, cut.  This time I'd somehow over-compensated for the shortness of the previous attempt and ended up with a board that was just a little tall.  No problem!  I laid out a new curve at the right height and returned to the bandsaw.  I was about halfway through the cut when I realized something was right.  I had the board backwards and once again was slicing through the board at the wrong angle.  I really didn't want to scrap another board, and I briefly considered filling in the kerf of my half completed cut with thickened epoxy and calling it a day.  But, the vision is to have the sea hood and companionway hatch varnished, and a line of thickened epoxy streaking across the front of the hood does not fit with the vision.  So, back to Martin I went.

If they were smiling when I left previously, they could butshake their heads upon my return.  I snatched up another suitable length of mahogany, supported my local small business some more, and headed for home, vowing as I left that I would not return that day.

My gallery of failure.  From left to right, we have "pattern", "wrong angle", "too short", "too tall+1/2 wrong angle", and finaly "good enough"

I again oh-so-carefully laid out the shape of the front of the sea hood on the board, and proceeded with the utmost caution to the bandsaw, where with infinite care, I methodically and meticulously made the required cuts, whilst the bandsaw again wailed like a distressed droid.  If this didn't work, I was done for the day. 

It worked.  A dry fit revealed no issues and I temporarily assembled the front and sides of the hood.

Assembly!

As evidenced by the rate at which I  was destroying mahogany earlier in the day, clearly I was not in the kind of focused-yet-zen-like state of mind that is condusive to good boatbuilding.  Nevertheless, I soldiered on, knocking out the sides and front of the companionway hatch, and the aft trim pieces for hatch 'n hood, with alarming alacricity. The manual suggests using a plane to bevel the sides and ends of the hatch and hood, but the geometry is simple enough that these bevels can be included when cutting the pieces in the first place.

Frame of the companionway hatch.

Test fit of the assembly.  I may have been on a roll, but that doesn't mean I  was quite thinking straight.  I naturally decided that the forward face of the hatch should face aft, into the cockpit when I snapped this picture.  No, no, no, forward is alway forward. 

I had built up a ton of momentum (no, the units are wrong...maybe a ton*ft/sec of momentum), so despite the hour getting late, and a rumbling in my tummy, I decided to fit the decks.  The plans yielded two oversized pieces of ply that I temporarily fit up, marked, removed, and trimmed.  Easy as pie.

Trial fit of the deck on the hood.

Go-go-gadget adjustable hole saw!

I've been working steadily to check of tasks from the pre-boat-flipping checklist.  I had ordered some Vetus  portlights from Fisheries Supply, and was waiting for those to come in before cutting the holes for them (just to make sure I cut the right size hole!).  It took a while, but they finally arrived.  I opened the box, dug out the directions, and found the size of the required hole.  It specified a hole diameter of 0.125.  No units.  Bad technical writing.  Well, since Vetus is a Dutch company, I could only assume this was in metric units, and given the magnitude, it had to be meters.  Refraining from using Google's unit conversion features, I instead demonstrated my keen mathmatical prowess by converting this to inches by hand.  A smidge less than 5".  So, I set my adjustable hole saw to a smidge less than 5", and started cutting holes in my boat.

I have seeeeen the light!

The PocketShip plans show pretty trapezoidal toerails running along the sides of the deck. I like the design of these...they really look nice. Trouble is, at some point I made the mistake of envisioning grabrails there instead.  After walking the docks at the marina looking at grabrail designs, and playing around with a cardboard mockup on the boat, I decided that it would be too much trouble to make grabrails.  The big stumbling. block was that they'd have to be curved to follow the curvature of the sides of the deck.   I decided to definitely go with the toerails as specified instead.

But thoughts of the grab rails kept dogging me.  Finally, I gave in.  I could at least have a go at grab rails, and if they turned out to be rubbish, I could revert to the attractive trapazoidal toerails. 

I traced the curve of deck onto a piece of scrap plywood, cut it out and fashioned a jig on which I laminated together two pieces of 1/2 mahogany.  I laid out a couple of lines indicating the horizontal lines of the rails, and mesaured and marked the locations of the feet.  I freehanded the curves.  A quick trip through the bandsaw, and I had a pair of rails that I was glad to see looked pleasing to the eye.  A dry fit on the boat validated my initial reaction. 

Finally, after all of this, I could procrastinate no longer.  I hooked up the sander, donned my favorite sanding gear (long sleeved shirt, ancient jeans, respirator, safety goggles, hearing protection) and finished the last (for now) of the sanding of the topsides.  The boat is ready to flip.

Two Years Before the Mast

Growing up, I had a copy of Dana's Two Years Before the Mast sitting on my bookshelf.  I never was really interested in it.  To my under-informed mind, the term "before the mast," conjured images of boring history of some dark, dusty semi-medieval era, strangely resembling Disney's The Sword in the Stone, before they invented sailing.  Didn't sound like a good read.  I am a somewhat vociferous reader, though, and eventually I felt compelled to pick up the book and read it.  I forget when...maybe in high school.  It definitely wasn't what I'd imagined.  It opened my eyes to the world of tall ships and sailing  (and I learned what "before the mast" really means).  I can't say that I've yet recovered from the impact that book had on me, which is a good thing in my opinion.

As I mentioned previously, it was while I was on a wind tunnel test in Switzerland in May 2010 that I became infatuated with PocketShip.  When I got home from that trip, I ordered that manual, just to stoke the imagination and assess how big of a project it would be.  The manual arrived a few days later, and I spent the last few nights of May reading it cover to cover.  On thing I remember is reading the chapter on building the spars.  I don't know why, but just seemed like a lot of fun.  It's been something I've looked forward to since the beginning.

Now, two years, almost to the day, after first reading the manual, I found myself slicing up some beautiful pieces of spruce...I was building my mast.  This was completely unplanned, but I guess it really did turn out to be two years before the mast!

Way back, I had weighed to cost and benefits of fir versus spruce, and decided the lower cost of fir outweighed the benefit of spruce.  As I've invested more time and money into this project, though, I reevaluated my decision.  I decided I really wanted the lighter weight aloft, and the cost differential wasn't that much.   Long ago, I had purchase fir for my bowsprit and boom (and even cut out the bowsprit), and fir they shall remain.  The booms of a gaffer should be heavy anyway for best sailing qualities.  And as for the bowsprit, well...whatever.  The mast and gaff, however, will be sitka spruce. This should make a sizable reduction in weight aloft. 

My "radar reflector."  I have no way of knowing if this will work.

The mast is hollow, of a square cross section, fashioned from four 3/4" staves.  The mast tapers from a 3"x3" box in the lower three-ish feet to a about a 2"x2" at the tippy-top.  Each end has a filler block, making the mast solid at the ends to support the loads of the mast pivot, gooseneck, the various hardware at the masthead.  Taking advantage of the hollow section, I cut a number of strips of aluminum foil, 2"-3" long, to stuff into the top of the mast to serve as a radar reflector.  Those 2"-3" should be right around the wavelength of a ship's radar, and hopefully will light it up like a Christmas tree.  With the Naval station so near by, it seems sensible.  Not that the Nimitz would be able to maneuver out of my little boat's way, but it's the thought that counts.

Todd at Martin Lumber was able to procure some nice, clear, vertical-grain 16'+ sitka spruce planks for me.  As before, my plan was to carry each plank home.  Fortunately, when I explained my plan (prefacing it with "you're gonna look at me like I'm crazy when I tell you how I'm getting these home") to Willie, one of the guys in the yard there, he offered to drop them off for me free of charge.  Another example of how Martin Lumber takes care of their customers.  Thanks, Willie!

The planks were 5/4 (dimensional) rough cut, so I had to spend about an hour running them through the surface planer to get the 3/4" (actual) required thickness.  I wish I had a picture...I nearly filled up a 32 gallon garbage can with spruce shavings!

Staves getting the epoxy-sealing treatment

I carefully laid out the tapers and cut them out with my trusty circular saw.  Then, the part I was dreading...cutting 3/8" deep rabbets in the sides for the fore and aft faces to slot into.  I could just picture wrestling with a 16' plank, trying to keep it up against the fence on the table saw.  I contemplated doing some fancy router work instead, but I finally took a deep breath and fired up the table saw.  It was actually a surprisingly smooth operation.  The rabbets were cut in no time!

From there, the operation was pretty straightforward: cut the blocks for each end of the mast; seal up the insides with a couple coats of epoxy; lather up the mating surfaces with thickened epoxy; clamp the thing together (stuffing my foil strips inside); and wait for the glue to dry.  Actually, there was on more step before I put the final stave in place. 

Blurry camera mode has been enabled...here are the staves ready for the glue-up

I did the big glue-up fairly early in the day, and I used fast hardener, so by the evening, I was able to take the clamps off, sand down the squeezeout and use the router to put a nice 1/2" roundover on the corners.  It looks great.

Still blurry.  I did the glue-up outside so that I'd still have room to work inside the shop.  Note the proximity to the blooming rhody.  Only one bee managed to get distracted from the pink flowers and entomb its rear legs in the squeeze-out.

Blurry mode disabled.  Still a bad picture, though.  Here the mast has been cleaned up and the roundovers applied.

Speaking of bees, I saw one fly into a hole in the garage.  I wondered where the hole lead.  It lead into the garage...and the growing wasps' nest!  I dealt with this quickly.

Test fit of the lazarette hatches

Yes...I'm still sanding and getting getting distracted by a bunch of tasks that I want to get done before flipping the boat.  I managed to get the fiddly trim strips onto the transom skirt.  I made the cutouts for my lazarette hatches.  I cut the hole in the transom for the tiller and the hole in the bow for the bowsprit.  I filled the screw holes in the rubrails and got the dropboard retainer/companionway coaming thingies installed.  Okay, so I haven't actually spent more than a half-hour sanding since last update, but it I will, I promise.

Happy Rails to You, Un-Tiller We Meet Again

I've heard that miners used to carry canaries with them into the mines to ascertain whether the air was safe to breathe.  If the canary didn't die, then the air was OK.  The idea of using a very sensitive indicator to test for imminent danger is a good one.

In boatbuilding, the danger is that you get wrapped up in it, choosing to dedicate time to the build rather than things like doing the laundry, cooking, keeping up on house maintenance, and spending quality time with your (circle all that apply) friends/family/girlfriend/wife/dog/bartender.  The net results is an imbalance in your life that will carry unfortunate consequences of one form or another.  Clearly this must be avoided.  And it can be, if you look for the warning signs, if you keep an eye on your canary. 

My "canary" is my violin instructor.  My ability to produce an acceptable sound on the fiddle is proportional to the amount of time I spend practicing in a week.  Practice time is the first thing that suffers when  boatbuilding activities start consuming too much of my time.  A painful sound generated during the violin lesson is a warning klaxon telling me to moderate on the time in the shop.  I've really been on a roll on the boat in the past few weeks, and there have been a couple times that I've heard the alarm.  So far, though, I've heeded the warning, kept my life in balance, and kept the canary alive.  I'm actually kinda proud of that. 


Anyway, most of the boat-related work of late has involved me being hooked up to a sander, slowly reducing the bright, shiny, epoxy-coated surfaces of my hull to a smooth, dull gray.  It has actually been going faster than I expected, but still, there is just a lot of area to cover.  I don't want to think about how many hours it has taken so far, or how many hours are ahead.

With all the sanding, my dust collector has been getting full. 

To break up the sanding monotony, I have been indulging in what PocketShip builder Sean called Procrastination Projects.  The first project was installing the rubrails.  The rubrails consist of three layers of 3/4" thick timber, milled to a trapezoidal shape that tapers from 1 1/4" to 3/4" in width.  These lay right along the sheer, and, for the sake of good looks, it is essential that they run nice and fair.   Ensuring that they're nice and fair involves temporarily installing the first layer and standing back from the boat and looking at it from different angles, making any adjustments required to remove any waviness.  Unfortunately, my garage is too small to fully enable the "stand back" part of that process. 

Installing the rubrails.

While trying to figure out how best to check the fairness of the rails without the use of an interphasing cloaking device, I suddenly remembered back to a random piece of knowledge I picked up back in grad school..a fair curve is defined as a curve that has a continuous second derivative.  Of course!  That made it so clear, so easy. 

In case it isn't already painfully obvious to you, let me explain the  mathrmatics of the procedure.  What I needed to do was grab a rubrail, install it with a couple of temporary screws, whip out a pencil and paper, sit down....and write the Romulans to seek if I could borrow an interphasing cloaking device.  OK...so that was a dead end.  In the end, I settled for sighting down the rails at as many angles as I could and convincing myself that everything would be all right.  It sure looks OK now, but I guess the final determination will come when the boat leaves the shop!

The rails really add definition to the sheerline.   It transforms
the boat from a big kayak into a proper sailboat.  You can see the cowl vents on for a trial fit too.

 Installing the rubrails was the perfect diversion...I could only install one layer on one side of the boat at a time.  Installing a layer didn't eat a huge chunk of time, and after the epoxy was applied the the rail secured with temporary screws, I could devote the rest of my time to some sanding.  It really helped break the sanding up into more manageable chunks.

A rare photo of a tiller hangin' out, lookin' casual. 

Another side project to help procrastinate on sanding...the tiller.  I also bought a nice piece of ash last time I was at Martin Lumber.   From this, I fashioned my tiller.  I had considered building a laminated tiller, as is the current fashion.  They look nice, but just a little too trendy for me.  Solid ash just seem like a hearty, traditional, no-nonsense approach.

Procrastinating further, I took a trip to Fisheries Supply and picked up a couple of goodies, including the cowl vents for the dorade boxes and two Tempress hatches for access to the lazarette.  I've since cut the holes for the vents.  The holes for the hatches will come soon.

Test fit of the tabernacle

Enjoying the act of procrastination to its fullest, I've also mostly constructed the tabernacle for the mast.  One by one, all the pieces that will make up the finished boat are coming together. 

I just realized that basically the hull is ready to flip any time!  Of course, just because we CAN do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that we MUST do that thing.  There are a number of projects that I'd like to tick off the list before rolling the boat.  There is still a fair bit of sanding left to do in the cockpit.  And I have to install a tricky bit of trim on the transom skirt.  And I might start fiddling with the companionway hatch.    Still, I guess I need to think through the logistics of the flip and get my cadre of happy helpers together. 

P.S. Dave Curtis, there are three Star Trek references in this post.  Can you find them all?

Boardwalk

Recently, I was walking down the street, carrying a 16ft long mahogany board, and I thought to myself,  wouldn't it be interesting to start a blog entry with 'recently, I was walking down the street, carrying a 16ft long mahogany board'....

It was a sunny-ish, Friday afternoon.  I had just stopped at Martin Lumber (one of the best lumber stores out there!)  to pick up some timber to get started my PocketShip's companionway and tabernacle.  Poking through the lumber yard, I saw it...a beautiful, long 1"x8" hunk of mahogany.  The color was deep and uniform.  I measured it...16'.  Perfect of PocketShip's rubrails.  I couldn't let this one go, so I bought it.  Now, how to get it home?

My dad and I have traded cars for a couple of weeks, so instead of the Monster, with its cavernous interior and practical roof rack, I've been scooting around in a little roadster.  And while the other pieces of timber that I bought that day could be transported with one end shoved into the passenger footwell and the other end shooting off into the sky, transporting a board that's 4' longer than the car in this fashion just wasn't practical. 

More pondering.  One of the greatest benefits to where I live is that it is only about a mile from Martin Lumber.  Why not just carry it home?  So, I drove home, offloaded my other purchases, walked back to Martin, grabbed my board, and set off.  A couple of notes, in case you ever decide to walk a 16' piece of lumber home...   The weight of the board wasn't too much of an issue as I meandered the streets.  But, wow, the moment of inertia...I'd turn a corner and the board wouldn't.   RRRRaaaaaargh, ok, now we're going the right way.   There was also a light wind, and the darn thing would want to weathercock any time a gust caught it.  Whooooops...RRRRaaaaaargh, ok, now we're going the right way.  And then there's the length.  You'd have to be careful approaching intersections, or else you'd have several feet of mahogany hanging into the street while waiting at the crosswalk.  Watch that window!  It took constant effort to keep the whole business from devolving into a Laurel and Hardy-type affair.

The 16' mahogany plank, finally at home

Back in the shop, I finally got everything rounded over, faired, and sanded to the point that I was happy.  Time for 'glass.  I had to do this in stages for a number of reasons.  The first was time.  There's a lot of surface area that needs to be covered, and it just takes a long time to wet it all out, so that pushed it into a multiday project by itself.  Also, this is a big little boat, and some places, like the footwell, can't be reached without stepping on other places, like the cockpit.  Trying to do this all in one go would have been a disaster.  Finally, my desire to achieve as many neat seams as possible using the tape 'n trim method also caused my to break up some of the work.  Working in sections, it took about a week to get the topsides 'glassed.

Ready to 'glass the cabin

I started with the cabin, and fiberglassed down the topsides in the region of the cabin.  Then the footwell, and then the starboard side of the cockpit.  The cabin went really well and the result was pretty clean.  The footwell and the cockpit were more trouble.  The footwell has some tricky corners, and frayed edges and loose 'glass ensued.  Also, I didn't round over the corners of the deck-footwell corners as much as I probably should have, so it was a battle to get the 'glass to lay down smoothly around that corner.  Anyway, it was a bit messier that I would have liked.

View of the fiberglass from the front
of the cabin, showing it draping down onto bulkhead #2.

First coat of epoxy on the cabin

Starboard cockpit 'glass

Fiberglass in the footwell

At about that point, I ran out of 'glass.  Nothing a quick trip to Fiberglass Mart wouldn't fix, right?  So, that Thursday, during lunch, I drove the 5 minutes from work to Fiberglass Mart.  And they were gone!  Closed!  THE place to get fibreglass and supplies at extraordinary prices, no more!  I was so sad. 

I drove back to the office and started looking for another supplier.  The marine supply stores cost upwards of four times what Fiberglass Mart charged.  I found another place up north, but they'd only sell me a full 150 yd roll.  Finally, after much hunting, I found some guys down in N. Seattle who had some fiberglass at a reasonable price.  I drove down there after work.  Turns out that they knew Luis, the owner of Fiberglass Mart, and had bought out his inventory.  They also told me that Fiberglass Mart had closed because Luis had retired...I was so relieved...it was such a great store and he was such a hardworking, knowledgeable guy that I hated to imagine him having gone out of business.  Now, though I'm still saddened by the loss of my favorite fiberglass supplier, I'm happy to think of him enjoying his well-earned retirement.

The rough stuff, forward

Back to the 'glass.  I bought five yards, enough to get down with the topsides.  I got home, laid out the 'glass on the port-side of the cockpit and on the topsides forward of hte cabin, and wet it out.  I was a little disappointed because instead of the 50" wide fiberglass that I thought I was buying, this stuff was only maybe 38".  But it worked.  The next day, though, I went out to start applying the fill coats of epoxy and I noticed that the texture of my newly 'glassed areas was significantly rougher that the rest of the boat.  On further investigation, I found that the fiberglass I bought from "the other guys" was actually 7oz cloth instead of 6oz. 

Maybe the 7oz stuff is stronger, and maybe that's good, but this is just not-so-nice to work with

Bright, shiny, and fully fiberglassed!

Anyway, I proceeded to do the fill coats.  The areas sheathed in 6 z cloth took the usual three coats of epoxy (wet out + 2 fill coats) to get smooth.  The 7oz stuff took an additional coat (2 more coats in some places).  I guess there's nothing wrong with that, but it was just another little, annoying reminder that I didn't get the material that I really wanted.  I have to be down at Boeing Field for work next week, which is near  the world-renown composites emporium, Fiberlay.  So, I'm planning to pick up the rest of the fiberglass I need for this project while I'm down there.

Getting started on the slow business of sanding all the bright, shininess to a dull grey.

In the end, I got the 'glassing done. 

The weather has been getting warmer, but I've never seen anything like this.  In the morning I put a new liner in the trash can.  I then spent several hours sanding and fiberglassing.  I turned around and found this....

Fixin' a Hole

I was talking with a colleague the other day about boats and boat building.  I mentioned that I was building a 15' sailboat.  Being a kindred spirit, he was interested, so I pulled up some photos.  The first photo I showed him was one from the foredeck looking aft into the cockpit.  His jaw dropped a little as he took in the deep, spacious cockpit.  When I said a 15' boat, he was imagining something smaller.  Something dingy-like.

The PocketShip design is unusually large for its size.  There are times during construction that this bigness hits you.  When the hull first get stitched together and you see that big internal volume...wow.  When you are working the thousands of miles of fillets or fiberglassing the interior, or sanding the square miles of surface area that make up this boat, you realize that this isn't a little boat.  In the last few weeks, I once again was hit by how large this boat is.  That happened after I got the cabin deck glued down.  Suddenly, the "on deck" and "below deck" became distinct places.  I find myself going below to look for some tool or a pencil I left down there.  Or I can work topsides sanding the day away...   But, I get ahead of myself.

I've got to admit, my last few posts have contains elements of whinny-ness.  There were been tasks that I'd been struggling with, and that I had to labor through, and ...well, boat building is a long-term relationship of sorts, and like any relationship you've got to work through the bad times as well as the good.  After that last rough patch, though, things have been  smooth, peaceful.

Working with a hand plane is one of the most soothing boat building activities there is.  Shaving at a piece of wood, using nothing but a steady hand and patience to transform a piece of wood into new, desired form....it is hard not to wax poetic about the process.  And since all all of the framing for the cabin deck needed to be planed down to the appropriate angles to accept the deck, there was lots of soothing activity to be had.  In fact, in sizing up the project I figured that I'd have several nights whittling away at it.  As it turned out, though, it only took a few short hours. 

 A test fit of the cabin deck 

After that, I test fit the deck.  Almost perfect.  A couple more whisks at the plane and that was it, ready to go!

I did another test fit, and carefully marked the locations of all the framing so I would know where to drill for the temporary screws that hold the deck down while the epoxy dries.  Also, the deck is a little oversized the in the plans.  It is suggested that one use a router with a flush-trim bit to trim back the deck once it is installed, but after reading about Dave's slipped  router experience, I was a little gun shy.  So, instead I marked the actual dimensions of the deck while I had it temporarily fastened, and then pulled it off and trimmed it with the circular saw.  Another test fit showed that everything turned out right.

Padded, perforated hull liner.  Posh stuff.

Before installing the cabin deck, I sanding the epoxy coated overhead (the inside of the cabin deck).  Also, I've bought a bunch of perforation, padded hull liner material.   I'm planning to line the overhead and the sides of the cabin with this.  Since it was convenient to use the as-yet uninstalled cabin deck as a template, I took the opportunity to rough cut the pieces for the overhead.

Taping off=easy cleanup!

Having run out of other things to do, it was time to install the cabin deck.  The manual recommends having a helper when installing the deck, since it is so big and unwieldy that you could easily end up with a massive, epoxy-slathered mess if you tried it yourself.  I, however, would be tackling this one alone, so I rehearsed the procedure for getting the deck hoist up onto the boat and aligned properly until I could do it without having to slide the deck around too much.  It actually wasn't too hard.  I could maneuver the deck from the cockpit up and onto the temporary cut-out spacer thing that spans the companionway.  I'd drop finish nails into two of my pre-drilled holes (for the temporary screws) to help me align everything.  With the deck still precariously balanced overhead, I'd slip into the cabin, lift the deck straight up, move it forward until the finish nails were right over the corresponding holes in the deck, and then drop the thing down.  Easy as pie. 

Time, then, for the real thing.  I carefully taped off the areas on both the deck and the boat so that most of the squeeze-out could be easily contained.  I mixed up some unthickened epoxy and hit all the mating surfaces with it.  This was followed by a big batch of thickened epoxy, liberally slathered everywhere.  Next came, highly choreographed, oddly well practised dance of maneuvering the deck into place.  Up, over, down, up, down, and out.  Time to drive the temporary screws.  I had chosen to place these about six inches apart, so there ended up being a TON of them.  Peel the tape, clean up any remaining squeeze-out.  Job done!  Well, almost.  I couldn't resist finally knockout out the cut-out spacer thing, finally opening up the companionway properly. 

Wide open spaces.  The companionway is liberated of the spacer!

 The next day, the glue was dry and the screw came out.  With all my temporary screws liberated, I figured it was time to fasten down the seatback decks.  Like the cabin deck, these guys had undergone an intensive training program of test fitting and trimming, so installation was a breeze.  And, with these installed, I also ran fillets about the seatbacks (I had been waiting for the seatback decks to go on to do this, so that I could fillet the deck-to-aft cabin bulkhead seams at the same time). 

Stepping back, suddenly, there was the hull of my boat, sitting there in front of me, essentially whole.  All the major components are now part of the boat.  Sure, there's plenty more work to do, fiberglassing, sanding, attaching little bits a pieces, but this is still a major milestone!

The whole hull.  OK, you can only really see the cockpit area, but I can't find anywhere that I can stand to get a picture of much more of the boat.

With this done, It was time to make some refinements.  Variously employing planes, grinder, and sanders, I slowly worked to mold the shape to perfection, filling holes, making things flush, rounding corners.  I queued up Sgt. Pepper on the old MP3 player and set to work...perfect music to accompany this kind of work. There were lots of holes to fix, and cracks to fill.

Since the next big step is to fiberglass all the topsides, essentially setting their form in stone, I've allowed my perfectionism to run wild at this point.   I've spent several days so far carefully refining PocketShip's curves.  Still have a little more work to until she's just right.

"I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering"

Fairing the topsides

  One thing that I wasn't really happy about was that there were a few spots where my stitching job had pulled things slightly out-of-fair.  I bought some fairing compound at Fisheries Supply and have been working to correct this.  Fairing compound is an easily sandable, epoxy-based filler, and man, it is soooooo easy to work with.  Adding microballoons to epoxy accomplishes the same-ish thing, but it takes some work to get the consistency right.   Fairing compound is just boom, right out of the box.  Still, it takes some time and patience to identify low spots, fill them, sand, and slowly fair the boat.

Replace your divots!

On another front, I've ordered my sails.  In the end, I chose to buy the Douglas Fowler-made sails from CLC.  It took a lot of deliberation to come to that decision.   I really wanted to have a local loft make them for me, but when I boiled it down, my local choices fell into these three categories:

1. The finest sails in the world...around twice the price of the excellent Douglas Fowler sails that CLC offers.
2. Sails equal to Fowler's, only more expensive
3. Quality sails slightly less expensive than CLC's.

For the first category, while I desperately wanted the Schattauer or Hasse sails, I just couldn't justify the cost. Even if I use this boat as much as I dream I will (which I probably won't), I can't imagine ever putting them to the kind of use that would allow their magnificience to truly shine.  As for the second category, well, why pay more?

That left category three.  There was a small sail loft in Eastern Washington that tendered a bid lower than CLC's sails, and I gave the bid a lot of thought.  In the end, though, it was only a couple hundred dollars cheaper, and the CLC sails were a known quantity.  Folwer has already cut sail for PocketShips, and there is something to be said for experience.  Also, I've noticed that John Harris doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would tolerate mediocre sails on his boat, so if they're good enough for his PocketShip, they're good enough for mine.  Sold.  I still may yet order a spinnaker from the Eastern Washington outfit.  Time will tell.

So, next up will be a ton of 'glass work.  

The Varying Flavors of Victory

The PocketShip manual is insufferably optimistic.  It's invariably happy.  Upbeat.  This is in many ways a good thing.  It imbues the reader with a it's-not-to-hard-you-can-do-it warm fuzzy.  And it's true.  Building a boat is a long series of little steps, all of which can be done.  However, what the PocketShip manual does not tell you is that the actual experience of boat building is not invariably happy and upbeat.  There are moments of sublime pleasure, proud accomplishment, transcendent joy.  And there are moments of utter terror, pain, frustration, confusion, and disdain.   This last month, I've been riding the emotional roller coaster of boat building. 

Things started off on the wrong note.  I noticed (why didn't I see this before?) that I had accidentally rounded over the UPPER edge of the starboard sheer clamp/cabin deck carlin, instead of the lower edge!  After assessing the situation, I realized that there was really nothing that could be done except accept it.  Once that bit of timber gets planed down to accept the cabin deck, it'll be barely noticeable inside the cabin.   

Port dorade box, stitched in

With that moment of defeat readily dispatched, I tackled the dorade boxes.  This was a pretty straightforward stitch and glue operation.  The only thing that I had trouble with was what angle to set the forward side of the box.  I ended up making it parallel to the forward cabin bulkhead, only to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night after I'd filleted it in that I could have grabbed the correct angle off the plans!  That is, after all, why there are plans to begin with.  After glancing at the plans, I confirmed my suspicions...the outboard ends should have angled forward.  I've more or less internalized the remaining steps in the build, and consequently haven't looked at the plans or manual for months...I guess that is the price to pay.  Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it...it was in there permanently.

The fillets that made my mistake permanent.

 So far in this project, I've had a couple of approaches to errors.  I've been known to scrap whatever went wrong and start over.  Another approach I've taken on occasion has been to cover up the error.  when those aren't options, there's always the accept it and move on routine.  But this time, I've had an epiphany, a leap forward in maturity.   Rather than just accept this error, I'm taking ownership of it.  This is my boat.  Not John Harris', not Dave Curtis', not Sean's, Pete's, Bruno's, Bill's, Jay's, Peggy's or anyone else's.  Mine.  Each boat has its own "errors,"  its own geometry, its own character.  Among other things, mine has dorade boxes which have faces parallel  to the forward cabin bulkhead.  It has them now, and it will have them forever.  No other boat will have the same combination of elements, perfect and imperfect, that mine has.   This is the boat that I have built.

With that out of the way, I decided to work out the bugs in the transom "skirt".  I decided to cut a brand new "skirt" out of a scrap piece of 3/8" ply.  I just happened to have one...exactly one...piece that was large enough.  After some head scratching, I figured that I needed to reduce the camber of the skirt by 1/4", and came up with a clever way to mark it.   I took up my pencil, batten, nails and measuring tape, and laid out a new skirt.  Saw to wood...test fit...and...uh oh.  Instead of reducing the camber by 1/4", I increased it by 1/4".

If you look at the middle of the skirt/transom intersection, you'll see that this is definitely not right.

Laminating my transom skirt extender.

I immediately realized the error in my method, laid out the correct curve on the bottom of the skirt and cut again.  This time the curve was right, but now I faced the same problem as many teenage girls have these days.  My skirt was too short.   I looked all over the shop for a suitable piece of 3/8" plywood to make new skirt from.  Nothing.  I considered a huge variety of options for moving ahead...install the old "bad" one and fill with thickened epoxy like crazy, laminate 2 pieces of 1/4" and make it out of that, buy a whole new sheet of 3/8" ply...  After sleeping on it, I decided that the 100% best thing to do would be to laminate a 3/8"x1/2" piece of timber to the top of the new skirt, thus making it the correct dimensions.  I did this and, to my immense relief, it worked great!  I bit of thickened epoxy later and the transom skirt became a permanent part of the boat.

New and improved skirt

Filleted in.

 

The next thing I wanted to tackle were all the cleats that will support the cabin deck.  The easy part are the ones that go on the inside of the dorade boxes.  The ones inside the cabin along the upper edges of the cabin bulkheads are trickier.  They are bound on one side by the "sheer clamps" and by the cabin deck carlins on the other.  Getting the lengths and compound angles just right it a lesson in trickiness itself.  For me it'd also prove to be an exercise in patience, frustration, fear, courage, and persistence.

I didn't realize all this in the beginning.  After being bitten by not reading the manual, I started reviewing the sections covering whatever I'm about to do before I do it (that was before having my epiphany...I largely set down the manual again, post epiphany).  It seemed like a simple affair: trace some patterns, cut some wood, et viola.  So, I traced a pattern, cut out a test piece of wood from some scrap, and found that I'd forgotten to take into account the fact that the outboard ends have to be beveled to meet the sheer clamps nicely.  With that in mind, I marked up another piece, this time a little bit long, cut it out, applied what I thought would be the right bevel and achieved...failure.  My angles were all wrong and, despite have cut out a piece that I thought was extra long, I ended up with a cleat that was too short.  This was going to be harder than I thought.

The saga of these chingaderos (see Larry Cheek's blog for a definition of his colorfully coined boat building term http://lawrencewcheek.com/news/?p=161.) will continue soon.  But first, this is as good a time as any for a note to anyone reading this who is currently building a PocketShip, or is considering doing so in the future.  I highly recommend marking and cutting out these cleats before installing the inboard cabin deck carlins (the ones that run on either side of the companionway opening).  This'll give you room to mark and measure and fiddle with these parts without being constrained by the bookends of sheer clamp (I still dislike that term, but that's what the manual calls it) and carlin. 

Anyway, seeing the challenge ahead, I decided that rather than forge ahead with those fiddly bits, I'd work on something easy.  Like the seatbacks.

The last of the plywood become the seatbacks!

Unbelievably, I didn't cut out the seatbacks back over a year ago when I cut out all of the other plywood parts.  This is because the Pocketship manual makes some parenthetical comment about potentially making these based on your own pattern (measured from and fit to your boat) rather than using the pattern in the plans.   At the time I thought this was great idea.  But, in the intervening year, the weight of that suggestion seems to have decreased dramatically.  So, rather than fiddle around with making a pattern, I pulled out my last sheet of 1/4" marine plywood, unrolled the plans, and set to work with awl, pencil and circular saw.  This sure brought back memories!

The plans yield seatbacks that are sufficiently oversized to allow them to be trimmed back to fit the boat perfectly.  It took a couple of iterations in and out of the boat to get things fitting just right.

The setbacks really help define the final shape of the cockpit.

Around about this time, I also installed some thick timber backing blocks between the two seatback deck carlins (aka upper seatback stringers).  This will give a nice thick hunk of wood backing the seatback decks so that the screws holding things like mooring cleats will have something to sink their teeth into.

With this done, it was time for an epoxy seal-a-thon.  The insides of the seatbacks, the seatback frames, stringers, reinforcement blocks, and generally any bare wood that'd be enclosed in the seatbacks got a couple of thick coats of unthickened epoxy to seal them against moisture.  I also hit the cabin overhead with a couple of coats while I was at it, and the insides of the dorade boxes.

Epoxy sealing in progress.  Cold temperatures outside and limited floor area in the shop lead to anything not attached to the boat to be treated the the boatyard annex (a.k.a. upstairs in my house).

When the epoxy finally dried, it was time to start putting it all together.  The aft quarter or so of the seatbacks is a storage area accessible from the cockpit, so I had to cut two access port in the seatbacks to accommodate these.  There are some 3/8" ply reinforcements (if you remember, these were the very, very, very first parts I cut out on this boat!) that glue on to the insides of the access ports.  I neglected to mention it, but these were actually glued on while the sealing epoxy was drying and later served as guides for cutting the access ports.

Cutting out the cockpit storage locker access.

The forward three-quarters of the seatbacks are watertight and stuffed with foam flotation.  A la Sean's PocketShip, I drilled  holes in the watertight seatback frames at the forward end storage locker to accommodate screw in/out drain plugs to allow the watertight areas to ventilate when the boat is out of the water.  I also ran a length of black plastic tubing from the aft cabin bulkhead, through the seatback structure, into the cockpit storage lockers.  This will serve as a wire conduit for the stern light (and potentially anything else I decide I need electricity for back in the cockpit).  I don't want to totally spoil the surprise yet, but I have come up with a nifty way to get route the wires through the cabin into this conduit.  Stay tuned.

The hole in the bottom of the seatback frame is for a drain plug to go in.  Just visible along the very top of the hull is the black plastic tube that I'm using as a wiring conduit.

Here you can see the reinforcement blocks being installed.

The last of the foam flotation.  My PocketShip is now assured of having positive flotation.

I knew I was getting close when I found myself cutting up blue foam to stuff in the watertight compartments.  Once again, this went strangely fast, and was enjoyable well out of proportion with the actual magnitude of the act.

Epoxy sealing, check.  Reinforcement blocks, check.  Wire conduit, check.  Foam flotation, check  Seatback installation dry run, check.  Clearly, it was time to mix up the thickened epoxy and install the seatbacks once and for all.  While the thickened epoxy was flowing, I also installed the upper breasthook, and a piece of 3/4"x1" timber along either sheer line inside the cabin...the purpose of which I'm not ready to divulge yet.

In they go!

But the cockpit was where it was at.  This was victory, sweet, sweet victory!  The cockpit was transformed into something closely resembling its final form, and, coincidentally, became a very comfortable place indeed.  After cleaning up the squeeze out, I found myself reclining in the cockpit, just enjoying the moment.  Indeed this was a victory to be savored. The next day, after spending a few minutes pulling out temporary fasteners, I again found myself spending quality time reclining in the unfinished cockpit. Surely the cockpit is one of the finest features of Pocketship's design. It is roomy, inviting comfortable.  This is the boat that I have built.

The now fully installed upper breasthook.

The mysterious timber running along the sheer line inside the cabin.

Looking aft at the cockpit.

Fresh from the revelry of victory, I dove headlong again into those pesky cabin cleats.   I was on a boat building high.  I was unstoppable.  Port-side forward cabin cleat, round 3 was a disaster...the bevels got cut the wrong way.  No worries, mistakes happen.   The fourth iteration turned out a little better, but not good enough.  I intend to for these to be visible and varnished inside my cabin, so the fit has to be perfect.  Okay...gotta try again.  Number 5...getting closer...getting closer...ACK, NO, TOO SHORT, WRONG ANGLE, WHY DON'T YOU FIT.  Breathe.  As Ivar Hougland would say, keep clam.  Take 6...no comment.   Three hours since feelings of exultation.  Now?  Failure.  Despair. 

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Things were bad.  I figured I'd take a day to regroup.  The next day, my throat was killing me, the first symptom of what was to be a nasty, late-in-the-season flu.  A couple days later I was feeling better, but had lost all momentum.  I couldn't do it.  I was afraid to go out into the boatshop.  And it got worse.  The longer I delayed, the bigger that stupid piece of wood loomed in my mind.   Days passed.  A week.  Two.   I went out to the shop one day with the best intentions, but instead spent time working on rehabilitating my increasingly decrepit garage door.  I finally go to the garage door to open, which allowed my to take a couple shot of the bow of my boat.

  

After wallowing for...way too long, I girded my loins for battle (figuratively).  I went out to the shop. I cut out a new, extra-long piece of wood based on my pattern.  I then very slowly and methodically worked away at it. I'd test fit the piece as best I could, make as close an approximation the the correct angles as I could, nibble away a tiny bit of material using the stationary belt sander, and repeat.  Slowly, surely things took the right form.  Within an hour...a long tedious hour to be sure...I had one done. 

The dragon had been slayed.  I expected some sort of emotional response; a hint of elation, perhaps.  But, there was nothing.  I had four more of the things to make.

Finally right!

I managed to get the forward center cleat right the first time through, though it has the least complicated geometry of any of them.  The forward starboard side cleat sent one hunk of wood to the scrap pile before things worked out right.  The aft cleats were done in one take, though I have to admit that this is more because I was running low on timber...the fit wasn't perfect.  Oh well.

A pass through the router and some quick sanding and the step-from-hell was behind me.  Now that the battle is over, I should be able to savor my victory.  Yet, for some reason, this victory tastes bland.  Perhaps the battle was too bitter to revel in its conclusion.  At least the fear has evaporated.  I can look at my boat once again, unwaveringly, and contemplate the next steps with peace and equanimity. 

In they go!  You can also see where I've cut out the holes in the forward cabin bulkhead for the dorade vents.