Have a Seat

It was a rainy day today and we got somewhat of a late start but she is looking more like a boat with the seat tops glued in. We are very happy with the way they fit. Before sealing off the seat bays for good we installed a 1/2" ID PVC pipe conduit along the outside upper edge that will be used later on to run wiring. I suspect that my Mom and Dad will eventually outfit the boat with a small electric trolling motor for relaxing headway in still air. My Dad has lots of ideas for solar power on board. Permanent bow and stern lights are also planned.

Here are some pics of the hardwood structure in the cabin area on the hull bottom and of the seat top support joinery. The "short" stringer that runs parallel to the keel batten is seen in the first picture from overhead. It is cut short by a bulkhead that we added to box in the cabin footwell (which my foot is pointing into). The footwell is boxed in by that bulkhead, the centerboard trunk, the cabin entry bulkhead and another small vertical plate parallel to the trunk. Also in the first picture, the bulkhead that cuts the picture in half from top to bottom lies directly over the joint where the bottom of the hull transitions from 1/4" ply to 3/8" ply. The stringers are there to help strengthen this transition and provide more stiffness to to the hull and they do that very well!

Here are the joints we used in the cabin seat structure. We basically preserved the longest beams in each bay and tried to remove the least amount of material from those beams. Since it will not be possible to stand in our cabin, we went pretty minimal on the size of our beams. I think they will be plenty strong for sitting on and lying down on when your weight is distributed much more than when you are standing. Some of the beams were not glued in because they will be incorporated into the bottom of cabin hatches.

We also ordered the additional fiberglass, epoxy, and paint that we will be needing soon and hope to be on track for making some big time progress on the bottom before I head back to Raleigh in about 10 more days.