The boat just got a lot bigger

I thought a lot about how to get this ungainly piece of lead and wood aligned properly underneath the boat. Having a couple of bolts in the keel at the start, just barely sticking out of the top seemed like the best way to align the thing with the holes in the bottom of the boat. At first, I thought we'd roll the keel under the boat, align it, and jack it up until we could tighten the bolts. The last step is easy, but how do you roll and align the keel without tipping it over at some point and crushing the volunteer who is helping you out?

The solution was to leave the keel in place, and align the boat to the keel. We've got video of this process, but I haven't been able to upload and edit it. Hopefully I'll have it for the next post. But this picture should give you the basic idea. . .

We used a chain hoist to position the boat above the keel. Side to side alignment was easy since the chain hoist could be moved along its support beam left and right (relative to the boat). We were about 8" off front to back though. No problem. . . just put the boat on the popits, move the straps to change the center of balance and then lift the boat again. The boat moves forward or back to balance depending on how you move the straps. We did this twice and got within 1/2". At that point, we just asked a bunch of folks to push the boat into position while we slowly lowered it onto the bolts.

Things are moving swiftly now since last time was a bunch of prep work. The dynel for the deck went on pretty easily. The only part which took a little patience was the wrap around the deck.

The one thing I forgot about when we started this process at 4 in the afternoon is that you want to trim the excess cloth off about 4-5 hours later when the epoxy starts to set, but is still "green." Otherwise you have to grind it off the next day when it is hard as plastic. So we had to head back to the shop around 10 at night to clean everything up.

To finish off the edge of the deck we fill in the the rabbet (along the side of the boat) with thickened epoxy (the rabbet is 1/8" deep and the dynel does not fill it in), sand it fair and then round it over.

Remember the cockpit combing? Time to get that in position. Clamping it to the carlin and screwing it into the cockpit area is easy enough. But what about the big curved and twisted area up front? Sure we steamed it, but that was a couple weeks ago, and 3/4" white oak likes to be, well, straight. After trying to wrestle these pieces together with big bar clamps that stretched into the cockpit as well as over to the sides of the boat, we finally gave up and spent some time to set up a proper clamping jig, braced off the ceiling.

The last step was to drill 3" screws up through the deck into the combing. That went o.k.

A little paint, and now she looks like a real boat!

This shot gives a little hint at the next step. Look behind the keel and you'll see a little sighting set up we used to drill the hole for the rudder rod. This is a 1 1/2" hole that has to be angled perfectly to hit the back of the keel along the centerline of the boat.

Before I sign off, just a couple updates on the rest of the shop.

Susan Skiff land is cranking. . . all the boats have their planking (sides and bottom) completed.

The A&R tender and Whitehall are almost done as well.