First off, a small correction:
In the previous blog I said that there would be blocking between the covering board and the sheer clamp. While that's how it's done on some boats, that's not how it will be done here. The covering board attaches to the deck beams and the sheer strake, but doesn't get fastened down to the sheer clamp through blocking. Sorry about that. Although the last 6 metre I worked on did have those spacer blocks, Jill did not.
Looking at this chunk of Jill's bow section standing on end, you can see that there are no blocks between the covering board and sheer clamp. The red arrow points to the sheer clamp, the blue arrow points to the covering board (seen from the side), and the green arrow points to a cut off deck beam. Nope, no blocking in between the covering board and sheer clamp... If it's good enough for Nevins, it's good enough for us.
Here's the covering board, now installed on our boat. You can see it sweeping along the left side of the boat with a red box of nails on top of it. there.
Here you can see how it's been joined to 2 smaller sections of covering board at the transom. These all sit on the transom knees that you saw installed previously.
The covering boards are joined very nicely up at the bow here.
They are tightly matched, and there is a very sweet, continuous curve that connects the inner faces of the covering boards.
This is going to look very nice against the light colored canvas deck.
One nice little touch on this boat is the way that the backing blocks are being installed. When you have any kind of hardware installed on a boat that will be under stress, such as a winch or cleat, you want to back it up with something substantial beneath the deck. Otherwise, you're only attaching the hardware to the relatively light wood of the deck. It's like making sure that your wall-mounted kitchen shelves are not just screwed into drywall... you want them firmly mounted into the studs.
In our case, we back up the winches and deck cleats with an oak piece called a backing block. The hardware will bolt down through the deck and through the block. The block will then spread out the stress load from the hardware to a large area as well as providing a tougher wood than the light silver bali decking to hold the bolts.
What makes these backing blocks particularly nice is that they are let into (i.e., mortised into) the frames rather than simply being held up against the underside of the decking by the hardware bolts. This locks the oak block into the framing, making it a part of the boat's structure. Now the block spreads out the load from the deck hardware across the decking and into the deck beams, and stiffens up the deck framing as well. Quite the bargain.
When we installed the lodging knees, we left them just a little proud (high) of their adjacent deck beams. Now it's time to get them down to the same level as the tops of the deck beams so that the decking can go over it with no humps. Karl has worked out a nice little router jig to take off the bulk of this wood.
The router rests on this rectangular frame
that spans the deck beams. The router has a guide bushing that allows the bit to ride just up to the inside face of the frame. The bit protrudes from the plywood router base
just enough to take off wood to exactly the level of the top of the deck beam. By routing back and forth inside this frame and moving the frame across the knees, he takes off the wood exactly to the level of the deck frame tops.
The only place that has to be done by hand is the area right up next to the covering board. A few swipes with a good rabbeting plane easily blends that area into the rest of the knee.
Now here's something you don't see everyday (unless you build wooden boats): little pine pitch shelves.
What you're looking at here is the area right around the keel, up in the aft section of the boat. The bottom of the boat slopes down, but not enough for any water that got inside the boat to flow down to the bilge. In fact, any water that did get in the boat would pool up behind the floors and frames exactly like you see the pitch doing here. That water would sit and sit, forming friendly little ecosystems for all manner of boat-eating things to thrive in.
So, rather than give the water a place to rest, we pour hot pine pitch into those areas and let it harden. Now when water comes in, it runs down the ramps made by the pitch, through the limber holes,
and down to the bilge, the lowest spot in the boat. There it can be easily pumped or sponged out.
So, how do you get the pitch in there? We start with big solid chunks of the stuff.
It looks a lot like a chunk of coal or obsidian, but it's much lighter. It melts easily in a pan at low heat
and from there it's a simple matter to pour it carefully into the low spots where you need to displace water. It's a simple, elegant solution.
With the cockpits framed in, and the covering boards on, it's getting clearer just how thin a boat this is. This isn't a boat where you lounge around in the cockpit drinking dark & stormys while the wind gently propels you down to the next estate for tea. No sir, this is a boat that's designed to get out there and race. You can do your socializing dockside, thank you very much. The point really came home to me the other day when I saw David in the aft (or boat steerer's) cockpit.
There's not a lot of room in there for anyone but him. Throw in a tiller that's arcing across the space, and you definitely don't want someone else to crowd in with you.
The deck layout drawings give an idea of how the crew of five will be distributed in this little boat.
Most of the crew are up in the forward, or grinder's, cockpit. It's close quarters there as well.