Karl and Joel have been slowly moving the lead into position for drilling and bolting.
There's a filler piece above the lead there, as well as deadwood at the aft end.
They moved the lead under the boat and have been adjusting the poppets to subtly fine tune the boat's position over the lead. When they get the orientation just right and fit the filler and deadwood precisely, they will bed everything and set the boat on top of the ballast keel. After that, everything gets drilled and bolted together.
You may remember seeing the chain plate earlier:
That's been cleaned up and drilled to accept the fittings for the shrouds.
There's a plate that connects the chain plate to a bridle that will run beneath the mast. The rigging pulls the mast down into the keel, and this is the source of a huge amount of stress on a boat's backbone. Some designers addressed this problem by adding a bridle that counteracts these downward forces by essentially pulling up on the bottom of the mast. Here's the plate after being welded up, getting some clearance holes drilled in the top.
To install this plate, we drill a series of holes that go through the plate, the chain plate, and the hull. Six bolts connect the two plates, and four other bolts connect the chain plate to the sheer clamp. The top three bolts also go through the lodging knees, so they're very long (over 8"). We'll custom make these ourselves.
Here's the port side plate after installation.
The junky stuff on the hull is bedding compound that hasn't been cleaned up yet. The tab coming out towards the center of the boat is the attachment point for the bridle. We should be installing that soon.
Luckily the weather has been excellent... just perfect for working outside. Launch day is one month away, and we're hoping for more of these mild temperatures and sunny days.