Salish Sea Pocketship

Not much progress since the last entry.  I have been working on a number of smaller additions to the boat. First I read that a number of boats have had issues with cracks at bulkhead 7, so I decided to stiffen this area up a bit.  I made these stiffeners to attach to the aft side of BH7.                       I've also been working on my wiring and the addition of speed and depth transducers.  I will be installing the transducers in the aft area behind BH8.  To protect the transducers I've built boxes that will be epoxied into place.  These will also provide a bit of protection in case a transducer springs a leak.  Finally I've added a junction box for the aft wiring - stern lights and a power outlet for now.  

 Just back from a 2 week sail up to Nanaimo.  Now to get back into building.  I'm almost ready to add the hull sides, but before I do I want to get the battery box setup. I decided to go with a 46AH LiFe battery.  It is compact and quite light.  I've build a shelf to hold the battery against BH1.  I also made a conduit to hide the cables, which will go up and across the roof to the instrument panel.    

A few projects, a trip to Minnesota and some summer sailing has kept me too busy to work on the boat, but I was able to spend some time on it today. Since the last post I managed to get conduit installed.  I also installed a drainplug in bulkheads 1 and 8.   Today I installed the floorboards.  I made these from western red cedar and covered them with 5 coats of varnish.  I think they look good!

 This is a nice milestone for me.  I milled my floorboards from a pair of large western cedar planks.  That was a fun job made easier by having access to a full woodworking shop equipped with a large bandsaw for resawing the planks into smaller boards and large jointer and planer to finish them to size.   It took some head scratching but I finally was able to get a pretty fair curve on the boards.  Now I'm ready to varnish. I started by putting a layer of epoxy on all surfaces of the boards.  Cedar is a pretty soft wood and the epoxy has hardened it up nicely. For varnish, I'm planning to apply several coats of Epifanes.  At this point I'[m using the high gloss but may decide to use the satin as the last coat. Space is at a premium so I came up with the idea to string wire between the cradle arms to hold the long boards while they dry.  I also made to smaller stands to support the smaller boards.  This has worked out great.  

 I milled up a pile of western cedar boards for use as the cabin sole.  It's mostly knot free and the knots I have are small-ish.   Here is the port side roughed in.    

 While I wait for my hull epoxy to dry I'm going to get started on the floorboards.  I've got a number of large planks of western cedar that I'm going to use.  First I have to mill these 3-in x 15-in x 10-ft planks down to size.