Decking, paint and sundries

With the hull flipped back upright, it’s has been much easier to take stock of what remains to be done. Rather than get too caught up in doing everything in the most logical, efficient order, I’ve decided to work on several facets simultaneously.

First off, all the exposed wood needs to be thoroughly epoxy coated and inspected closely for screw / nail holes that need to be filled. The mast steps and mast tube will be installed. The cockpit will be painted (a light tan to reduce glare a bit). And finally, the decks will be installed.

So, in no particular order;

 

 Here is a shot of the primer coat of porch paint going on under the foredeck area. For those familiar with the Core Sound design, this area might look a bit different to you. The half-oval opening at the foredeck is formed by larger-than-designed side gussets under the foredeck beam. The plans call for these gussets to only extend a few inches in from the hull side leaving area under the foredeck mostly open. I have opted to extend these for two reasons. First, being of a “prosperous” body-type, I wanted to add a bit of strength to the foredeck beam for those time I need to stand there. Second, I wanted a slightly more enclosed space for storing items out of the elements. My hope is that even in nasty conditions when water can slop onto the seat tops, it will not be able to slosh forward into this area very easily. I’m planning to enclose this forward area with netting held in place by a bungee edge. This should keep things securely in place yet still be make it easy to quickly lift the bungee and access items.

 "William of Orange” inspects the plans and laments the fact that this boat will have no crow’s nest.

 The main mast tube is roughly in place. I’m struggling a bit with getting this aligned perfectly. It needs to be centered athwartship, and raked back at 2 degrees. This needs to be done before installing the foredecking. Otherwise I will have to crawl in through the foredeck hatch to do the fiberglass work. While I know this can be done (shout-out to my friend Charlie Jones, who did this on a Core Sound 17 while afloat after the mast tube broke loose), it does not look even the tiniest bit like fun.

Decking is starting to go in place. Cutting the panels to shape was simple since I’m planning to epoxy them in place first, then trim them to exact shape with a flush-cut router bit. Here I’m just dry fitting the two aft panels just as a reality check. Looks okay to me.

Here is the first piece of decking getting epoxied in place. If you ask a boat builder how many clamps are enough, guess what they will tell you?

With the decking going on it’s much easier to get a real sense of how the boat will feel when sailing. I’ve sailed the CS17 in the past and my impressions then where that the cockpit feels huge and the freeboard feels low. Comfortable and close to water, both things I like.