Many Random Tasks

The only way to make progress on anything around here is to ignore some responsibilities to free up enough time to actually focus on a task. This works for awhile but the bill eventually comes due. All the things I was ignoring to work on my boat became urgent this week, so (sadly) I had to spend some time away from my boat shed.

At various times, mostly while the little one is in Karate practice, I try to organize my boat activities. Hope is to minimize the time spent staring at the hull trying to decide what to do next. I mention this because my last session ended with a daunting list of small items that need done. I won't re-create it here because it is depressing. That said like all long journeys the only way to finish is to start. So today I made, and used two small jigs to locate the holes for the forward trampoline pad-eyes. I like jigs since they don't take very long to make and allow me to be more accurate than my skills would normally allow. I then filled the holes with filled epoxy.

The painters tape only covers half the hole to allow air to escape, hold the epoxy in the hole, and let me know when the hole is filled.  I started making the sole for the section of hull between bulkheads 4 and 5. For these I am using 6mm plywood cut into 4" strips and cut to proper length.  Each will have a section of 1x2 that overhangs one long edge by stacking edge to edge these will interlock so I should have a well supported sole. There is a bit more to this but it should become clear from pictures as progress is made. The picture below shows these as I left them with the 1x2 sections being glued to the plywood. I'm going a bit out of my way to make these removable, as a general concept I don't like cutting off my access to any part of the hull. 

Finally Bernd's plan shows a main hatch maximum opening of 500mm. So I figured that was square and proceeded to build the structure accordingly. However I am diverging a bit from Bernd's plan as I plan to fix the mast, so I can lead halyard and reefing lines aft to the cockpit. I had to compress the hatch opening to allow deck space to run the lines aft. Here a picture is worthwhile.

The rub here is that I still need to get around the aft cabin beam. I found some double cheek blocks that look promising, but now I think I may have cut down my hatch opening too much. I will spend some time staring at the hull tomorrow and see if I can visualize how the the lines might run. If I'm really good I'll lay out some ropes to mimic the lines in question to help the process along.