The footwell, the deck, and the 5/16" mystery

 We've had a couple of mild weekends and I finally got the itch to work on Skidbladnir, so I pulled him out into the sunlight and blocked him up to dust off the plans and assess where we were at when we last left off. I think I spent half the day running back and forth to the garage asking T if he remembered if we had done this or that.

Harriet likes the boat, but would rather eat bugs than help epoxy.

It turns out we had left off right at the cusp of being able to put the deck on. The cleats had been glued to the footwell and they had been epoxied and sanded. The deck had been epoxied, sanded, and the bulkheads and supports had all been traced. 

One last view before it all gets buttoned up

 However, we had some issues with the last couple of feet of the hull, just forward of the transom looking a little flat. T had previously rigged a little C shaped piece of wood with some screws that we could use to draw the sides of the boat in or out. Ultimately we ended up not using it because that upper side is pretty free to move at this point and really wasn't affecting the shape lower down. 

Where we did have an issue is the width of the boat where it hits the front end of the cradle. The aft end sits snug against the cradle but the front had drawn away a little. We used a clamp on either side of the boat to force the hull a little wider.

We had to clamp both sides. It looks exaggerated at the top of the hull, but it pulls the lower parts out just enough to great a nice fair curve for the deck.

 

Some 12" wide pieces of OSB force the deck to center over the footwell

Previously we had taken the two pieces of the deck and made sure that they matched so that when they were glued in place we would be forcing the boat into a symmetrical shape. With a little bit of fussing and adjusting of the clamps on either side I was able to lay the pieces of the deck in and have a nice fit all the way down the side of the hull.........except for at the bottom.

For the last foot or so the hull seemed to flare away from the deck until at the very back of the boat there is a 5/16" gap on both sides. I checked everything I could think of, checking the square of the footwell, making sure the diagonals matched on the deck, double checking the deck was symmetrical. 

To add insult to injury there was a 5/16" gap between deck and the transom at the port and starboard corners, but it touched at the footwell. 

View of the port transom corner. Footwell at top of image.

 After a fair amount of sleuthing I think there are two causes for these gaps. 

1) The transom is bowed about 3/8" from outer edge of hull to the middle of the footwell. We must have unconsciously compensated for this in the footwell, because it fit easily and did not put excessive pressure on the centerboard bulkhead.

3/8" gap between by straight edge and the center of the transom

2) We did not shave enough of an angle onto the transom edge when we were assembling the boat. I'm also of the opinion that the transom my be a little wide overall, but all the other hull panels fit nicely so it doesn't quite bear up that hypothesis. However, 5/16" is just about the thickness of the hull panels. 

We did not opt to to fix either of these issues. Both of them are entombed in glass and fixed by large structural fillets on the interior of the boat. It would be very destructive to try and fix either. At the end of the day a convex transom probably won't affect how the boat sails. As to the other, if we end up with a flat spot or a flare at the back of the boat, we can always fair that out when we flip the boat over.

The actual epoxy work went quite smoothly. I made a mess, spilled vinegar in the boat, and initially made my putty too thick. I also forgot to pre-drill the cleats underneath the deck panels until I realized I had split a cleat (gahh!). About 2/3s were pre-drilled and I made sure that all of the cleats I could reach inside the cabin area were un-split or repaired in the two instances where I split a cleat, though I fear a little for what I'll find inside the watertight compartments when we cut them open for the bowmar hatches.

All screwed in place.

 

On a last note, I did not fillet the footwell yet. We will do this later when we actually glass the deck to create a better bond between the materials and to reduce the amount of sanding.