Thursday 1 September
The first day of spring down here at the southern end of the world and a glorious day it is too. In the shed we are trying to get to the point of glueing in all the fiddly bits in boat 1. Paul is finishing the seat supports while Veronica is finishing shaping the stern breasthook and I’m down in the bilges creating a support for the back footrest and floorboard.
Dr John was back from his hockey with Archie. He pulled out the next set of gunwale battens and cut the scarf joints.
JP had a new scraping tool to use on the excess glue in boat 2. He was very pleased with the result as it has a small radius curved blade about the size of the fillet we are aiming at. The heat gun helped soften the glue prior to scraping.
John I went back to the rudders and after studying the form hand sanded and filed the shape he wanted into the first rudder prior to starting on the second.
Eddy from the Denmark Yacht Club came in at 10.30am to talk about the launch day and how they could work with us to create something special for the day. Geoff joined us too and we enjoyed possibly the biggest choice of morning tea confectionary I had ever seen in the shed.
JP and Harry had gone up to his other shed to fit the new bandsaw blade and cut out laminates of Sheoak for the cox and bow seats.
By the end of the day Dr John had cheerfully covered everything in resin and left, the rudders had progressed and Veronica had triumphed with a concave base to the breasthook she was working on.
I wasn’t thinking straight as I grappled with the set up for a rear footrest. I made a start on a removable one but decided that there was not enough room to incorporate it with the cox’s floorboard. JP made lots of suggestions and in the end I had to stop. JP and I also discussed the final placement of the rowlock blocks and he even sat himself in the boat with the mock up oar position again to convince himself and me that the distance from the front of the oar to the seat edge should be between 12 and 14 inches as per the instructions. We decided on 370mm and that we would come back and glue them tomorrow.
Another day closer to launch day.
Cheers Dave