The midships blkhds need help. I saw this right away when I first looked at the boat back in September. The inch thick plywood has delaminated and lost strength. This area is critical to the athwartship integrity of the bilge board trunks. Using my brother-in-law Bob's Chinese copy of a Fein tool vibrating cutter, I cut out the bad ply and cut away the fiberglass tabbings. I saved the good upper part of the blkhd and I'll cut a stepped scarph in old and new pieces to be joined with some epoxy.
Sunday I did some heavy cleaning of the area under the sole( bilges?), very dirty. Next for this area will be new doug fir sole bearers followed by tongue and groove white pine boards about 2 1/2 inches wide. I'll have lift out sections so I can access the sump and various limber holes. Up in the head i think I might do a more open duck board style sole in one piece, out of unfinished pine, that lifts out for cleaning.
Since the overhead needs sanding and painting, I removed all the various pieces of deck hardware that was thru bolted, including a traveller and a few blocks. A bigger job was removing the main mast tabernacle. This allowed me to open the companionway hatch another precious six inches and also," pop the top" of the aft cabin, to get at the gasket and prep for painting.
I bought some okume ply to make new inner cabin sides to cover up the raw glass, using the old pieces as patterns. Last week I cut out the forward two pieces and I 've got them in primer. This week I'll do the aft two.
Trying not to get discouraged by just how much work there is to be done. I keep reminding myself to just do the things needed for the boat to float and work. Of course, I get distracted about making her look good.
Here's a few pictures.
