Current Builders' Status

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I did the same thing. I ran 3/4 flexible conduit on each side of the centerboard under the floor boards. They exit up front under the battery and go to PVC elbows so I can get to them. At the other end they come up in the rear of each lazarette, ending in conduit to male threaded adapter. I made them watertight using an o ring under and 5200 in the hole and under the female threaded coupling. The conduit passes through the rear bulkhead and is epoxied in place as well as being spot epoxied in place along the bottom in the rear. My original thought was to run heavy gauge wires from the battery to ‘some kinda’ of electric motor, but I ended up with an epropulsion. So right now the conduit is capped off at each end.

[Hooky]

G'Day Steve, it's handy having the conduits in place for current (no pun intended) and future wiring to run. Although I didn't run the conduits next to the centerboard, I chose to locate them further outwards towards the hull sides in the shallower space under the floorboards. My reason for this was to provide a clear space in the deeper section next to the centerboard for additional ballast and storage. As I will be mostly single-handed sailing along the east coast of Australia I require a heavier ballasted boat to suit the inshore coastal conditions.
Cheers mate
Terry from down under

https://hookypocketship.blogspot.com

[Creekboater]

Although I didn't run the conduits next to the centerboard, I chose to locate them further outwards towards the hull sides in the shallower space under the floorboards.

I wish I had done this. I think it's a great idea.

[dbeck]

We are busy getting things done before it gets too cold: first coat of blue paint on the lower side panels.

2023-10-21_19-19-19.jpeg (43.23 KiB) Viewed 34048 times

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Looking good!!

[dbeck]

We've completed the work on the lower hull by varnishing the undersides of the rubrails and installing the centerboard. After two months upside down, we performed the 2nd flip yesterday ('strap method') and the hull is back in its cradle.

Dietrich

[Creekboater]

Thankfully I am done with glassing the bilge (and 95% of the sanding) and am now on to floorboards. As seems all too frequent, this isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems in the manual. But it’s fun trying to figure out. I’m working with timber from a kit and the non-full-length boards seem short to me. It’s hard to tell without started to cut them to shape but it appears that there will be what I feel are substantial gaps between the boards and the hull. I don’t want the boards sitting flush to the hull i don’t think, but I think it’d be nice looking to keep the gap no more than, say, quarter of an inch.

So I’m doing a couple of things…

1. Before I start making significant cuts I’m working on making a cardboard template formed to the shape such that the bottom of the boards would meet flush to the hull. I figure I’ll cut to that and then carefully shave back from there. The template cut will help as the boards will sit better and thus hopefully allow for a better sense of what’s going on.
2. I went out and purchased two full length oak boards to add to my 16 kit boards. Now having 9 boards on each side, this should allow for enough available square footage to eliminate all gaps that the short boards were creating. Plus I think the oak boards will create a nice contrast to the cypress boards included with the kit. Winding up with 9 boards on each side (about an extra 3” each side) I might have to monkey with the widths of the boards so I don’t wind up with too narrow a sliver of board at the most outboard points. We’ll see.

[Hooky]

G'Day Martin,
If using 9 boards, you will definitely have to trim the width to fit evenly. I used 8 boards in total, but the very outside boards had to be trimmed down to fit. Check out the November and December 2022 posts on my blog.
I agree, the contrast of two oak boards will look nice, can't wait to see some pics on your blog.
Cheers mate.
Terry from down under
https://hookypocketship.blogspot.com

[dbeck]

Martin,

the boards that were supplied with our kit have been a bit short too. We cheated a bit, see the this post. However, we used a spacing of only ~1.5 mm instead of 3 mm as proposed by the manual. We would do it again like this.

We were not sure a 'wider' floor would make sense, as the outer boards would either touch the hull (we did not want that) or they would be attached at the very outside of the bulkheads/cleats and mechanically less stable (just imagine your full body weight on the most outside floor board).

The floor was a major project and took us quite a while.

Dietrich

[Creekboater]

Adding the two extra full length boards has worked like a charm. I definitely had to cut all boards down. They are now all 2.5” wide but that includes the outermost board too, so they are all uniform and look really nice. I’m not completely done with installing, there are still some places I need to sand down to help everything sit flat, but it’s turned out pretty well. Oh, and I still have the starboard side to do but that will go much quicker now that I have my process down. I’m going to try and detail out what I did on the blog but I’ve started working on the post and…it’s hard to explain!

I don’t have the floorboards post finished yet but on my latest post I do have a pic of the port side.