Test-fitting the Cockpit with Seat Box Additions

I finished fiberglassing the exterior of the cockpit box yesterday, so it was rigid enough to move it back around to the boat today to hang it from the beams and check the fit.  This was necessary to measure for the hatch coamings in the under-seat compartments and for the flanges on either side where the cockpit will mate to the hulls.

Even with the added seat boxes, the cockpit is not too heavy for me to handle single-handed.  It is awkward because of its size and shape though: 8 feet long by 6 feet, 3 inches wide.  I tipped it off the saw horses where I'd been working on it and moved it with a dolly to the backyard.  There I was able to pull it over the grass to position it between the hulls and fit the forward edge to the mast beam:

I got it up to the lip on the mast beam by lifting it from the front with a rope and reaching over the beam with a ladder to pull it into place:

Then I lifted the stern end up high enough to put a small saw horse under it:

With it in this position, I could then set the rear beam in place, tilt the beam back while reaching over it with one hand to grab the top of the motor opening, and lift it up high enough to lock the beam back in place.  I really like the way the cockpit is captured by the beam flanges.  It's a simple and secure design.  In this photo you can see the two 1.5-inch scupper holes I drilled in the aft end of the cockpit for drainage.

Here's a view from above showing the new compartments. There will be lots of storage space in these.

Looking forward, the board on the starboard side is just a scrap used to test the seating position.  The gap between the cockpit edges and the hull sides is just a few inches.  Today I came up with a simple and elegant solution to sealing this off in a way that will allow for dry storage compartments  under the seats and no spray shooting up from the bottom when going to weather in rough conditions.  I'll begin work on that tomorrow and will post when I have new photos.

Great Weather for January

It's been unseasonably warm here for this time of year, so I've been taking advantage of the good conditions to move forward with the cockpit sheathing and other epoxy work.

I completed the under-seat storage boxes that I added to the cockpit last week.  All the interior joints have been filleted, a fairly big job with a surprising 56 linear feet of fillets to make, counting the vertical joints and both sides of the center dividing partitions.  Those interior compartments will also get fiberglass sheathing, but first I wanted to flip the cockpit over and glass the exterior.  This will allow me to safely move it around to the boat and hang it in place for a final measurement before continuing with the seats that will also serve as hatch covers for the compartments.

All exterior corners were first rounded over with a router and filling and fairing completed where necessary.  As you can see, there is a small "chine" on each side of the bottom where the bottom panels of the side boxes overlap the main cockpit floor by one inch.  I did this to for ease of assembly when adding the side compartments and for additional stiffness and strength.  The overlap required a fairing fillet to allow the glass to transition smoothly from one surface to the next.  I've also wrapped the end support ledgers on the forward and aft ends of the cockpit in glass, bonding them to the panels with a strip of glass cloth that transitions from the bottoms of these to the panels over a small fillet.  The bottom of this cockpit is so big the sheathing has to be done in stages - at least for someone working alone.  I'm using 6oz. glass cloth in a 50-inch width.

Here's a view from the aft end of the cockpit, and you can see I've also moved the forward deck into the carport to get it out of the weather so it can be completely sanded and then treated with an oil finish.  The cypress deck has been exposed to heat and cold, sun and rain since I built it in October, so this allowed me to see how the wood was going to hold up and revealed a couple of bad planks that are wanting to check.  I'll replace those, but everything else looks great.

Here is the finish that will be applied to the deck:  Deks Olje D.1, as recommended by my friend David Halladay, of Boatsmith.  This is a saturating oil that is applied in multiple coats until the wood cannot soak up any more.  It will preserve the natural color of the cypress and help prevent checking and other problems, while still giving the footing advantages of a raw deck.

Other ongoing projects include finishing up the beams.  Since I added the forward deck, I had to make and install lashing pads on the mast and forward beams to support the longitudinal stringers under the center of the deck, and these have to be glass sheathed, faired and painted.  On the aft beam, I've added a ledger/rail on the aft side of the beam that will support the central boarding ladder and its rails and provide a place to drill lashing holes for the aft trampolines on either side of the ladder.  The rail is teak so that holes can be drilled without worry about rot.  The entire assembly is wrapped in glass and bonded to the beam fairing and bottom.

On the inboard sides of the hulls, I've glassed in 1-inch by 3/4-inch Doug fir stringers that will support the side flanges that will mate up to the cockpit edges at the level of the seats.  There are many different possibilities when it comes to how to join the cockpit sides to the hulls.  I had a long discussion with David about some ideas on this the other day.  An issue is that in rough conditions or at speed, water comes up through any gap in this transition, so the gap needs to be minimal, but tolerances cannot be so close that assembly and disassembly becomes too difficult.  Drainage for rain and spray running down the inboard sides of the cabins also has to be taken into consideration, especially if you intend the under seat lockers to be dry storage, as I do, rather than wet lockers with drains.  I have some ideas I'm still working out on this transition and the design of the locker lids/seats.  I'll make a final decision as soon as I can hang the cockpit back on the boat after I finish glassing the outside.  Here's a view of one of the inboard stringers:

Cockpit Under-seat Storage Compartments

I made a trip to New Orleans last week to pick up what should finally be the last two sheets of Joubert marine plywood to finish my boat: one sheet of 6mm to get out the bottom and side panels for the under-seat storage compartments and one sheet of 12mm to make the lids for these.  This lids will also be the seats and must be stiff enough to walk on and not warp or break - hence the 12mm for this purpose.  I went with the 6mm for the sides and bottoms of the boxes rather than foam core like the main cockpit floor or 9mm like the cockpit sides, since these will not be stepped in or carry excessive weight.

I debated long and hard about whether or not to add these fixed seat boxes to the central cockpit structure or build them as separate components to make transporting them easier.  In the end, I decided to make it all one unit as it will be stronger and easier to maintain overall, as separate boxes on either side of the cockpit would would require an extra wall of plywood and would create contact spots that would probably lead to maintenance problems in the future.

I began by glueing the bottom panels of the compartments to either side of the existing cockpit floor, then turning the whole assembly over and making the panels for the bow and stern ends, as well as a middle bulkhead that is cut-away to allow storage of long items like boat hooks and oars.  This assembly went together really fast since I used the super glue and accelerator I've mentioned here before to tab these parts in place rather than the more time-consuming stitch-and-glue technique.

Once the bulkheads and end panels were in place, I then attached the outside panels.  The completed boxes are 12 inches wide.  At this stage, I was able to begin making the structural fillets that would hold all this together and allow a smooth transition from bottom panels to sides for laying down fiberglass.  The glassing will be done after the fillets are completed.  The outside corners will also get a radius to allow glass sheathing over them.  In this photo you can see that I have temporary blocks of wood screwed to the central portion of the cockpit to allow it to hang between the mast and aft beams.  This was to check alignment as pictured in my last post so I could make and install stringers for the inboard cabin sides where the seats will bridge from the cockpit to the hulls.

In this photo, the temporary end stringers have been removed and the permanent ones glued in place with epoxy.  These will also be glassed into the rest of the structure for strength.  After this has cured,  I will hang the cockpit on the boat again for another alignment check and to measure for the seats/covers that will enclose these compartments.

The seats will be split into four separate covers - two on each side.  To keep these compartments dry in rain or spray, the seats will have one-inch side lips all around that will fit over raised coamings I'm going to build into the openings of the compartments.  They will hinge from the inside of the cockpit and overlap a flange permanently attached to each cabin side where it meets the cockpit.  More photos to come in the days ahead will make this clearer.  It's more work to make these cockpit seat boxes watertight, but it will be worth it to have the option of sealing them.  They will also be fitted with drain holes and removable plugs.

Test Fitting the Cockpit

After finishing the forward decks, I completed the basic assembly of the cockpit box and temporarily fitted some stringers on the ends so I could hang it from the beams and check the alignment and fit of everything.

 

This is just the basic center section of the cockpit, built to plans with a foam-sandwich floor.  This floor is lightweight and incredibly stiff, with no signs of flexing when walked on.  Hanging it in place allowed me to scribe an accurate line on the inboard sides of the cabins, for the placement of the rails that will support the outboard edges of the seats.  There is clearance on either side of the 4-foot wide cockpit box to accommodate a 12-inch wide under seat storage box on each side.  These will be dry storage areas closed by the hinged seats, and will provide a place for the batteries and other essential gear. 

The extra-long-shaft Nissan outboard sits high and dry in the cockpit well, where it will be well-protected and easily accessible.

The 25-inch shaft length makes it possible to mount it this high and still have the prop deep enough to minimize cavitation in choppy conditions.  You can see here that it will be well under water, yet not deep enough to strike the bottom before the hulls do:

After making sure this fit was good, I then cut out the opening in the aft end of the cockpit that allows the motor to be tilted clear of the water when it is not needed, which hopefully, will be most of the time.

 

Now the cockpit is back in the shed on saw horses for all the finish work on the fillets and glassing, as well as construction of the seat boxes.  Like every other part of this project, the assembly of the parts is a small percentage of the real work that has to be done before the parts are finished and painted. 

Building the Forward Decks

It's been awhile since my last post here, and a lot has happened in the meantime.  Most significantly, I lost my father two months ago and have been adapting to life without him - a man who was truly my greatest teacher and certainly one of my best friends.  I was fortunate to have lots of time with him right up through his last years, but being so close makes losing him harder still.
 
Besides that life-changing event, I've had a new book released this month, and I'm right in the middle of writing the next one and about to sign a contract for the one after that.  The current project I'm working on is a novel, and it will prominently feature a Wharram catamaran in the story line.  More on that later.  I've also been working on the Tiki 26 parts mentioned in my last post that I contracted to build for another owner.  These are coming along nicely and the remaining work to be done on the beams, rudders and mast is mainly fiberglassing and fairing.  I'll post some photos of that project soon as well, but for now I wanted to focus on the slatted forward deck, as I have been asked how I was going to build it

Working with the cypress and assembling the decks has been a pleasant job over the last few days, as it has involved little epoxy work and no fiberglassing or fairing.  I've documented the process with photos that show the various stages of construction from layout and design to trimming and sanding. 

First, I laminated four athwart-ship deckbeams from the the same cypress stock the planking was milled from.  The deck beams consist of two 2 1/2-inch by 1-inch thick planks laminated together to form 2 1/2-inch by 2-inch beams set on edge.  These four beams are not strong enough alone to support the deck, since the span is as wide as 8 feet between the hulls at the forward end of the deck.  To prevent them from sagging or breaking in the middle, I also made two fore-and-aft beams of the same dimensions, lag-bolted to the bottoms of the four main beams and hung from under the forward and main crossbeams by lashing cleats.  Here you can see the rough framework clamped into place for alignment and measurement, the two fore-and-aft beams are the middle two.  The extra two near the hulls on each side are temporary for alignment only. 

Next, I made and installed cleats of 18-mm plywood to support the fore-and-aft beams - two on the aft side of the forward crossbeam, and two on the fairing side of the mast beam.  Now that the location of these has been determined, I can glass-sheath the cleats, and finish fairing and painting these two beams. 

After temporarily securing the beams to the cleats so the structure would support my weight, I began working out the plank widths and spacing.  I wanted most of the planks to be 2 1/2-inches wide, as planking much wider than that is subject to cupping, warping or splitting as it cycles through extremes of wet and dry and hot and cold.  After deciding on a gap of 3/4-inch between all planks, I then made the port and starboard margin planks and two middle planks that are in line with the lashing cleats.  The forward ends of the margin planks, of course, have to be quite a bit wider than the standard 2 1/2-inch plank width, as the outer edge is cut to follow the curvature of the hull as it tapers into the bow. 

Once these four planks were secured to the beams with counter-sunk screws, the entire structure was then rigid enough to remove without getting it out of square.  Here you can see it upside-down on the sawhorses.  The longitudinal beams have been shaped and rounded over with the router on the bottom.  The clamps you can see on the ends of the deck beams are for gluing on fitted spacers under the ends of each beam where it rests on the toe rail.  Each spacer is different because of the curvature of the sheer line.  The idea is to distribute the weight evenly across all eight contact points and four beam lashing points.  The result is a very rigid deck that shows no sign of flexing when I jump up and down on it.  I was trying to achieve this with the minimum amount of framing, in order to save as much weigh as possible.

With the finished framework back in position, I then cut and installed all the remaining planking, using spacers made of little blocks of 3/4-inch plywood to maintain a consistent gap.  This spacing is close enough to keep most items on board, but wide enough to allow water to quickly drain off in rough conditions.

The finished planking, with two counter-sunk screws per plank to beam joint, for a total of 8 screws per plank.  Now I had to make 210 cypress plugs to fill all those screw holes.

This went fairly quickly with a 1/2-inch plug cutter chucked in a drill.  I had plenty of scrap cypress to get them out of.

Here, the plugs are all in, dipped in epoxy and tapped in tightly with a hammer:

After the epoxy cured, I cut them flush with a sharp chisel and then did a quick, preliminary sanding to see how it was going to look.  More detailed sanding will be done later.  I think this deck is going to greatly enhance the livability of the Tiki 26 by providing a secure working area to handle ground tackle and sails and more uncluttered deck space at anchor.  There is a weight penalty as opposed to a trampoline, but it's not that significant because of where it's located, as most Tikis need some weight forward of the cockpit to trim out properly. 

Here's some different perspectives of the deck:

 

Note that with this design, the deck beams are carried nearly as high as the bottoms of the main crossbeams.  The only parts lower are the two fore-and-aft beams.  This will minimize taking wave tops off with the deck beams, though I'm sure that beating into rough seas will be wet.  But it would be wet with a trampoline too.

Planing Deck Lumber and Building Parts for Another Tiki 26

I spent the afternoon surfacing all the cypress lumber that will be used for the slatted forward deck and aft boarding ladder.  This is something I planned to do a long time ago, but just got around to it.  It was a big job with my little 13-inch bench-top planer:

It's getting hard to find clear cypress like these select planks that are 8 and 12 feet long.  Even this stuff has a few knots and splits, so I bought and processed more than I think I'll need to get all the support rails and deck planks out.

 

Good cypress like this is not cheap, but it's a whole lot less than teak, and while it might not look quite as good or last as long, it's also much lighter weight than teak and I think it will certainly make for a nice deck.

The other thing I've got going on out in the boat shed is a paying job building Tiki 26 parts.  These are for a friend who is refitting his Tiki 26 in preparation for extensive cruising.  I've contracted to build two new rudders, the mast and the three connecting beams.  Yeah, I know I said before that building these Tiki 26 style beams is a major pain because of the difficulty of glassing them, but here I go again - building another set exactly to plan.  Here are all the center webs:

The cutting and assembly of these goes fairly fast.  It's all the filleting, glassing, fairing and sanding that seems to take forever - just like everything else on these boats.  In a couple more days, I'll have all the basic assemblies done:

 

Here you can see I've cut the rudders out of a sheet of 18mm Joubert ply.  Since I still have not hung my own rudders, also shown, I was able to use one of them as a pattern.  

 This job will of course cut into my building time, but will also add funds to my project.  It's a welcome change of course, from all the book writing I've been doing.  I just finished up the final revisions for my latest book that will be released in October, but I have a deadline for the next one looming in less then 6 months.  My plan is to work on my own boat alongside the construction of these parts, and hopefully complete the cockpit and decks and get the mast stepped during that time period.  

Beam Sheathing is Finished

At last tedious work of wrapping all the beam parts in fiberglass is finished.  I'm now in the process of fairing and priming them:

Here are a few photos showing some of the steps in sheathing the webs, top plates and front fairings:

This photo shows the front beam to the left, with the custom anchor roller brackets I made, and the aft beam to the right.  In the middle is the much smaller aft netting beam.  The mast beam is holding the hulls together, so I have to swap them around and work on two at a time while one is on the boat.

Fairing all these surfaces is multi-step process of sanding and applying epoxy fairing compound.

At this point in the build, I've come to rely on these tools for just about all filleting and fairing:  They are all flexible blade drywall/putty knives of various sizes.  The round ended ones like the one shown here are made by shaping these cheap blades with a belt sander.  After using cardboard, wood, plastic and other filleting tools, I've discovered these work best and make the neatest fillets.  Best of all, they can be used indefinitely if you either wipe them clean when the epoxy is still uncured or sand it off afterward.

Right now, the partially-assembled cockpit box is serving as a work table and catch-all space for tools and supplies:

Here's a couple of shots of the aft netting beam, which still looks rough because it needs a lot of sanding:

I've added lashing cleats to the inboard sides of the hulls at the sheer stringer.  Since it is not part of the structure holding the hulls together, this beam will only get lashed on the inboard side.