Deck Hardware

I'm at the point now where I've got to start spending money on hardware and fittings, as the cockpit is the last big construction project on the build and it's now done except for fairing and painting.  Before painting though, I want to build in mountings port and starboard inboard of the seat for the sheet winches.  A trip to the coast was required last Friday to pick up these Harken self-tailers, along with bow and stern deck cleats and a pair of line chocks to mount on the front crossbeam.  I was able to get the winches at a wholesale discount and the cleats I found at a lock commercial fishing supply house that carries a lot of items not found in the regular marine discount stores:

Winches are not absolutely necessary on a Tiki 26, but I wanted to avoid the two-part jib sheets using blocks on short strops attached to the clew of the jib, as those can crack a skull when the sail is out of control and they involve a lot more line in the cockpit to deal with on every tack.  The self-tailers are a luxury, but they eliminate the need for jib sheet cleats and make everything easier when single-handing.  These winches can handle up to a 1/2" line, so they could come in handy for kedging off the beach as well, which is why they must be mounted to solid platforms.

I was specifically looking for well-made deck cleats with a  two-hole pattern instead of the more common Herreshoff style, as the mounting bolts will go directly through the center of the deck beams laminated under the decks.  They will be mounted on these raised teak pads that are epoxied to the decks, and of course will have heavy backing plates under the deck beams.

The bow and stern deck cleats will mainly be used for tying up at the dock.  For anchoring, I will carry the two ends of a bridle to cleats I had already mounted on the outboard corners of the cabin tops.  This way it will be easier to adjust the scope of the rode without going all the way to the bows.  I set up a bridle in the yard to check for the best position to mount the chocks on the forward beam.  These will help keep the bridle centered and prevent chafe where the rode crosses the top of this beam.

You might have noticed the slatted catwalk in the photo above that is now taking the place of the cypress foredeck I built previously.  I decided that for my purposes, the lighter catwalk with tramps or netting on either side would be better than the weight of the deck.  The time and materials that went into it were not wasted, as the Tiki 26 owner that I am building beams, rudders and a mast for also wanted me to build an identical deck for his boat, and so has purchased the original now that I won't be using it.  Here is a better view of the catwalk.  This was much quicker and easier to build than the deck. It is also made of cypress and will match the stern boarding ladder:

Here is another shot from the bow showing the overall deck and cockpit layout.  The aft most rails that extend to the aft net beam will also support the ladder that will raise and lower between them, as well a provide a place to mount a solar panel out of the shade of the sails.

Here's an overview from astern.  The perspective is a bit distorted because of the wide angle lens I used to get everything in the frame:

The weather is good for boat work right now and I have lots of projects going simultaneously.  The top priorities are finishing the cockpit and getting it painted, building the stern ladder, making trampolines or fitting nets (I haven't made a final decision on those yet), installing the rudders, making the tillers and tiller bar, and assembling the new aluminum mast from 6061 tubing, as well as building the gaff.

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:

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.  

Moving Backwards and Forward at the Same Time

I've managed to put a lot of time into the project for the past several days, although it may not look like much from the photos.  The list of things to do in order to get the hulls completely closed in with all hatches and portlights installed has been long and seems to be growing.  But I'm looking at having both of them out of shed shortly, it's just a matter of getting all the paint coats on the various parts done and then installing these components and waiting for the sealants to cure.

I took a few steps backwards on the portlights, but I think it will be well worth it in the end.  I regret all the hours I spent messing around with a plan that I've now scrapped, but better to correct it now than have to do it sometime down the line when I'd rather be sailing.  The problem was the ring frames that I made to sandwich the portlights between.  For one, I didn't design them with enough clearance between for a proper thickness of sealant, and two, I made the mistake of glassing the outer frames on first, requiring the ports to be installed from the inside.  Attaching them from the inside is problematic in many ways, first to make this attachment strong enough, and second, to get a good seal.  Another reason for scrapping this idea is that further research and conversations with David Halladay regarding the materials used led me to the conclusion that Lexan is not the preferred lens material and that the ports should be instead made of cast acrylic, which is what all the major hatch manufacturers use.

So to fix all this, I first had to grind off these nice exterior rings that had been so time-consuming to glass and fair into the sides of the cabins:

After a few hours with the belt sander and then the 6-inch random orbital sander with 60-grit, I was back to a flat cabin side surface:

The new portlights will be the overlay style, the perimeters of the lenses overlapping the openings by 1.5 inches all the way around.  There will be no holes drilled and no screws or other mechanical fasteners - the lenses will instead be bonded with sealant the same way that most all modern portlights are attached.  I was skeptical of this at first, until I realized that this is the way large, heavy glass panels are often installed in skyscrapers and other structures, and until I saw first hand how well it has worked on some of the windows David and the Boatsmith crew have installed.  The recommended sealants are either Sikaflex 295UV or DOW 795.  I'm going with the DOW 795 because it is a one-part sealant that doesn't require special primers, as does the Sikaflex. 

My order of cast acrylic to make these from arrived yesterday.  This is great stuff compared to the Lexan I had before. It comes with a heavy paper protective cover on both sides that's easy to mark and stays in place while you're cutting and sanding.  Here you can see my plywood patterns used to mark the outline of the new windows.  The small piece in the foreground is a scrap from which I peeled away the paper.  It is smoked gray in color, a shade darker than the smoked gray Lexan I had.  This cast acrylic is more U.V. resistant and more scratch resistant than Lexan.  It's also stiffer so that it wont flex if a wave hits it, which could break the seal.  That's why hatch manufacturers use it.  If you step on a deck hatch it won't flex under the weight.  The only area where it is not is good as Lexan is in impact resistance, which is why Lexan is used in bulletproof windows.  Hopefully, no one will be shooting at me, so it's not an issue. 

This material cuts and sands well. I cut out the ports with a circular saw, then rounded the corners with the belt sander.

Another job completed yesterday was some major sanding of the stern decks, toe rails and sheer stringers, and then the application of the first coat of primer to those areas. Everything on the hulls and decks is now either painted or primed.  Today is the first sunny day we have had here in over a week.  I will spend the morning putting another coat of paint on the cabin sides, companionway hatches, and other small parts.

Fitting the Cabin Roofs

Sorry for another long break between posts. I have been working on the boat some during this time, although nothing major. In July, I signed a publishing contract for another book, and this one is due to be completed in just six months. It will be my top priority until then, but there will be time to work on the boat here and there, and the best weather for building here is between now and December.

Most of what I've been doing on the boat is not worth photographing, as it has been the seemingly endless little tasks of filling and fairing, sanding and priming of the foredecks and cabin sides. I put the first coat of paint on the foredecks so I could see the last of the tiny imperfections and fill them. Now, I'm ready to make a trip to the coast this weekend to buy more paint and non-skid additive so I can complete them.

Below is a photo of the port hull with the cabin roof temporarily fitted with screws and the forward deck hatch sitting in it's approximate location. I fitted internal carlins that will support the hatch from below, the outboard one also defining the outboard edge of the companionway opening. Notice too the camber of the coachroof. I like the way this came out, and it will actually make the roof stiffer than it would be if it were flat, as in the plans. The edges are untrimmed here. After installation, they will be cut flush with the router and rounded over like the deck edges.

Here's a view from inside the port companionway, showing the carlin that supports the outer edge of the opening. This will aid in building the hatch coaming as well. Again, you can see the camber in the roof. The companionway opening is 26 inches long by 24 inches wide - small enough to be strong and seaworthy, but large enough for easy entrance and exit.

It will still be awhile before I permanently install the cabin roofs. I want to complete as much as possible in the interior while it is is still open, especially the final sanding and and the installation of the fixed portlights.

Deck Hardware

Last week I finished rounding up the various parts and pieces that will enable me to finish enclosing the hulls once the cabin roofs are installed. This includes a large hatch over each bunk in the cabin roofs and an opening portlight in each aft cabin bulkhead.

Other deck hardware includes mooring cleats. The two larger ones in the photo below will be the bow mooring cleats. The sterns will be fitted with the same. The smaller cleats will be mounted on the cabin tops, near the outboard sides for use as midships mooring cleats; good for attaching spring lines, fenders, etc. You can never have too many cleats on a boat, and after sailing Abaco to the Bahamas, I like the way David has his cleats located on the decks. In order to mount the two bow cleats, I am having to install a small, 4-inch inspection plate forward of each forward bulkhead, so I can reach in with a wrench and through-bolt the cleats to the deck. Large backing plates will be used on the undersides of the decks.

The big deck hatches that will be fitted over each bunk near the forward ends of the cabins are manufactured by Bomar and the opening size is 16 x 16 inches. This is large enough to get in and out through if necessary, and will let in plenty of air. The hatches can also be locked in the vent position, allowing some air into the cabins, while keeping out the rain when the boat is left unattended.

The opening portlights are the Lewmar Standard series in size 0. Though small, they will help greatly in allowing a cross-flow of fresh air down below, and they come with insect screens for those shallow water anchorages close to the beach. In addition to the two that will go in each aft cabin bulkhead, I'm considering adding one each on the inboard cabin sides forward of the main bulkhead and just above the cockpit seats and jib sheet tracks.

In the photo below, you can see that the outer cabin sides have been primed in preparation for painting and installing the fixed Lexan portlights. The starboard foredeck is a bit ahead of the port one in that it is now primed and most of the little fairing issues have been taken care of. Both foredecks will be painted soon, then the bow access hatches and bow cleats can be mounted permanently.

We finally got a break here just yesterday from a two-week long heat wave in which afternoon temperatures have been at 100-103F every day. After living with that for awhile, today's high of only about 88F felt like a taste of fall!

Yes, I'm Still Alive....

But despite the title, I'm making no apologies for not posting here for two months. I've been incredibly busy with other writing and computer projects, not to mention my other carpentry work besides working on my boat. This has been a period of many new ideas and opportunities that I have had to take action on. Work has continued on Element II, although at a more sporadic and slower pace. I'm not concerned about time frames however. Since the beginning I've known how I wanted to build this boat and the quality standards that I have to adhere to, so there is no particular rush to speed things up in time for some arbitrary launch date. When it's ready it will go in the water, and not before. That being said, a lot has been completed on this project and an awful lot remains to be done. The best way to build a boat is to enjoy the process, and that I have done from the beginning.

I don't have a lot of new photos to post today, as much of what I've been doing is tedious filling and sanding in the fairing process. A small project has been making and installing the crossbeam locating blocks on the decks, as you can see below.

I cut these out of some heavy teak boards David gave me on one of my trips to work for him in the Boatsmith shop. One still had the bark on one side. I made these beam blocks just a little thicker than on the plans, adding almost an inch to the height above the deck so that the top of the mast beam will be closer to the level of the raised fronts of the cabin tops. An added advantage is that extra bit of clearance this will provide for the cockpit over the water.

The blocks are squared off on the top now and matched to the contours of the deck where they are epoxied and screwed in place with large countersunk SS screws. When the boat is spread to assembly width and the beams are fitted, I can grind the top profiles of the blocks down to match the undersides of the beams. Meanwhile, the sides of the blocks and all the rest of the deck surfaces can now be primed and painted.

Last week, while working on a residential carpentry project, I scored a great find for my boat in the form of an abandoned aluminum tube that will be just right for making the stern net beam. The owner of the house gave it to me, as it was going to the dump if I didn't want it. It's 14 feet long, 3 1/2" in diameter, and has a wall thickness of 4mm. Cut down to length and capped off on the ends, it should be perfect for the net beam and will save me the labor of laminating one out of wood. I'll have to prep and prime it, of course, so that it can be painted, but at least its one more part I won't have to build from scratch.

Fairing, Fiberglassing and Priming

I'm in the middle of a labor-intensive stage of boatbuilding at the moment - still working on all the details of fiberglassing, fairing, sanding and eventually priming and painting of the decks and cabin sides.

The cabin roofs have still not been installed, as I am waiting to finish up some more interior details before closing them in and making access more difficult. But in the meantime I am working to completely finish all other exterior glassing of the cabin trunks and details such as the hatches and lashing cleats so that the decks can be painted. This involves spreading lots of fairing compound (see below) and sanding it smooth so the glass can be laminated over it.

All the joints between the decks and cabin bulkheads get a strip of fiberglass tape to reinforce them in addition to the sheathing on the main surfaces.

The outer surfaces of the hatch coamings, being made of plywood, also have to be sheathed with fiberglass to protect them from checking in the sun and to bond them to the surrounding deck surfaces.

The twelve beam and four shroud lashing cleats are also made of plywood and are separately sheathed with the cloth wrapping around the radiused edges to prevent delamination.

These small details are time consuming but essential to the longevity of the boat.

All the corners of the cabin trunks are reinforced with a separate strip of fiberglass.

And then the main surfaces are sheathed, as you can see below in the example of the aft bulkhead of the starboard cabin.

Working from the bows back, I'm slowly getting the fairing finished and have began applying the undercoating primer, as seen here on the forward part of the foredecks, stems, and bow hatches.

Fairing and priming the decks and cabins is a much bigger job than the hulls, as there are so many surfaces to work around. After the final coats of primer are applied and sanded, the green topside paint will be cut in to the bottom of the sheer stringer. Everything from the sheer stringer up will be painted an Off-White, with symmetrical patches of non-skid on the decks.