More Deck and Interior Progress

Work is ongoing on the port and starboard cabin interiors, as both forward decks have now been on for several weeks and the plan is to work my way aft with completing the main interior areas and then making and installing stern decks. The port hull is still a bit ahead of the starboard, as can be seen below. Here the galley sink and shelves have been installed and the outboard cabin side is filleted in place. Only a small amount of cosmetic filleting remains to be done in this area.

Here's a view looking into the port galley hull from the area where the companionway will be. Another small shelf will be added on top of the middle stringer on either side of the sink, to utilize an otherwise wasted space. The companionway steps are also installed but not visible from this angle.

Here's an exterior view of the port hull with the outer cabin side installed.

From this angle you can see the plywood portlight trim rings and how they have been filleted to the cabin side. These will be fiberglassed over right along with the surrounding surfaces. The Lexan will be fitted from the inside with matching trim rings to hold it in place.

Below is a view of the port foredeck just after installation. The temporary screws have been removed and the holes filled with epoxy.

Here's the starboard foredeck after fairing and pre-coating with epoxy. The decks will be fiberglassed next and then the hatch coamings will be built.

Inside the starboard hull I'm working on the layout of the shelves and panel faces that will house the 12-volt switch panels, battery voltage monitoring meter, VHF radio, SSB receiver, stereo and an AC inverter.

Most of these items will be mounted under the shelf in the companionway area of the hull, where you can see the open vertical framing here.

Removable panels of teak-faced 6mm ply will be screwed to the outside of this vertical frame. The instruments will be fitted in the removable panels, and all wiring organized inside under the shelf and accessible by removing the panels. Now that these sheer-level shelves have been fitted in the starboard hull, in the next couple of work sessions I can finish and install the outer cabin side.

Upright and Moving Forward

Now that the drudgery of fairing and sanding the hulls is behind me, I've been having so much fun boatbuilding that I haven't wanted to take the time to blog about it. Since my last post I've turned the hulls upright and with several days available to work lots of progress has been made on various interior parts and the decks. The port hull, which I built first, is still a bit further along than the newer starboard hull, but I've cut and fit the foredeck and I'm working on finishing out everything below this deck area so it can be installed. Below is the starboard foredeck during initial dry fitting.

After aligning and fastening the deck stringers with temporary screws, the deck was removed for gluing on the stringers and filleting them to the deck undersides. All these surfaces were then coated with two coats of epoxy.

In the hull itself I began making and fitting the removable shelves in the hold compartment, like the ones I designed for the port hull. This division of space will make this huge storage area much more usable.

Back in the port hull, I finished the fitting of the custom-made galley sink and drilled it for the drain fitting, and then cut another shelf to continue the line of the sink counter forward into the front half of the cabin.

You can see this shelf with its fiddle rail fitted, below on top of the starboard deck. The smaller shelf in the foreground fits below it, on the interior hull stringer. The other assembly in the background will become the companionway steps for the port hull.

Here are the above parts installed. The galley sink and adjoining shelf forward, and the small shelf below it (just above the cordless drill in the photo). The clamps around bulkhead 3 are holding on a narrow trim strip of teak that is being laminated to the inside cutout of the bulkhead. A second laminate on top of this one will build it up to sufficient thickness. In the foreground below the bulkhead 3 cutout, you can see that the counter assembly for the stove has also been installed.

Moving forward in the port hull, here is a view of all the sections below the foredeck. The aft section is the foot of the bunk, and is varnished because it is part of the cabin interior. All areas above the bunks in the cabins will get 2-3 coats of marine spar varnish to protect the epoxy from U.V. light. Next is the bow hold compartment, with shelves removed in this photo. It is painted the same off-white that will be used on the decks. In the bow the sealed buoyancy compartment is painted white to allow easy inspection.

I finished today by installing the port fordeck Here it has been glued down and held in place with temporary screws. No fasteners will be left in as there is plenty of gluing surface for the epoxy along the sheer clamps and deck beams, and the edges will be reinforced with fiberglass wrapping to the bottom of the sheer clamps.

The foredeck hatch has been cut-out and a watertight double-coaming style wooden hatch will be fitted on each foredeck.

Portlight Frames

Back in February, I wrote a post describing the custom portlight frames I was making with the router. Here is the original post: http://tiki26element2.blogspot.com/2008/02/frames-for-portlights.html

While working on the hull fairing and prepping for paint recently, I had some drying time here and there allowing for other projects. Finishing up these portlight frames was one of those. Below you can see all of the frames: A set of inner and outer ones for the small forward and larger rear portlight. The solid pieces to the left are the templates for the actual Lexan portlights.

Both outer cabin sides have already been cut and pre-fitted when the hulls were upright, so I could now go ahead and glue on the outer portlight frames. Putting them on first before installing the cabin sides on the boat will make it easy to create a nice fairing fillet around the outer edges of the frames. The frames will be sheathed with the same fiberglass covering the cabin side, and the fillets will make a nice transition possible. When the cabins are done and these sides are faired and painted, the Lexan will be installed from the inside with a silicon sealant. The inner frames will then be screwed into place to secure the Lexan.

Hull Topside Color

I've finished the hullside fairing from the waterline up to about 3 inches below the sheer. As mentioned before, I'm holding off on finishing the sheer area. This is because the fiberglass sheathing from the decks and cabin sides will wrap around the outer sheer stringer and terminate in the joint where the angled bottom of the stringer meets the hull topside panel. A lot of work remains to be done in both hull interiors before the decks and cabins are on, but that will be the next phase of the project.

I've painted this completed area of the topsides at this stage for two reasons: to check the work so far for fairness and to eliminate the need for turning the hulls completely upside down again once the decks and cabins are on. I'll put one more coat of bottom paint along the waterline while they are inverted, and by the weekend they will be ready to turn upright.

This first photo shows the prepped topsides after a coat of high-build primer and another sanding, just before the first coat of paint.

Here is the first coat of topside paint. I'll only put on one coat at this stage while the boat is in construction and still in the shed. The final coats will be applied when the decks and all other parts are complete and ready to paint.

The first coat of glossy paint revealed a smooth surface that I'm quite satisfied with. Additional sanding between coats and a couple of minor fills in some imperfect areas will bring it up to standard. The color is a custom mix I've used in the past for a couple of small boats. The paint is Petit Easypoxy, which is available in a limited range of colors, especially greens. This color is made from two equal parts of Off White and Jade Green. The color reminds me of the clear waters of the Bahama banks and the Caribbean, where I plan to sail Element II. I wanted a color that would not get too hot in the tropical sun. Decks and cabins will be Off White.

First Coat of Bottom Paint

I rolled on the first coat of bottom paint on both hulls yesterday, after sanding the final barrier coat of clear epoxy to 80 grit and washing with soap and water to remove any trace of blushing. I was quite pleased with how the hulls below the waterline turned out. They are fair and smooth, and the Petit Vivid bottom paint was pleasure to work with, much better than any other anti-fouling paint I've tried. I took it to my local hardware store and had a friend who works there put the gallon can in their automatic paint shaker, and when I opened it I found it just the right consistency for rolling. The color coverage was good, as you can see in the photos. This is just one coat.

One coat took less than a quart of paint. I guess I bought too much, buying a whole gallon, but it's cheaper to buy a gallon than three quarts, and I was afraid two would not be enough. At any rate, I'll have more than enough to do three coats before launching and if the shelf life is any good at all, enough for the first bottom job a couple years later.

The plan now is to finish fairing the hull topsides from the waterline to the sheer, and then to get primer and a first coat of topside paint up to at least the topside chine overlap. When this is done, I'll put a second coat of bottom paint on before turning the hulls right side up. The third coat will be put on when everything is finished, shortly before launching.

Beam and Shroud Lashing Cleats

With both hulls turned back upside down, my goal now is to finish everything from the sheer down so that I can paint the bottoms with anti-fouling and prime and first-coat the topsides with paint. The reasoning behind this is that all the details that are easier to do upside down will be completed, eliminating the need to invert the hulls again, so that once I turn them right side up, I can focus on the cabin interiors and deck structures.

The beam and shroud lashing cleats, or pads, are part of those details that are easier to complete with the hulls upside down. The reason for this is that it is essential to completely seal the undersides of the lashing surfaces created behind the cleats. This is a common source of rot in the smaller Tiki designs.

Below are all the lashing cleats - a total of 12 for the beams, inboard and outboard sides, and 4 for the shroud lanyards. I had planned to install chainplates instead of these lanyard pads for the shrouds, as is shown on the Tiki 30 plans and as the previous owner of my Tiki 21 had done. In the end I decided to stick with the simpler and practically free way of attaching the shrouds that is shown on the plans. Four chainplates of adequate size and strength plus the four shackles required to attach them would have been close to $300. That cash can best be spent elsewhere on the boat. Wharram's methods of eliminating such expensive hardware are brilliant.

Yesterday I installed all the beam and shroud cleats, gluing them well with epoxy and using temporary screws to hold them until the epoxy cures. The screws will be removed and replaced with 1/4" stainless carriage bolts after the cleats are faired and ready to paint. The thru-bolts pass through the extra layer of plywood backing already glued on the inside of the hull at each lashing point. They will be secured with large fender washers and self-locking nuts.

Here is a close-up of one of the lashing cleats, taken this morning after an initial coating of epoxy. Each plywood pad is made of 18mm ply and all corners are rounded and the edges are radiused to 3/8" so there are no hard edges exposed. The next step is to round over the bottom edges of the teak sheer doublers on either side of each pad. Small fillets of epoxy with wood flour and silica will be made on each side where the pad meets the doublers and sheer stringer, and a small fillet will be carefully made and smoothed on the inside edge of the pad. This is why it is easier to complete this job with the hull upside down. All surfaces in contact with the lashing lines must be as smooth as possible, as well as completely sealed from water intrusion. Sheer doublers made from solid teak will help greatly in preventing rot in this vulnerable area.

When all these lashing areas are completely faired, sanded smooth, and sealed with epoxy and primer, I'm going to thoroughly wash the hull exteriors and apply the bottom paint below the waterline. The first coat of topside paint can also be applied up to the bottom edge of the sheer stringer. The stringer itself will remain bare until after the decks and cabin sides go on, as I plan to wrap the fiberglass sheathing from the deck surfaces around the stringer to give a double layer of protection to the sheer and reinforce the deck to hull joint.

Starboard Deckbeams

The hull bottoms were finished last week up through the final fairing and sanding, and then barrier coated with a clear coat of epoxy to ready them for bottom paint. Next week I will pick up the bottom paint, a relatively new product from Petit, called "Vivid." This is a bottom paint that can be applied at any time during the construction, as it is formulated for boats that are sometimes stored out of the water and does not lose its effectiveness when dried out like most bottom paints.

In the meantime, with nothing left to do to the bottoms until I get the paint, I turned the starboard hull back upright to begin the process of fitting out components like deckbeams and other parts needed to get it to the same stage as the port hull. This is going much faster than on the first hull, as all these parts were either already cut or at least marked out on the wood they would be cut from when I made the first set for the port hull. Below you can see the five deckbeams; cut, sanded, and epoxy coated prior to installation:

The beams were epoxied in place leaving the un-trimmed bulkheads protruding above.

When the epoxy cured and the clamps were removed, the excess bulkhead plywood was trimmed with a router, using a flush cutting bit to follow the curves and notches of the deckbeams.

Another project on the starboard hull was gluing on all the sheer stringer doublers at the beam landing locations. These are made of teak and were also cut out while making the set for the port hull.

Many other tasks are also underway as the epoxy cures on these parts, mostly filling and fairing inside, cleaning up the fillets and prepping the forward storage and buoyancy compartments for primer and paint.