Peeking over the back fence.

Hi folks,
I thought it was time for some R&R after bombarding you all with a heap of long overdue project updates.

I spent some time last night searching out old friends to get up to speed with what's new and also get updated links and email addresses etc etc.. As you know, a few years in the Internet World equates to 10 of our Earth years :)

It was time well spent, I found a lot of new blogs and forum posts, found some new people of like interests and I found John Welsford's blog site too! http://jwboatdesigns.blogspot.com It was established early January 2011.. see how quickly you can get behind? So I added that to my links on the side bar.
While snooping about John's blog I took his advice and headed over to http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk
I was mesmerized watching a few small videos of his vessel calmly navigating those incredibly narrow channels in  the mudflats, or creeping up a twisting river full of hidden trip hazards. Do yourself a favor and head over there.

Have a great day
Banjo out.

Cabin roof work now underway

Adding support beams and other framing for hatches to cabin roof now. I have made more progress than this but still to take some pics and post them up. I will do this in the next weeks.

Finished coaming panel fitted into the boat

Inner coaming fitted back on the boat for good, the top ply has been added to coaming, yet to be shaped and rounded off in this photo.

Close up of a hatch cover

Here you can see the shape of the small plywood hooks I made to hold the covers at their top edges

From the rear of the panels

The covers have a simple plywood hook to hold them in place on the top edge, the bottom edges just have two small blocks to hold the covers at the right height so the outside margins around the covers stay even.

Front of coaming panel

The hatch covers sit nicely in the openings

Routing the frames

I then deepened the frame a little with a small router to allow room for epoxy, paint and stick on rubber sealing on the frames.

Rear of the coaming

This is what the support frames look like from the rear

Gluing opening support frames

I cut plywood support frames and glued them to the rear of the panel while it was temp fixed to the boat so they would take up some of the curve in this area.

Onto the coamings

The space behind the coamings makes them ideal for storage of items often needed from the cockpit, like spare rope, flares, horn, fishing gear etc. So I decided to make some hatches with removable covers.

More side sheets

During the Christmas break 2007 my son Jarrod and I got stuck into the boat again. The day we did this it was 40 degrees C, man it was hot, had to work double time to beat the epoxy going off.

Sides going on

Most of the ply is Queensland Hoop Pine, not too bad if you store it flat and keep it dry. There is 2.5 sheets per side and were scarfed at their joins. The bracing near the bow was to keep the sheet flat in this area, it wanted to bow out with the twist up in this area. I was in agony deciding if I should leave the bow in or not... Decided that the rest of the sheet is flat so why should this area be any different. Lets hope theres no dips and waves when I get those braces off !?!?

Rear deck dry fit

Ply is Gaboon (lovely stuff) and the trim is Doug fir or known here as old growth Oregon, gotta love those curves! This piece can't be fitted permanently until I have completed all the fillets and coaming work first.

Cockpit seat tops

Only two lids in the cockpit to keep things simple. The framework under the lids have channels built in to drain water into the cockpit and out the transom drains.

A little diversion

I got a little artistic here and decided to play around with laminating light and dark wood to see how it looked. The lighter wood is Tassie Oak, the darker wood is Merbou (rare as hens teeth nowadays). I recon it will fit in with the overall look of Sweet Pea nicely, what do you think?

Ballast tank pump and valve controls in the cockpit

The handpump is a top quality English made unit that can deliver a sustained 50 litres a minute and is self priming.

The handle will sit in a clip just under the seat lip out of the way when not in use. The two small holes under the pump are drain holes at the base of the closed in bulkhead pump housing. The Left valve is the Port ballast tank, Centre is the Bilge and Right is the Starboard ballast tank. The three plugged and patched holes under the valves was a mistake :-) I changed my mind and moved the whole lot up a little higher.

Ballast tank pumping system

I made up a manifold out of PVC irrigation fittings, it is basically just three 25mm ball valves and an assortment of elbows and sleaves. The hose is probably overkill but it was going cheap and will outlast the boat, it's heavy duty rubber with wire reinforcing suction hose used to pump out waste pits and is acid and fuel proof.

Top down view into one of the tanks

Top down view into the tank, the hole on the left is the pump outlet. Tanks are well sealed in epoxy and three undercoat, with 3 top coats of enamel paint. Ya think that will be enough to keep the water in - er - out ??

Water ballast tank hardware

Here is a top down shot of a ballast tank valve, it is a PVC ball valve with a 90 bend through the floor and straight into the tank side (could'nt get any simpler) and glued into place with Marine Sikalfex

Port quarter berth

The two access holes are for airing the compartments out and to provide access to the rear of the ballast tank hardware.

Battery Compartment

Still need to fit restraining straps to the batteries. The batteries are 12V 17.5 Amp sealed lead acid motor bike units, I am going to wire them in parallel to give me 12V x 35 Amps which should be plenty if used carefully. In time I will mount a solar panel on the cabin roof to charge the batteries.

Starboard Cabin seat

Before sheeting up the sides I completed a lot of internal work while access was easy. I completed things like the bunks, berths, ballast tanks, battery compartment, galley bench etc etc. Storage space has been sacrificed a little due to the water ballast tanks, so I have tried to make the most of whats available. The larger lid is for general storage and the smaller one is for the battery compartment access.

Profile

Over Christmas I fitted wheels to the building jig so now I can move the boat around to make better use of space. It was great to see her out of the shed for the first time so I could step back a bit and finally see her lines from a distance.

Cockpit Sole (Floor)

It's finaly fitted! Still to be filled and pre-coated yet. I also have the cockpit inboard seat supports in place, they need fairing at this stage. The ply sheet used for the sole was 9mm Hoop Pine. I plan to apply glass cloth to the complete cockpit area. The underside of the sole was sealed with 3 coats of epoxy but not painted. You can see in this shot that the cockpit seat tops will span big gaps so I advise you to use 9mm sheets for them, the inner face of the seats should be ok with 6mm. I will most likely not fit opening lids to the seat tops but rather make removable hatches to the inner face between the transom and bulkhead #7, this will give good access to both spaces aft of the quater berth end panel.