And Now for the Front - Bow and Forward Locker Prep

There is a chapter in "The Book Thief" when Hans Hubermann, the girl's father, mixes paint to help his fellow citizens paint their windows black. This is to prevent anyone from being able to easily spy in their windows. Apparently, painting in 1940's Germany was a skill much more involved than schlepping down to the local Sherwin Williams to buy a gallon of primer.

I mention this because one of my goals today was to paint the first layers of primer in the forward locker. I dutifully cracked open the can of primer that sat in my basement and behold, it was complete muck. Runny, oily liquid with a thick middle not unlike meringue but thicker and far less delicious. If I were Hans Hubermann, I might have mixed up some magical concoction and saved the day (much like the book). But alas, I am not, so, onward to Sherwin Williams I went to plop down another $30 towards their revenues for the year. About an hour later, I had the first layer down where it now sits drying.

First layer of primer. I'm not sure I want to paint the xylophone/battery holder. I got a little paint on the electrical conduit so figured I'd paint the whole thing. It looks terrible. Not sure what to do about that now.

View through the locker holes. I had the vacuum in here as I prepped the area for painting.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I cut the two additional 'seatback supports' with my bandsaw that will serve as mini dashboards in the cockpit lockers. These will sit about 3 inches aft of the structural ones and will contain the 12V outlets among other things. Since the real support backer sits right along bulkhead 8, a hole drilled just aft of that will allow access to the laz areas. A thru-hull here or similar thing will keep the area watertight. I'll be able to access this through the speaker hole. I'll lose about 3-4 inches of locker area but it will be worth it to be able to run electronics into the cockpit easily. I only wish I'd run a stereo input cable forward. Oh well, next boat.

New seat backer dashboards.

I also put the 2nd coat of epoxy onto the aft cabin wall. I put a seat backer there to give an idea of how big this thing actually is. One more coat tonight and then sanding tomorrow and this can get stitched in after painting and stuffing the bow with foam. I decided I'm going to try to keep a couple 'bright' windows on the side that faces the cockpit. I've seen this in other boats and it looks terrific. To that end, I carefully inspected both sides and this epoxy side is the one that will face inside and will be painted white. This is mainly due to the football-like shape on the left side of the cabin wall. Not sure what this is but it'll go away soon enough.

Aft cabin 2nd layer of epoxy.

I'm told things accelerate pretty quickly from here. With lots of hard work, I've seen people go from this point to launch in about 4 months. I don't think I can dedicate that much time but will keep on going.