dunnoduncare

One of the interesting things I've found about building PocketShip is how much less I care about some things I cared a lot about not long ago. One of these things is my lazarette compartment.

In the traditional design, the area between bulkhead 8 and the transom has a good layer of flotation. While watertight, it's otherwise open to the elements. Open the hatches, and you're staring at flotation. Water gets in there through rain or worse and without a bilge drain, it can get a bit, shall we say, musty (I'm looking at you, PocketShip #1).

Aesthetically, no one wants to stare down into Menard's finest home insulation. Practically, it makes it that much harder to find the beer. Many builders have installed "floors" here to separate the laz area from the flotation, which of course is an idea I'll borrow mercilessly.

Back in August, I carefully and skillfully measured the area I wanted back there. I wanted to leave a certain height to fit a 3 gallon gas tank. I measured it so carefully I was afraid to cut the cleats until everything was just so. Fast forward two months, and there were still no cleats, until tonight, anyway.

I was working on the battery platform (another long-delayed build) and mixed up too much epoxy. Rather than let it harden in the cup, I decided to go ahead and use it for the laz cleats. I couldn't find my original notes with the careful measurements, so I ran upstairs to the boat and quickly measured out 22", 26", and 17", and cut them from a ribbon of pine I had laying around the shop. The longest and shortest ones needed a 15 degree bevel to support the rake of the transom and hull.

Laz cleats in place. Left to right: 17" 26" 22". The 17" and 26" get 15 degree bevels. I aligned it with the bottom of the footwell. If I'm off a little, I'll just raise with dowels or something.

Ten minutes later, they were epoxy'd and screwed into place and I suddenly have port side laz cleats. The rest of the epoxy in the cup was getting too hard so couldn't do the starboard side, but it was nice to get something done that's been on the agenda for a long time. I don't know if it'll fit my 3 gallon gas tank, but it doesn't matter. Not lost on me is how quickly I was able to do this, based on my original attempts when building the deck cleats.

A benefit to doing this is now I can size and cut the holes for the deck plates that will give me access to the laz area from the cabin. That was an idea from mtsailor, a builder from the boards. Turns out I can fit a full 6" plate there if I want but I'll probably go a little smaller so as not to interfere with the deck or footwell.

I also expanded the holes for the secondary limber holes I drilled into the floorboards. The original secondary holes I cut into the floorboards were 7/8". The conduit I got is bigger than that, so I had to make the hole bigger. I used the old woodworker's trick of a pilot hole. First, cut the new sized hole into a piece of scrap. Then center the scrap over the old hole and clamp/secure it in place. Then drill the new hole. The scrap wood will hold the hole saw in place while you cut the bigger hole.

Scrap with new hole clamped over old hole.

I then trimmed back some of the plastic of the thru hulls and they look and fit great. I test fit the new conduit and ran a wire down the length. Very satisfying to have something work. This is a huge win for my intolerance for wires. I'll have a couple in the cabin - unless I can figure out how to invisibly run the RAM3 wire - but there won't be many.

Trimmed back the thru hulls. They fit and look great.

View of thru hull from above. Transom is to the left. To the left.

The only thing missing from the electrical infrastructure was the battery platform. A battery platform can be very simple, and indeed, many PocketShips have a couple pieces of scrap holding up the battery box, and that's just fine. I don't know why I decided to build a xylophone for my battery platform, but I did. I think it's because these were the closest bits of wood near me and I wanted to see if I could make it fit the design.

Getting the angles right was tricky. It reminded me of the exercise in futility that was the sole: measure once, cut twice, measure four times, cut once, until it fits. Finally happy, I mixed up some epoxy and screwed the pieces down with brass screws. This will then be epoxy'd onto the hull permanently, and the battery box platform will be screwed into this. Whew!

Xylophone? Nope -- battery box holder. Top holes for conduit; bottom arch for limber/water flow.

It fits pretty well. I drilled a couple holes in case I wanted to run the conduit through, but seriously, this whole exercise was completely unnecessary. In hindsight, I think I was just having fun in the shop again after ignoring the build for so long.

Lamination of cabin sole, part 2. Some day this will be done.

The last sole lamination for the sole was done tonight. That means I'm completely done with this finishing project. The manual mentions it's a big finishing job - file that under no sh!t!

I'm undecided if I want to build the speaker boxes before painting, or paint before the speaker boxes. I'd like to bust out the primer and paint as little as possible, but I know I'll be painting the top sides whenever I get around to that, which means if I put off the speaker boxes until then, no harm.

View from the garage at the rear of the other boat. It was a nice late afternoon to work. That's my father in law back from a walk,