Mixture same as before

Well, if you thought that last lot of photos of sheets of plywood being laid down were less than exciting, here are more of the same.  However, I'm pleased to report that all the 4mm ply has been glued down atop all the 6mm ply and I am now ready to cut holes for hatches and lay teak.  Or maybe the other way round.  We shall see.  I'm frankly terrified at the thought of cutting said holes!  

 David and I had originally agreed to have a little canopy overhanging the after end of the cabin.  There is one on Fantail that does a fine job of keeping out the rain if there's no wind.  However, I've decided against this for three reasons

1. Fánshì doesn't have a sloping cabin back, so there is less chance of the rain coming in the companionway.
2. I am going to have a pram hood, which will keep out the rain and allow ventilation even more effectively than the folded down 'washboard'.
3. I think the camber is more pronounced on Fánshì than on Fantail.  There's a reasonable chance that it will catch me in the back of the neck, if I'm sitting against the cabin back - it will probably be intensely uncomfortable for anyone else.

Anyway, I'm making the deck just about flush with the back of the cabin and used my little router to trim it.

 Laying the 4mm was hardly rocket science.  However, with the temperatures still in the high 30s, it would have been impossible to lay large sheets, even if I could have handled them.  I laid them out to cover the butts in the 6mm, but in truth, as those all landed on beams and stringers, this was hardly necessary.  I tried using staples, but they were such hard work to remove, that I went back to screws again.  I didn't want to leave the staples in because not only would they be hard on the sandpaper, but would undoubtedly interfere with the screws required for the layers of teak to follow.  Even if I had been glassing the deck, they would have been a nuisance.  Bronze and plastic staples don't appear to be available in NZ.

 The 4mm plywood flopped into place much more readily than the 6mm had.  It was now that I discovered what I'd already heard about: the thickness of plywood is nominal.  Apparently, it all rather depends on when they change the sandpaper on the huge belts they use for finishing the plywood.  So the finished sheet can vary in width by over a mm.  This hardly shows when you're using 12mm ply, but becomes quite apparent on 4mm.  It was easy to tell, when I started filling the gaps with smaller pieces, whether or not they had come from the same batch of plywood (the 4mm I've used was bought on two separate occasions).  Still, that's why Mr Makita invented random orbit sanders.  (The belt sander was uncooperative on the steeply sloping deck).

 Due to the framework of the shed getting in the way, it's hard to see that this photo shows a saw, trimming off the bilgeboard case.  David, very sensibly, suggested that I should use this extension to hang the blocks for raising and lowering the board.  However, the acute angle is making it really difficult to fit the decking, so in the end I decided to take it off.  I can always rebuild a smaller version if I can't think of a slightly more elegant solution!

Abaft the bilgeboard cases, I used strips of plywood, having sawn the full sheet into three.  Again, I staggered these more for the 'feel good factor' than from any real necessity.  These longs strips appear to have ironed out most of the bumps and hollows still remaining after sanding.  I am not a professional boatbuilder.  The deck will support the structure and keep out the water, even if they are far from perfectly even.

And so, here we are: a bit of sanding and filling and then it's teak time.  (Actually, sadly there are quite a few other things I have to do before I can start laying the decks, but it does seem imminent!!