It's starting to be worth all the effort!

One thing about laying teak: it may be somewhat tedious and is very messy, but when you stand back and look at it, it's all worth while.  I would have to say, that on odds, fitting out the cockpit (once I'd decided what to do with it!) has been fun, if slow.

 You will remember my agonising over the teak trim around the transom for the outboard, and persuading it into place with a heatgun.  Well, to my astonishment, when I undid the screws and took it off, it retained its shape with hardly any spring back.

It was a cinch to glue in place.  I was so relieved.

 The next job was to paint out the fuel lockers, in which I had put a small platform to take the containers.  There is room for plenty of petrol.  I don't anticipate using a lot; on the other hand, it's not particularly easy to obtain without going alongside a fuel dock for which you generally need a special card.  If I can carry sufficient that I only need to fill up once a year, I shall be very happy and can't see that being an issue.

  There was a certain amount of eye-rolling among my friends as I solemnly set to work cutting out strips of teak and fitting them into the deck lockers.  They were too kind to say it, but I could hear them thinking: "I thought you wanted to get this boat finished"!  However, when (particularly plastic or cloth) containers sit on painted surfaces, the water gets trapped and reduces the life of the paint job.  My aim is to minimise future maintenance and these strips of teak should help keep the lockers less wet.

 

Here is the teak capping in place and sanded flush.

The next thing was to start extending the decking over the lockers so as to form the lids.
 

 While these pieces were being glued up, I cut out the top for the lockers.  I often find it's easier to use my large Japanese saw (for which I recently invested in a new blade) than to set up a guide for the little circular saw, and in this case, one long side had a curve in it, anyway, which the electric saw won't cope with.  It's much easier to follow the line (for me) with a handsaw than with a jig saw, too.

 I was now ready to start laying the first teak.  I puzzled a little while as to whether I should run fore and aft, or parallel with the  cockpit or with the back rests.  In the end I decided it would look better if it was the same as the centre deck and cockpit sole.

In the meantime, I had been fitting the locker top.  Once it was all cut to shape, I then cut out the separate lids for the lockers.  This time I used the hand saw to keep the kerf down to a minimum so that the lids wouldn't be a sloppy fit.  I'd rather sand them down afterwards than try to add extra bits of wood.

 Having said which, I did put teak capping over the sides and ends, which then reminded me that I needed to add teak to the ends of the lockers.  This was done with lots of offcuts left over: it's always satisfying to use these up.

 Here the lids have been pre-coated and I'm preparing to lay the rest of the teak around the cockpit.

 It was quite a fiddle tapering the pieces along the edge, but fortunately I still have heaps of decking left, so the odd mistake isn't too much of a catastrophe.

 Gosh!  That was quick, wasn't it? I wish.  However, when I'm up to my ears in black epoxy, it's not easy to take photos and besides, you have seen the teak-laying process in the past.Although not perfectly symmetrical, the two sides aren't that far out.  The teak varies in width by up to a couple of mm and even I am not so obsessive as to ensure that they match either side.

I fitted the teak to the lids in full length pieces and then took the lid down and cut the lids out, which left me with a kit of teak pieces to fit.














I did all the lids as one, gluing them up in situ with masking tape separating them from each other and from the rest of the locker lid.  Once the glue had cured, I took the hatches off and did the rest of the lid.  This wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd hoped and for the second locker, I glued down the wood on the fixed part first, which made it easier.

The lids than had to be sanded, the gaps filled, sanded, filled, sanded ... you get the idea.

The next stage is to put teak on the fuel lockers.  When that is done, the boat will essentially be finished and I can open the bottle of Bollinger that a kind friend gave me ages ago.  There will be much rejoicing - even if I did hope to have had this finished by the end of October.

Of course, I still need to make the companionway, sort out the pram hood, put on the toe rails and rubbing strakes, fit the stanchions, finish and hang the rudders, work out the tiller arrangement, make the bilgeboards, paint the boat, make the mast, make the sail, sort out blocks and rigging, make the self-steering, fit and wire in the solar panels, finish the davits, make patterns for cushions and sew up their covers and I dare say many other things that I can't think of at the moment.  Please don't remind me of them: I can promise you they won't be forgotten.

Putting things together

And then taking them apart!  The cockpit is even more a put-together-and-take-out again than most of the things I've been making.  But it is slowly coming together.

 The grating glued up nicely and was then sanded to remove excess epoxy.

 I installed the lower shelves first, carefully filleting them to the side of the boat.

 This  shows the port shelf with the locker for the meths containers also glued into place.  The latter appears to be at a crazy angle, but part of the idea is to make it easier for me to drag the full one towards me to swop for an empty one.  A 20litre container is quite a lot for me to manoeuvre around.

 With the lower shelves glued and filleted into place, I could then turn my attention to the sidedecks/cockpit seats.  I had gone to a lot of effort to get these to fit and it paid off as they simply dropped into place. The 9mm plywood barely flexed along the outboard edge, noticeably stiffened by the layer of fibreglass I had added.

 The starboard side is finished, the port side is being glued up.

 And here is the grating.  The bilge area underneath is separated from the rest of the bilge, so drips won't spread any further.  With some sort of curtain rigged up, I could even use it for a shower stall!

 The bridgedeck slots into place between the sidedecks.  However, I don't intend to glue it in place until the cockpit well is hung.  In many ways, it would have been easier to make the well first because it would be easy to clamp in place, but for a number of reasons, I decided to put on the sidedecks/seats first.

Here the sides are getting a layer of fibreglass put on the side that is out in the weather - and gets kicked.

 Such is the cussedness of a wicked world, that the lowest point of the sidedeck landed on a stringer. I have to remind myself that I have no intention of sailing across the ocean, being regularly swept by seas built up from gale force winds.  One or two of my friends gently pointed out that a hole of around 30mm would be more then enough to drain any water - which is more than likely to be rain water, anyway!  So I used a hole saw and made a modest scupper, which I then almost flooded with epoxy to ensure it drains.

I then offered up the cockpit well to check that things fitted.  It took quite a few attempts, particularly because nothing wanted to stay vertical.

The view from aft.

 I decided to fillet up the corners in situ, to ensure that I get the three sides back in.  With a generous fillet, the structure is surprisingly robust, but sufficiently flexible to make it a tad less difficult getting it in and out.

 Left to its own devices, the structure flops open, so sticks and tape are being used to ensure that the after end is the correct width.

 The cockpit sole is of of laid teak, which I fitted with the intention of routing to size, so that the sides and back of the cockpit would fit snugly.

 That done I fitted the base and sides together and offered it up.  Many, many times.  To be perfectly honest, fitting this cockpit well has been more than a little challenging.  The clever little "Clinometer" device on my phone assured me that the cockpit sole is at an angle of 4°, which might be a bit excessive, but will ensure that no water stands in the cockpit.  There are few things more annoying than standing in the cockpit in stocking feet, only to find a pool of rainwater.  I really needed something to tell me just how much of an angle it was, because with nothing else being horizontal fore and aft the whole thing is rather confusing.

 The well is having its final fitting.  It's level athwartships, has the appropriate rake and (more or less) fits around the teak.  The next stage is to paint the faces that will end up inside the lazarette.

 And I was so excited about doing this, that I forgot to mark and mask off for where it's going to be glued, so I shall have to offer it up again and mark it.

 In the middle is the cockpit sole: in the foreground is the bridgedeck, also getting its underside painted.

The object will all the clamps is - I hope - a laminated end for the forward seat in the saloon.  It occurred to me that without something physically separating people from the wood burner, you can be sure someone will lean on it while it's lit.  They probably still will, but at least I will have tried.  I just hope it won't get hot enough to soften the glue and spring apart!

A bit more teak - and then back inside

I was, I think understandably, quite keen to get my teak decks laid; I still had interior trim, lights and hatch trim to fit, but I thought I'd do it 'when I had some spare time'.  Whatever induced me to come up with this flight of whimsy, I wot not because, needless to say, there was no spare time. So, the teak was laid and the interior had not been touched.  The first job in the cockpit is going to be fitting the bridgedeck.  This is going to make going in and out of the cabin a lot less easy than it is now, so commonsense dictates that I get the interior completely finished before I commence work on the cockpit.

I still had some teak to lay - on the deck box lids, so decided to do that first, because they would need teak plugs and there were a few to be fitted on deck, too.  Besides, my mind finds it difficult to move from one mode of building to another, so it seemed sensible to carry on with teak before I lost the thread, so to speak.

 The deck is laminated, you may recall, from one layer of 6mm ply and one layer of 4mm.  I doubted anything was going to be fitting to the nearest millimetre, so reckoned 9mm ply would be fine for the lids.  These were duly cut out and coated.

 Additional framing had to be added along the sides for the lids to land on.  Much cogitating took place while I decided whether to hinge them inboard or outboard.  Gordon, (Tystie's new owner) mentioned that if they were hinged inboard, like his are, there is a possibility of stuff falling out of them, if you are heeled well over and have forgotten to fasten them down.  Or so he has been told ...  I decided put the hinges outboard, so this also required some more wood fitting around the boxes.

 Then came the fun bit of fitting the teak.

 While I was at it, I took some of the narrower stock (which will get used up in the cockpit) and trimmed along the edge of the cabin.  I raised this to obtain a little more headroom, and as I want the (upper) rubbing strake to run in a fair line along the sheer, it can now run under the teak, which will be varnished.  I trust it will all look as though it was intended from the start, when the boat is completed!

 The deck box with the extra bits of wood fitted around it.  Thank heavens for epoxy, is all I can say.  It is so good for this sort of 'retrofitting', which would otherwise require high levels of joinery.  I'm not quite sure how I could even fasten things together, if I were building conventionally.

 Meanwhile, back on the bench, the deck boxes get their teak glued down ...

 and then sanded smooth.

 Then a 'dry fit' before sealing the edges.  However, even I didn't find these too challenging to fit.

 And for once, I didn't struggle with the (simplest in the world to fit) hinges.

What you may not have noticed, but I shall point them out to you in case, are the 308 teak plugs that have been fitted in the screw holes.  I was astounded that I need so many!

 I hope that the lids will rest at a slight angle against the guard rails.  If they don't I shall have to make some sort of hook and eye arrangement to keep them in place.

 OK, back to the interior.  The piece of kauri is to hold the light fitting.  It couldn't be put in place until the beading was fitted and so the wires have been sticking out of the bulkhead for what seems like months.  (I tested them and was relieved to find that none of the zillion screws that went into my deck had cut through them!)

 None of my kauri is long enough to go right across the cabin.  The camber, as you will note, is pronounced and it is exceedingly difficult to force even these dinky bits of quadrant into place with out fastening them permanently.  I am hoping that I can fit one properly and then cut the second accurately to length.  I would reckon the odds at 10:1 at best!

 Fitting the mounting for the lamp.  The wiring isn't just hidden because I'm precious (although of course I am): it's hidden because there is no appropriate groove in the base of the lamp for it to run down.  It's going to be fun and games when I finally come to fit it, I fear.

 Meanwhile, interior trim will need to be fitted around exterior openings.  The hatches are fitted, but still to go are a decklight over the heads, a dorade ventilator ditto and the big hole for the pram hood.  The first two can be dealt with by using hole saws and I went and borrowed one for the decklight. It was intensely traumatic cutting a hole in my beautiful deck!

 I had to go back and complete the job from inside.

 All so that I can fit this.

 Ah yes, another hole - I need one for the chimney for my wood burner.  I thought the black lacked class, so have repainted a nice green.

 The flue is to be made from copper downspout.  Some teeth have been sucked about this being too thin.  Time will tell, but the price was right, seeing as how the kind people in the shop found me a damaged length.  Of course, it won't look nice and shiny like this once the fire has been lit.

Because the stove was built with the intention of fitting something totally different, the hole for the flue was a completely different size from the downspout.  After much head scratching, I went into Whangarei to see if I could find some sort of reducer.  To cut a long story short, with helpful people passing me along to other helpful people, finally a gentlemen called Carl lent me his dad's crimping tool, saying 'that's how we used to do it'.  I managed well enough, even if I did have to use both hands and was right impressed with the result.

 I reckoned I'd better fit the bit of copper that will be used to protect the bulkhead, while I was at it.  Paul, at All Marine had the brilliant idea of using copper roves to provide for a nice wee air gap.  I felt like a real boat builder, hammering in copper nails!

The +/- 150mm copper strip had been given to me, cut from a wider length.  I could hardly plane it smooth, so took to it with a file: good enough, I think.  (The reason is looks a funny colour is that it still has its plastic film over it.)

Before I can fit the wood burner, I have to light it to 'season' it as it were.  The paint gives off fumes on the first occasion.  Definitely a job for outdoors, fine weather and a calm day.