Overview
When I was finished building my Biscayne Bay Sailing Skiff, one lesson learned was that the building was only about one-half complete when I began working on the inside of the hull. Building Justine has not been much different.
Completing Justine‘s interior includes adding many, many compon ents. Some are obvious like bulkheads, decking, and cockpit seats and sole. Some are less so unless you are quite familiar with traditional wooden boat construction. Even after completing the interior construction, you still need to make spars, fit the 1200+ pound ballast keel, install hardware, and complete running and standing rigging. And all the wooden parts need paint or varnish. I’ll describe all of these topics in my next posts.
First steps
With the hull right-side up, I began by removing the eight remaining construction molds from the hull.
The molds are held in place only by the thin steel straps that hold the frames onto the molds. (The straps went on just after the frames were steamed, just prior to bending the frames to conform to the mold shape.) I simply sawed the frames between the straps and the sheerstrake, releasing the molds from the hull one at a time. After removing a mold, I cut a 2 x 4 to appropriate size and shape and temporarily fastened it to the frames with drywall screws, to hold the hull to its proper beam at that station. Then I went and freed the next mold and braced that station with a 2 x 4 and repeated the process until all 8 molds had been replaced with 2 x 4s.
I also needed to protect Justine from the elements, so Annie kindly offered to buy me a capacious 12′ x 24′ Shelterlogic shed for my 66th birthday! It was necessarily a large structure, but I erected it with the help of some friends, and we didn’t drop any parts onto Justine in the process! (And after three Maine winters, the shed is still in very good condition.)
I had left a little bit of extra material at the top of the sheerstrakes, anticipating I’d want to trim that down later. Trimming offered the chance to correct any unfairness to at the sheerline (top of the sheerstrake) and also to plane a winding bevel along the top of the sheerstrake that would match the curvature of Justine‘s deck when it went on.
Justine‘s plans showed dimensions for a “deckbeam mold” that is useful in adjusting the sheerstrake bevels. The deckbeam mold has constant curvature, and it it wide enough to span Justine‘s beam amidships. The suggested use is to plane the bevel angle at each station so it will conform to that of the deckbeam mold when it’s placed across the hull at that station. (I learned as I was getting ready to install the cuddy top that there’s a better way to do this. I have a bit more to say about this when I do a post about building the cuddy top.)
At this stage, it’s also a good time to trim off the tops of the frames so that they line up with the top of the sheerstrakes. And of course, it’s the ideal time to paint the interior of the hull before any other parts are installed. I chose Kirby Paint’s “Green Gray” color for this.
The best way to trim the top of the sheerstrake is to clamp a long batten in place and make any adjustments to bring it (the sheerline) to a fair curve. Sighting along the batten from several perspectives allows you to refine the shape. All the actual shaping is done with a hand plane, working very carefully and paying attention to the grain direction.
I still had not fastened the forward ends of the sheerstrakes to the stem, but I knew that they should be steamed so they could be more easily bent into position for fastening. So made plastic sleeves from thick polyethylene sheet that would slide over the first three feet of the sheerstrakes, then fed steam in through a piece of plastic pipe for about 90 minutes, clamped the hot end of the sheerstrake into position, then did the fastening.
The steaming did not noticeably affect the few coats of varnish I’d already applied to the sheerstrakes.
Once this preliminary work is done, the hull looks quite spiffy. You see the inside shape, the varying heights of the floors, the butt blocks, the sheerline, the fresh coats of paint, and feel a sense of anticipation as you’re about to begin adding additional structural members and building out the boat’s interior spaces.
