Lackey Sailing | Calliope Girl 28

December 23, 2023

Calliope Girl 28

Saturday

On special request, Santa made an early stop at the shop after swinging by the hardware store and–surprise, surprise–brought me the new level I obviously sorely needed. As it happened, this 72″ level was the perfect length for the settee berths. I should have had this long before, but never had the need been so obvious previously.

With the new level, I quickly determined that indeed something was off–why this had been such an issue (when it didn’t seem like it should have been) remained unknown, but I found that the two horizontal cleats at the aft end were a bit low.

It was easy enough to raise up and reposition the after horizontal cleats to properly position them level with the forward set of cleats (which I also septuple-checked to ensure they were properly positioned too). I checked the newly-positioned cleats in several places across their span on each side, and also across the boat from side to side. This time, everything checked out the way physics and other aspects of reality required it to.

Finally satisfied with the cleats, I permanently installed them with glue and screws.

Using the long straightedge as a guide and measuring from the top of the settee down to the hull every foot or so, I made some basic measurements of the settee front to help me create a rough plywood pattern for each side. This gave me the approximation of the curve required to match the shape of the hull. After cutting out the rough shape from some cheap plywood, I fit each side and clamped it at the top edge to the straightedge to hold the floppy plywood securely and straight. Then I scribed the lower edges to more exactly fit the various undulations of the hull beneath.

It took two rounds of fitting and scribing to get the patterns where they needed to be. I made some reference marks at the vertical ends to help me cut the correct shapes there to match the bulkheads on each end (and around the tabbing at the lower ends), and some other notes to help when I transferred these patterns to the real plywood next time.