December 7, 2015
Aventura 46
Monday
Over the weekend, I finished up the varnish work on the toerails, and removed the masking tape. I also dismantled the staging to prepare for some boat shuffling in the near future, as the remaining work could be completed without the boat in the center of the shop, and I needed the room for another boat.
Meanwhile, I continued work on the coamings. To prepare for installation, I laid on a strip of masking tape to aid in marking, and laid out the fastener holes required along the bottom edges of the coamings. Then, I milled 1/2″ counterbores for bungs, and 1/4″ pilot holes for the screws. With the coaming in the boat, I pressed it into place with my jack, and drilled and tapped the sides of the cockpit coaming to accept the 1/4″ machine screw fasteners. At the winch islands and coaming return blocks, I bored bung holes and screw holes for the fasteners there.
Now I removed the coamings, and milled little countersinks at each fastener location before vacuuming up the drill spoils and preparing for final installation. I applied a bead of brown sealant along the top edge of the cockpit, and at all the screw locations, then reinstalled the coaming and secured all the screws before cleaning up the sealant squeezeout. I used enough sealant to prevent nuisance water from seeping into the cockpit beneath the coamings, and to seal the screw holes, but hopefully not so much that coaming removal would be impossible in the future should be become necessary.
With the starboard coaming complete, I repeated the process on the port coaming.
At the aft end of the cockpit, I went through the same basic steps to install the two pieces of coaming trim there, and wrapped up the installation by installing the coaming caps on the molded return blocks at the forward ends.
With that work complete, I repositioned the boat to the front corner of the shop, leaving room in the back for another small boat and opening the other shop bay for my next project. This gave me a chance to see Aventura in the open for the first time, however briefly.
With the yard move complete, I got back to work and installed teak bungs in all the coaming holes. To wrap up the day’s work, I varnished the various loose trim pieces again, and finished up my fastener order as needed for the deck hardware installation.
Total time billed on this job today: 7.75 Hours
0600 Weather Report:
22°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, low 50s (!).