December 29, 2023

Calliope Girl 32

Friday

Getting started, I lightly sanded the tabbing on the settee divider bulkheads.  Then I marked and trimmed the port settee top to its final size.

With both settee tops cut and fitted, I laid out a pair of large access hatches on each side, then cut out the openings. (Top row:  port side; bottom row:  starboard side)

Next, I cut and installed, with glue and screws from beneath, hardwood cleats around each opening to support the hatches.

Back in the boat, I installed a pair of hardwood support cleats on the divider bulkheads–one cleat on each side of each bulkhead to provide a wide and secure bearing surface.

A few details remained to complete in the locker areas before I could think about installing the berth tops permanently.  I’d address the list in the coming days, but for now I turned to a small repair at the main bulkhead, where earlier I’d cut away the lower section for better access while working on the new mast step structure.  Now, I prepared a plywood patch (made from two laminated layers of 12mm plywood) to fill in the opening, and also cut circles of plywood to fill in a pair of old holes above leftover from (it looked like) an old foot pump for the head sink.  I installed these plywood patch pieces with a thickened epoxy adhesive–you can’t see the plywood in the circular holes, but it’s there, covered with a skim of the adhesive.  I filleted around the base of the bulkhead patch, but these areas would require a bit of dressing up before I could tab over the whole repair in the near future.

Total time billed on this job today: 7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 36°. light rain. Forecast for the day: Cloudy, rain, 36°