Cockpit

I started the day today by vacuuming the whole interior of the boat. Yes, there will be some sawdust flying yet, but we're coming down to the wire and the boat needs to transition from a workshop to a boat!

Then, I was so curious to see all that was under the cockpit floor board, that I pulled it up. The trick to that is that the cockpit bench tops overhang and get in the way of pulling the floor board up, so the bench tops needed to be taken off and stashed. But then all the stuff that had accumulated on them had to get cleaned up and sorted away first.

I forgot to take a photo before I started in with the cleaning, but remembered before too long:

You can see water stains, like here:

and here:

Haunted by the bull of Pamplona?

I didn't like the look of that corner; there were too many needles sticking out. I'm sure it was watertight, but I wanted to clean it up anyway.

It turned out that there was a bit of a lip that had a void under it, so I ground the wood off even, and put in a fillet with 9-oz cloth over it:

That's all I'm doing in the cockpit for now; the rest looks good. If I make the alterations I'm thinking of (self-bailing cockpit), this might change anyway.

The ring in the foreground is something I put onto the inside of the eye bolt that makes the upper gudgeon. I decided that, rather than saw the extra inch off, I'd make use of it. Who knows...

After the cockpit was cleaned out, I sanded and painted the floorboard, the little step-boxes just ahead of the cockpit benches, and the after end of the floor itself, as the floor board doesn't cover it all. Also put the second coat of white on the window frames outside. Finished around 7 pm.

I'm considering painting the cabin doors dark brown, like the rudder, and the after side of the cabin the orangy wood colour of the mast, the cabin top and the yet-to-be-painted decks. The transom also will be that colour. I'm trying to get all of one colour ready so that I can do it all with one opening of the can and one roller and tray cleaning. The white on the cabin sides will go on next. Three coats each colour.

It's very pleasant working under the new tarp. Because it's open-sided, there is good air flow, nice breezes.