1. The Kickboards

My final decision was to take the kickboards to the sole and butt the carpet into rebates cut into the boards. That way I get the advantages of both systems. There will have to be a binding, so I will need a trimmer to do the job. I will look into ways to stop the carpet from slipping around.

To find the correct angles of these compound joints is no easy task: they are off right angles in all three planes. It seemed that it would be simpler to run the kickboards up to fillet pieces than to cut mitres for them, but even so, trial pieces have to be cut first to fit, and the angles taken off them later. Here, the first set of trial pieces is cut for the meeting of the starboard side and rear seat front joins.

When the glue is dry all screws are removed for the fitting of the kickboards.



The forward one is relatively easy to fit, but the side one is a lot more difficult because of the curvature along its length. It also has a constantly changing angle on its base as the angle between the sole and the side lagging changes. In the end it proves to be too much of a temptation to cut it for the most obtuse angle along its full length, and that works fairly well. With the full wide angle on my camera to include all of the cockpit finished so far, it seems to be quite foreshortened and boxy. But that is not apparent in the flesh, so to speak. It will look a bit sleeker again when the coaming is attached, as it will reduce the apparent height of the lagging.


Unless the beading is a very tight fit in the groove it will spring away from the kickboard as it bowstrings. This is overcome in the usual manner.


After the clamps are removed, and the board is given another coat of Cetol it is beginning to look good.



2. The Lighting

The decision to continue the cockpit lagging across the front of the rear seat, rather than have exposed ply, meant that the cabin lights which were mounted on the seat had to be removed. Now that the seat lagging is complete, the lights have been put back. The rear of the cockpit now matches the front again with two lights each.

In order to retrieve the battery cables from under the sole I have had to cut a hole in the part of the sole which will be under the driver's seat. This now needs tidying up and covering. It is not certain that I will need the extra batteries yet, so I leave the cover screwed down for later removal in case they are.

The seat base will be fixed onto the sole eventually, so there will be no need to make the cabling detachable. Even although this area behind the lagging will soon be inaccessible, the replacement of the hard conduit by the flexible black one, seen above touching the dash bulkhead, will mean that the cable will be able to be fed from the cockpit to the motor compartment with ease. And, although the final appearance will look a bit like "Lost in Space" it will be inconspicuous beside the seat.



I am actually happier now with this arrangement than with the one passing under the sole, since it will all be either above the waterline, or inside a watertight tube when it is not.

The next major part of the construction will be the attachment of the side coamings. That means that the stern coaming will have to be shaped to the deck camber, which will require that the subdeck immediately behind it will have to be glued down and free of obstructions to a scribing tool.


That, in turn, means that the rudder compartment will be sealed, apart from the hatch access, so that it is now time to complete all the jobs in there before access becomes a lot tighter. Chief amongst these is the strap which holds the rudder's stern tube back onto the F bulkhead. There is the spacing block there, which is bolted and glued to the bulkhead, and the plan calls for a steel strap to be screwed to the block on both sides, passing in front of the tube. In the original arrangement the block had the same width as the tube. I am adapting that to my own requirements, because my block actually houses the tube, rather than just acting as a spacer, so that any stiff metal strap would be difficult to position securely, touching, as it would, only the front tangent of the tube. Instead, I am using seat belt webbing, which will be attached to the block by two buckles screwed into it. This is another job for the sewing machine of the tardy upholsterer, and until it is completed I cannot do much more with the boat, so there will have to be some deals done, I can see.


Then there is the situation with the rudder itself. Currently, it is just sitting there with the tiller attached but not screwed onto it. The set screws on the tiller need a flat to land on. It seems easier to file a flat with the rudder in situ, rather than jack up the boat to remove the rudder. But in order to do that, and get a true flat I will have to arrange some sort of squared support for the file to stop it rounding the edges of the rebate it will create.


Finally, the hatch itself need attention. At the moment it is a very tight fit and has to be eased. I have to test fit the openings for a rear-hinged arrangement, but I am hopeful that the upward slope of the deck at hatch level will have resulted in a hatch which will clear the opening without bevelling. Then there is the drainage of the hatch drip channels. It seems excessive to have a dedicated through-hull just for the occasional trickle which may come from the drip channels, but what are the alternatives? They could be drained into the bilge for the bilge pump to take care of, but that would mean that water would be running through the rear seat locker. (Now I see why the plan had a sole in that area!). Or the drip channels could be drained via tubing into the bilge forward of the locker, but that would mean loose tubing running through the locker where it could get snagged. In view of the fact that I expect there to be very little in the way of run off from the hatch, a viable alternative is to drain it into a reservoir bottle which could be emptied at the end of the day's boating. That is the final solution I have gone with, and can always be replaced with a through-hull later if it proves to be ineffectual.

There will be few occasions (I hope) when there will have to be access made to this compartment, but that is no reason to leave it looking shabby. I have started to prepare it for a coat of grey paint for bulkheads and hull, and I have been so impressed with the performance of the black japan I used in the gloveboxes that I am using it again to stain the stringers, top frames and hatch. The stuff smells so much like creosote that I was sure it would have a beneficial preservative effect on the Oregon, apart from which it will look quite striking to any passing aesthete who is curious enough to stick his head through the hatch. In fact, it turns out that black japan has a bituminous base, so I was not far off the mark. It was also the original black finish on Henry Ford's T-models. Well, I am not going into production with slipper launches, but if Henry recommends it who am I...?

The initial coat of black japan is a bit patchy. It can actually be thinned to allow it to reveal the wood grain if you want. So I give these timbers two coats, and then a coat of varnish over the top. The insides of the drip channels are a bit rough looking, made, as they are, of laminated sections, so I face them with mahogany strips which will be finished bright for contrast. The channels themselves and the hatch opening will be the only black parts which will remain easily visible.