Deck, Supporting Carlin’s and Beams

There has been a considerable amount of work that I felt was necessary to be carried out before the deck can be fixed in place. Carlin’s, beams and doublers act as support and reinforcement below the deck and inside the hull, and will allow additional strength for bolted through fittings, all these small but important items have required manufacture and fitting. Furthermore many of the areas are difficult to access particularly for painting, it’s therefore advisable to prepare and paint as many areas as possible before fixing the deck down.

Carlin’s, beams and reinforcing doublers all fitted and glued into place. The doublers are mainly 20mm thick laminated from two 10mm pieces of plywood. This reinforcement has been added to allow fittings to be bolted through, cleats, sheet leads, chain plates etc. There are also doublers beneath the butt joints of the deck.

I also prepared and dry fitted the whole deck plus the trim on the transom. I marked around the timbers below the plywood deck sections before removal, this allowed positioning of masking tape over the fixing areas to prevent contamination whilst painting the boards before fixing.  I took the opportunity of shaping the trim at the aft of the cockpit and inserted a central inlaid feature, deliberately cut from a different board of sapele to obtain a contrasting colour and grain structure, I further highlighted this with an inlay of ash around its perimeter to achieve further enhancement.

I have decided to finish the deck in teak planking set in epoxy with black Sikaflex joints. To assist in the design of the layout, I set out the planks in chalk to one half of the boat, this proved very useful to calculate the amount of planking required and was an easy way to alter the design by simply rubbing off the chalk with a damp sponge, I was then able to develop the set out until arriving at the most appealing design.

 Ash inlay, again as previously mentioned, as a nod to the tree I felled which has been used in the build.

Deck planking marked out in chalk

I decided to reinforce either side of the centre board case creating a broad edge for a more secure fixing for the capping’s. I laminated up two 10mm pieces of plywood then cut them to the shape shown in the photograph before gluing to the case. The capping’s I made from laminating two 10mm pieces of hard sepele faced plywood, then machined a bead in the edge to aesthetically improve junction with the case.

 Reinforcing pieces either side of centre board case and capping. The centre board hoisting system provided by Harken blocks mounted within the case have been fastened with stainless steel bolts which, will allow removal for future maintenance. These were removed before painting.

To accommodate an anchor of sufficient holding capability that would fit into the restricted space of the mooring and stowage well, proved to be an item of extensive research. I looked at every anchor design on the market and found that most would simply not fit, until I came across the Plastimo Kobra folding anchor. Research of this product revealed it to be an ideal solution, the folding capability allowed easy stowage with room to spare. Because of this I was able to raise the forward base of the well by around 50mm to allow better drainage towards the oblique to aft drilled holes through the hull planking, this also gave more room below. I sourced some small stainless steel shell vents to provide cover to the exposed holes on the outer face of the hull which looked very neat. The bottom of the well was filleted around its perimeter, sheathed in 300 gsm woven glass fabric saturated in epoxy, filled and faired to a smooth finish. Its planned to fit a protective rubber mat to the bottom minimise potential damage from the anchor and chain.

The Plastimo Kobra folding anchor neatly stowed in the well. The additional 20mm thick plywood reinforcing seen here beneath the deck, will provide solidity for bolted through fixings for mooring cleats, stemhead chain guide, bowsprit iron and lashing eye plates. You can also see the anchor cable fastening eye bolt.

The stainless steel shell vents can be seen covering the anchor and mooring stowage well drainage holes