Day 12, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer. Build time: 7hrs.
Made the decision to move the seats, and made relatively quick work of modifying the seating and relocating the risers. Center seat shifted 5 inches aft, stern seat 10 inches aft, very close to my original plan. Feet now land on the subsequent thwart, as it should be.
Did some fairly fierce boat surgery moving the oar pads, which somehow seemed to require every tool I own to complete. I’ll make filler blocks tomorrow to hide the carnage.
Laid out the spars, oars, and gear bags in the boat so I can plan for tie downs. Integrated tie downs to keep everything clean and functional are hugely important to me. If you don’t do this in the design phase the boat is never truly tidy on the water, which tempts one to get lazy with stowage, which is an accident waiting to happen. Not that anything like that has ever happened to me of course.
Reworked the spars and lost a few pounds there. It’s always surprising how much every 1/8 inch in spar diameter affects strength, weight, and flex.
Made the first of two foils I’m going to try on this boat. I’m leaving the tops square because of how I plan to use them. My strategy for carving square topped foils is to do the first 4 inches with an angle grinder, then I can finish the long run with power and block plane. I also mark everything out with sharpie because it’s much easier to keep track of the layout. I know it seems wrong, but just trust me, the sharpie is the oar, paddle, and foil builders friend.
Reasonable progress for one day.
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