Side Panels

The side panels seemed a little long and awkward working for moving around by myself.  So I had my son come over and give me a hand.  We wrestled the port side in first and I placed the ties while he came behind me and tightened them.

The only problem we had is that he wanted to tighten the ties down too tight.  I will probably have to remove some of them so that I can get the correct inner-edge to inner-edge final placement.  I've learned from my other two builds that it's easier to tighten the stitches just enough to hold everything together and then go back and incrementally adjust them tighter while adjusting the panels for a correct fit.  That's a minor complaint though because it only took about 90 min to accomplish what might have taken me 4-5 hours alone.  Thanks Sean!

After the side panels I stitched in bulkhead #4.  This thing really locks in nicely to the notch in the keelson and the recess in the front of the center board trunk.  Bulkhead #7 was also located at the rear of the center board trunk.  At this point I checked to make sure that everything was square and that the distance between the tip of the bow and the rear corners of the transom were the same.  It is a minor miracle how nicely everything goes together with the precut pieces.

The only problem is near the bow.  The manual tells you how to take care of this problem but It'll wait until after the other floor supports and bulkheads are stitched in.

The bow is the tightest fit of all.  Getting the lower ones to mate up requires much work.

Next up will be fitting the transom and the rest of the internals.

Hours this session: 3
Hours total: 94
Hours remaining: 308