The drive to flipping

This was the drive to get ready to flip the boat, as I had folks coming over on Boxing Day to do the deed. I wanted to get the topsides basically fully constructed before that, meaning everything that needed to be glued on to the boat was glued on, epoxy had been applied, etc. Basically everything ready for paint, without actually applying the paint.

Three main items were on my punch list:

1. The transom cap
2. A handhold mounted on the aft edge of the cabin top
3. Reinforcements for the oarlocks

Transom cap

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First up was just a dry fit with some clamps to see how this would all go together. I cut out a doubler piece from some spare plywood and initially dry fit it without the cutout in the centre aft portion of it needed to make room for the doubler glued to the inside of the transom itself.

Before beveling and final fitting of the cap itself, I needed to deal with the raised cockpit side at the transom that happened because the instruction manual sucks.

Then a tighter fitting.

Before installation I just needed to cut a few wedges to fill the space between the deck and the transom cap. These I cut out of some spare wood I had lying around on the table saw. I don’t even think they’re the same species actually - one’s cedar and one’s a hardwood of some kind.

The glue up was pretty straightforward, and just needed a bunch of spring clamps, nothing too difficult.

After the glue set I sanded the outside edges smooth and started to work on the front edge.

Cabin top handhold

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From the forums one of the suggestions was to add a raised ridge or lip along the aft edge of the cabin top, as that provides a much easier way to grab on to something while standing in the cockpit. It does have drawbacks, in the sense that all the mount points for lines further forward on the cabin roof (cleats and pulleys and such) will have to be raised so that the line as it leaves the cleat isn’t in a position of having to go up to get over the handhold.

But that said, it seemed like a good idea. I wanted to make mine somewhat substantial to grab onto, as well as route in a little groove on the leading edge that my fingers could grab into.

I had a lot of cedar left over and not a lot of hardwood at all, so while I would have preferred to build this out of hardwood, I went with cedar instead, cut out a bunch of strips, and then laminated them together on top of the cabin top to match it’s curve.

After the epoxy cured, I cleaned off the squeezeout using the belt sander, then ran the whole thing through a planar a couple of times to get to a common front to back thickness of about an inch, with a height of about 7/8 of an inch.

To get the groove, I used my table router with a special bit I had to go buy. It worked ok, although the start of the groove was pretty jaggy before I got the hang of how to get the piece smoothly through the router.

After trimming the ends off (and cutting them at such an angle that they’d be vertical when on the boat), and sanding the rest of the interior finger track, the piece was ready to glue on.

Epoxying it down was pretty simple, just had to remember to use pads under the clamps since the wood was pretty soft.

I have a 1/2" oval round in brass that I’ll eventually screw on top of this to help with wear from lines running over it into the cockpit.

Preparing for oarlocks

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The last step was to prepare for oarlocks. I went back and forth about what kind of oar locks I should use but eventually decided on top mount ones. Given that my cockpit coaming cap is pretty wide I figure I should be able to mount these nicely to the cap itself.

However, that will need a little reinforcement, particularly since rowing will put some strain on the oarlocks. I need to add some reinforcements to help transfer some of that down to the deck and hull.

First step is to figure out position wise where to mount them. The plans indicate putting them roughly 7" forward of bulkhead 6. Different people have mounted them in different spots though based on what felt right. Well, time to get in the boat, use some clamps to hold oar positions, and figure out what works for me.

I eventually choose a spot about 7.5" forward. I’m tall and I liked the reach.

Now for reinforcements, I need two parts:

• a small piece of fir to extend the “shelf” on which the cockpit side caps sit to make it full width. This will add a little strength as well as give more material into which the oarlock can be mounted.
• Side gussets that will connect the cockpit side cap, the cockpit coaming, and the deck all together to help transfer the stresses from rowing down into the hull.

To get a better shape to the gussets I wound up using one of the rounds I made for my portholes as a nice sized curve.

I decided that, before gluing these in, I’d coat them three times in epoxy. Figure it’s easier to do this now then after they’re installed, and means that after installing and filleting the whole assembly will basically be ready for paint right away.

Gluing them in was a matter of gluing the part underneath the cockpit cap first, then doing each side.

And that was it, the boat was ready to flip.