In which Tiger turns white!

Sanded and ready for primer. Just to the left of the bow you can see
 the top edge of a rudder, and part of the ramp. Those pieces are
complete and just waiting to have a boat to attach to.

No, she won't be white ultimately. But how exciting to see the covering-up of the micro-balloon colour... and with that, the end of the "hmm... interesting colour... is that the wood? ... what colour do you call that?..." questions!

Prior to painting, Trevor removed the catwalk and cradles. The hull is balanced with 2x4 bracing to the edges of the shop. This gives great access for this step of the project. Once exterior painting is done, the cradles will go back for interior painting.

The green tape line is 2" above the actual waterline. We're testing Aquaply M, an environmentally-friendly bottom paint, for use on the underwater components. It's an epoxy coating. Since you can put polyurethane over epoxy, but not the other way around, we plan to bring the bottom paint up a bit higher than is technically necessary. That way if we decide to change bottom paints at some time in the future, we'll be able to do so without stripping the surface. (There's lots of information about this paint on the Sound Specialty Coatings Corporation website.)

We're using Interlux Brightside Polyurethane, which according to the Interlux website is a "Hard, high gloss one part polyurethane finish."

We bought all of the primer for both hulls, plus the bright white for the bilge, and the trim colour visible on the ramp and rudder in the background, at Silva Bay Shipyards on Gabriola. Silva Bay is where we get dear Penna the Folkboat hauled out for maintenance.

Beginning with the beam chocks. Note very stylish gloves! 

We did get a bit of paint in Nanaimo (still pretty local!) at the Harbour Chandler's -- one litre of our planned hull colour, plus an additive to make it less glossy. Linking to the Harbour Chandler website is a bit of an act of faith -- it hasn't been working for Quite Some Time, but presumably someone there will eventually stop talking about boats, notice the problem and fix it.

The very stylish gloves come from Village Foods, on Gabriola. (Bet they aren't even aware of their role in the boat-building process.)

First coat underway! Note change in colour of very stylish gloves.
They modify to match the paint being applied -- very high tech.

The rudder

Since we are using the Tiki upgrade package for the original Narai Mk IV plans, our rudders are lashed. (Everything about using the Tiki-style lashed beams and rudder is included in the various design improvement packages we got from James Wharram Designs.

Clamping and tying the rudder into position

The rudders are lashed with cord (I'll update with the name of the cord once I find the package!) in sections, as you can see in the photos. Ultimately the holes will be epoxied.

For us the lashing is one of the most exciting parts of the boat. We've carried this design idea along into hatch covers, too.

Lashed into place. Note the three sections, and the holes drilled through the rudder post. 

Lashing close-up. The design upgrade is silent on size and type of rope for this task. Trevor's main concern is  to balance strength of rope needed against the weakening of the rudder post that occurs with the drilling of holes.

Trimming the posts

Stem and stern posts were trimmed today -- first with the skill saw for the glass, then (gulp) with the chain saw.

More excitement today, too -- hanging and lashing the rudder. Updates tomorrow!

The stern post, with the glass cut through

In process at the bow.

The deed done.

Bulwarks and a rudder

Ever more boatlike, this lovely boat looks!

The bulwark is installed all along the outboard edge, and on the inboard side at bow and stern. (No bulwark in the middle, where the deck is.)

And the rudder! The first step was clamping it into position.

Beam chocks

Goodness, it has been a long and eventful time since I posted.

You can see the lashing strake in this photo. (We can't see it in real life any more, except in a tidy pile in the boat shop, since Trevor has removed it in preparation for painting.)

With cabin top nearing completion, things are looking distinctly more boat-like.

Beam chocks. Note lovely purpleheart hatch combing, too.

The beam chocks are vertical-grained Douglas fir, which we acquired at Coastal Pacific Forest Products.

On top of the chocks there are additional pieces.  I lack the vocabulary to name them, but I can tell you they are the pieces through which the alignment pins pass. Or alignment bolts. My vocabulary seems to be not quite up to this part of the project.

Whatever they are called, the picture below shows them in one beam trough. They are made of ipe, an alarmingly-tropical (since not FSC-certified) hardwood from South America, via Westwind Hardwood.  We likely would have used purpleheart for this, but it wasn't available in the appropriate (4x4) dimensions. Ipe is very hard, and this piece needs to be very strong and resistant to wear.

There are even more pieces to the beam installation puzzle, and I don't know what any of them are called! First, there are mahogany pieces that go one on either side of the hull, to lift the beam off the bottom of the beam trough. You can see one in profile in the picture below; you can see its position better in the picture above. And then there are pads that help resist the compression from the lashings. They're two layers of plywood, and you can see one mounted on the side of the hull in the picture below.

No doubt there are official nautical terms for all these bits and pieces. I welcome instruction!