Overthinking is the order of the day. How about putting together a “long board.” That’s a reasonably rigid sanding pad 16-20 inches long and a few inches wide with a couple of handles on top. One might do wonders for smoothing the hull (where drips, runs, and assorted other infelicities are breeding). I discovered this tool while looking up how to paint the fillets I made yesterday. It seems that a thin coat of epoxy thickened with the cell-o-fill makes a great “fairing compound” to average out the lines of the hull. I may or may not do that, but the tool of choice for sanding such a fill-coat is a long board. It insures that more material is taken from high spots, less from low, and keeps sanding from worsening whatever unevenness exists in the line. I don’t see a downside to this: knock down the drips with the sander, paint the hull with the fairing compound, then go over it with a long board. Rinse and repeat as needed before applying a durable paint.

File this thought under, “Anything to put off planing the sheer clamps.”

I am also bringing second, third, and fourth thoughts to bear on the pass-throughs for grab loops, camera mounts, tie downs, and what have you. There are ways and there are ways. I’ll have to pick one soonish, and I still lean toward embedding stainless steel fittings. I keep thinking I need to wait till I put glass on the outside of the hull — but I already have! That’s how transparent epoxied glass is. I just need to be sure where I want them and pick a way to put them there cleanly and securely.

Day 30

The time approaches when I need to think about the rowing rig. Since I never intend to race this boat in any event requiring FISA compliance, I wonder if I ought to consider a sliding rigger rather than a sliding seat. The advantages seem clear: only a few pounds of rigger, stretcher, and sculls move with each stroke rather than the considerably greater poundage of me. That seems to be a real advantage right there, but the physics involved aren’t as simple as they first appear.

This link includes a link to something about that. Don’t let ’em scare you; neither link is particularly technical.

It should be more efficient, but how much more is open to some question. A sliding rigger would certainly mean a steadier platform, especially since the boat is only 20’6″ long (compared to 27 or so for racing boats). The second link quanitifies how much more uniform boat-speed would be. I wrote the company offering Piantedosi sliding seats and sliding riggers (rowingrigs.com) to ask some design questions (room required, mounting hardware, height/depth of the riggers and the seat compared to the sliding seat for which the boat was originally drawn, delivery time…). We’ll see.

Soon

I’m going to have to drill some holes and plane some wood and order some parts and supplies. But I can put that off a while yet by overthinking many, many details.