Monday, February 15, 2010

shall we move on?



Monday 15 February 2010: I grow tired of fooling around with the bow. I cut it completely apart, tweaked, adjusted, pegged the gunwales and re-lashed it over the last few days. Staring at it hard and trying to discern where anything might be off-kilter. It is nice and plumb now and looks pretty good though the gunwales and chines are starting to look a bit ragged from being hacked at too much. But, though the bow looks ok now, the keelson doesn't lie as straight as I might like. It seems to lie about a quarter inch to port of dead center at frame 4, just before the cockpit, about the longitudinal center of the boat. This curve is just discernable to the eyeball if the boat is upside down and you sight down the keelson. It is more easily noticed with the laser level sighted down the keelson. I don't think I can do a whole lot better than this without substantially cutting things apart and perhaps this is good enough? I'm still pondering that thought. I've noted before, the whole frame is flexible, a bit basket-like, and the position into which it relaxes varies somewhat and can be pushed around slightly. As the boat is skinned and eventually when it sits in the water, under the weight of a paddler, equilibrium will happen at some slightly other unpredictable line. So I am sure there is a point where it is counter-productive to worry about minor anomalies in alignment. Am I at that point yet? That is the question.

Otherwise, the gunwales, chines, keelson and stems are fully lashed. I have taken the frame down on the floor and tried sitting in it to see how it fits. It is tight. It seems that my legs are not long enough to quite use frame 3 for a foot brace. I may need something as much as 6 inches forward of frame 3 if I want to use a foot brace in this boat. I ordered some bundles of 4 and 6 mm okuome marine ply to make a footbrace, and cockpit floorboards. But UPS has been freaking out over the weather and has still not delivered that. First missing last Friday, and then again today. Perhaps tomorrow?

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