Bottoming Out

I declare the topsides done.  If you want to see if they look decent, you'll have to come sailing with me. In the words of the Mary Tyler Moore show, they are 'not awful'.

I pulled the tape and retaped for the bottom paint.  Pretty easy as I had an edge to tape to.  The bottom paint is the remainder of a gallon I had left after the bottom job on Ripple this past summer.  Plenty to do a couple more coats on top of the two I applied, but two should be enough.  I put on two coats in as many hours, the first having dried in an hour or so with the help of the propane heater I use to take the ice out of the air.

While the paint was drying, I shaped two octagonal spar blanks from 2 x 2 inch blanks of sitka spruce.  Two inch cross sections are actually smaller than the plans call for for the mast (but not the sprit-spar), but I am making them from an 8/4 plank of clear grained sitka spruce,  and I am thinking that will be plenty hefty. 

I bought enough spruce to make thwarts and possibly floorboards, which I may do instead of using the Alaskan yellow cedar.  The transom is made of the latter, as is the keelson, keel (including skeg), and the stems.  All but the transom will be painted rather than varnished.

The whole effort took only two hours, and as it is a perfect day to be on the water (crisp, sunny, and 50),  crossed the street and figured I'd have a go at cranking up the Yanmar 1-lunger.  It took some coaxing, but came to life, and I wandered around lake Union looking at the Seattle Boatshow boats moored at the south end of the lake.