Decisions Decisions

The boat is like a whole new project now.  It has been nice working on things that you can see progressing.  The two big projects we have been working on are the v-berth and the water tanks.  Everything we do ends up requiring discussion and lots of deliberating before we come up with a plan. We both have a hard time just deciding on the way something should be, even the seemingly simple things.  Anyway look at some of the pics and I'll explain how we got to where we are now.

Soon to be water tanks

Water tanks.  We are building integral water tanks into the boat, which means that we will just put a lid on the floor timbers and then the bilge will be made into a water tank.  There is no wasted space and it allows us make use of an area in the boat that usually isn't easy to access anyway.  But back to decisions.  First we wanted to do just two independent tanks, then it was three independent tanks, then three tanks all linked together, now we have finally ended up with two tanks linked together and the third is independent.   Because the tanks are in the bilge, they create a dam that prevents bilge water from about half the boat from making its way to the low point.  This is a problem, but after much deliberating we solved it by installing a drain pipe that goes through the water tanks.  

  

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Getting pretty creative with clamping devices to hold the face of our v-berth cabinet on while the glue sets.

Cardboard makes great template material for those hard to get to pieces.

After much consideration I decided on mortising the deck beams behind the frames.  Here I make a few saw cuts to guide my chisel.

After the cuts are made its easy to knock the pieces out and clean it up with a chisel.

 One project that let our minds rest was the anchor locker.  Pretty hard to screw this one up, just put heavy fiberglass cloth in and paint it with epoxy.

 I took this photo last night, the v-birth is almost ready for paint!  We salvaged a bunch of mahogany and teak from the Tartan, so we are using some of it for the cabinets and shelves.  I think this will be the only spot on the boat that is made of these woods. We don't have enough to do the rest of the boat, so we are thinking of using vertical grain fir for much of the decor in the main cabin. 

I glued up the mast for Beth's dinghy a few weeks ago, but we have been too excited about the big boat to finish it.  Here she is working it down from square to round.  4 sides, 8 sides, 16 sides, then she will sand it until its round.

Anyway, the psych is high and we are making good progress, even with our indecision.  Hoping to have some cabinets painted(if we can decide on paint color) by the next post!