I finished the cabin. The plywood was not yet glued and laminated. I leave the tarpaulin on the boat more or less all the time for several reasons and work inside and around the cockpit.

So I haven’t that much opportunity to see the boat in its full scale, which is a pity. I’m looking forward to summer for some fulfilling work like building the portholes and hatches.

But for now I’m doing structural work inside. Fillets, laminate and the cockpit. I glued triangular strip wood to the stringers and laminated over it. I was inside a 7m Waarship lately where all the chinelogs were unprotected wood and even without fillets. So this is okay for some people. The Larch I used inside is a relatively rot resistant wood, comparable to Doug fir. But I laminate over everything below the waterline even if it will cost me 15kg epoxy more.

I decided for a more unorthodox way of building the cockpit, at least in the cruising world, because I really don’t like the classic sliding hatch layout and I don’t want a sprayhood on top of my more or less high cabin. My inspiration comes from mini 6.50`s and Class40 boats. It is as always a compromise and experimental and I will see how this will work out.

I will try to compensate the missing easy view forward below a sprayhood with a acrylic dom inside. On the pro side I will only have one winch in the middle of the cabintop. I also invested in 2 constrictor clutches, which is a little bit against my philosophy spending the least possible amount of money at yachting industry products. But I couldn’t resist. I never used them before but so far and if there aren’t any bad surprises I’m to this point convinced about concept and product.

With having a few unexpected weeks more inside the shed I startet with fillets and the finishing of the structural work inside. I made good progress and the majority of this work is done.

Now the blog is for the first them up-to-date. The boat is now finally outside the shed and I started collecting lead.

My main goal is to finish the keel and to build the rudders until end of March.