Day 82

An issue we hadn't really considered while building the deckframes, was the compression bulkhead support. This is the bulkhead that supports the mast generally speaking. It must be made of wood and have a firm seating to the hull, and have cross support at both the top and bottom as a doorway must be cut out in the center. At this point in time, before starting on the cabin sides, it might be a good idea to put this web frame structure in. As an after thought, it may have been better to have put this in before the plate or even the stringers were on.

As the plate ( which will seat in the ground off area in the pic above ) must be welded to the hull plate, a good fit must be made. This wasn't easy as lining up the stringers and cutting slots was very inaccurate. We had to trim the whole thing three times before getting a satifactory fit.

At the end of the day we weren't very happy with the results and the weather turned bad so this will probably have to be realigned at a later date. Arrrrr!!

In hindsight, we should have cut the support to sit on top of the stringers and then filled in each opening below with flat bar, curved and straight!

Compression Bulkhead

Addendum:

Since we attempted this, we have discovered a method of battening we saw on a TV show that will be a big help for putting in bulkheads in the future!

It's ingenious! Stay tuned we'll show you how in upcoming days

Day 82:
6 hours
Put in compression bulkhead support, and interior welded some more hull joins / primed