Coamings

We took a vacation from working on the boat for about two weeks during Christmas, with the exception of an important day spent putting up the mast.

On Wednesday afternoon I sanded and varnished the tiller and polished the bronze with a buffer. On Thursday I put the coamings on the saw horses. They had been roughed out several weeks ago with a Skil saw with a dull blade and the edges were rough and burnt. Marjorie had put on a sealing coat of varnish while we were in the warehouse.

I planed the edges, put a 1/4 " radius on the sharp corners with the router, sanded, and drilled for the mounting screws. By Friday afternoon they were dry-fit into the boat and looked good.

The curved, laminated coaming at the rear of the cockpit was still a source or worry. It is curved and both ends must be cut with compound angles to fit between the coamings. Lots of ways to go wrong. Well, I made a bunch of measurements and cut the angles on some pieces of scrap to test them in the boat. To run the curved beam through the table saw I made some guides to hold the free end which was a foot and a half up in the air.

If I ruined this piece I would have to go to Belgrade for some more mahogany, rip it into thin planks, epoxy the planks together, etc. This would take a couple of days of work and $50 materials.

Well, sometimes you are lucky. The curved piece fit into it's place just fine. This is a great relief! The Harken track fits on top as per plan.

You can't tell from the picture, but the weather today has temperatures below freezing with gust 20 mph winds and blowing snow. The plastic cover on the boat flaps vigorously in the wind but has not torn itself up.