2nd Course of planking

And progress continues. The second course is much easier than the first. Not sure if that's because I'm becoming more comfortable with the process, or the shapes are easier, or both?

Here are a few snaps from the garage this afternoon.

Been a while since I got a full view. Getting excited to see her final form.

Someone said I should fit the cockpit seat tops before finishing the planking and adding the sheer stringers.  I think that's good advice.

From sexy forefoot curve to sweet, firm bilges amidships. Nice! I'm interested to see how this actually works on the water: As drawn/built, the fine forefoot and swelling bilge will allow this boat to cut through waves and chop with relative ease, while providing rolling stability and good righting moment. We'll see!

So you can see the tips of screws protruding from the butted planks. The screws are holding the butt straps in place while the epoxy sets. They'll come out and the holes will get filled later.

You can see a pencil mark about 200mm long, 20mm from the top bow-side of the plank. That's the gain line. I don't trust my router skills, so I've marked where it should go, and I'll cut and plane it down to a nice ramp after the glue sets up.  The gain is a short bevel of sorts that allows the bottom edge of each plank to "feather" into the lap of the plank below. It's a pretty convention on lapstrake boats.  See below...

Note how on this canoe, the overlap of each of the planks at the bow of the boat disappears as they approach the stem, creating a nice, fair transition. That's what I'm trying to accomplish above. Hard to see right now, because well...just because.

So, it's hard to imagine how this assemblage of "matchsticks" will somehow come together to a) float, b) withstand the forces that sailing a boat through water will generate, c) carry 1 – not to mention as many as 4, – people in comfort and safety!