Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ....

Picked up Eric & a minimal assortment of his tools after a stop a client's office. After a quick reconnaissance pause at the St. Cecile de Masham Quincaillerie (Hardware / Building Supply Store) we arrived at Robert's lakeside lair. Eliane and Bibitte (her ball retrieval obsessive-compulsive disorder Labridoggie) were waiting and ready to go.

First job was cleaning the edges of the CNC machined plywood. Cut the tabs with a razor, then block sanded the tear out from the edges. Very quick on 1/8 inch ply! Once the pieces were clean Eric proceeded to layout the assembly basics on the keel piece and the bulkhead frames. This basically meant cutting out places for the chine logs and the stringers, as well as the slots for interlocking the frames and keel. Using a sharp Dozuki (handheld Japanese cabinetmaker's back saw) made the cuts quick work and avoided tear-out from the thin plywood. One thing to note was that the CNC cut of the floor was split into two pieces instead of one piece as Eric intended - he thought he may have left a centerline on the CAD files, and Phil interpreted that as a cut line.

Our chine logs worked out dead on - matching the angles of the frames exactly. I love it when a plan comes together in the intended manner.

Eliane stuck bravely with her task of sanding the edges far longer than I would have at her age. She's really taken possession of her boat build - explaining her color choices to Eric quite clearly. Even when she took mercy on my inability to say no to Bibitte on the thousandth tennis ball throw, she remained with us while we worked on the boat. Bibitte retired inside the house so I could work uninterrupted for a while.

Robert went on a run to the aforementioned Building Supply store and purchased the needed 2"x2'x8' white/green Styrofoam sheets. When he returned, Eric laid out the keel frame on the Styrofoam and traced out a bunch (six I think) of pieces to be cut, carefully denoting the frame crossing points. The foam will be laid vertically side-by-side along the axis of the keel - making each one a made-to-measure support for the plywood sheeting on the hull bottom and decking. I had thought the foam would be laid flat on the bottom, and I guess that's why Eric is the designer and I'm not. This way makes eminent sense, and now I can see better Eric's intent to make the Styrofoam fill become a structural support to the thin plywood.

Once the foam layout was done, we proceeded to start to attach the stringers to the keel frame - using the PL-300 adhesive (Styrofoam-friendly). Started in the center and working outwards, pilot holes were drilled, countersunk and then a 3/4 #6 brass screw was used to hold down the now slightly-bent stringer to the base of the keel frame. Checked frame straightness on the floor and then filled in the screws to one every six inches along the keel.

I had to bail out at this point as my allocated time off paying work expired and I had an hour's drive back to my office and client meetings this afternoon. I took pictures during the process using one of Robert's cameras, so I'm hoping he can send them to me for use here.

Eric will be sending me a layout sheet specifying all the measurements used to layout the keel, daggerboard trunk location and other stuff that didn't make it into the CAD files used on the CNC table.