Outboard engine

After more investigation, I finally settled on a Tohatsu 6hp 4-cycle outboard engine: the "MFS6BUL SailPro" model, with a 25" shaft. I bought mine online from Online Outboards; they had a good price to start with; combined with free shipping and no state sales tax, it was the best deal I could find.

My nephew Daniel and I slapped together a storage mount for the engine when it's not on the boat:


I will order some casters to make it easy to move around.

I am also investigating outboard brackets. My goal is to know, well before fairing or painting, exactly how my outboard will be attached so I do not have any problems later on, e.g. with extra reinforcement. Adventure Marine has a simple but expensive fixed bracket, and I am also looking into the various Garelick models.

Regrettably I have some deadlines hanging over my head at work, so today was a short day on the boat, and tomorrow I will be at the office. I did finish taping the settee stiffeners in place. I spent a lot of time studying the settee seat back arrangement (see my post on the google F22 group), and also spent a lot of time dry-fitting the fwd coaming panels before finally settling on an arrangement; I then laminated the backsides of coaming panels and should be ready to start installing them next time. Oh wait, shouldn't I fair, prime, and paint the coaming compartments first? :-)

Cockpit seats glued on

The poptop hatch got an extra layer of A around the top outside edges:

I'm debating whether to put an extra layer of A on the top part. I also have collected all of the raw materials to start assembling the poptop hatch mechanicals (aluminum bars, bolts\nuts, plastic, jib track & slides, etc). I will start on that part of the project as soon as I have finished up most of the smaller jobs going on.

Yesterday I finally finished painting the cockpit compartment interiors; it took me all week to finally get down to 400 grit (yeah right). The weather has been crazy-hot lately, and it was a few degrees above System Three's suggested max temp for paint application. I compensated by thinning the paint with some slightly chilled water. I think it turned out ok:

Definitely a "work boat" finish, but plenty good enough for me. Here's another view in better light:

Here's the strategy I came up with to glue the settee stiffeners at a nice square angle to the settees: The fwd-most clamp does not have a piece of wood, since I didn't think I'd be able to get the screw out once the stiffener was glued in place. Here's a cross-section of one of these stiffeners:

I over-built the stiffeners a bit; two layers of A on each side, then the layer of A around the bottom curved edge, then another layer of A on the top edge (after routing a nice curve onto the front edge):

Eventually after I flip the hull upside down, I'll use A tape along the bottom inside join. So far, the results are quite satisfying: the settees have become nearly rock-solid places to sit. I am still however at a loss as to whether I should enclose the space beneath or not; rather than torture myself further, I decided to just leave the settees as-is for now. (With the limited space in that area, I shudder to think about if\how I'm going to fair the area fwd of the daggerboard case...)

With the compartments painted, I was finally free to glue the seats on:

Not shown in the above picture, but the initial perimeter taping on top of the seats has been done as well. I also dug out the foam from the extra layer on the aft-cabin hatch and filled it with bog (man I hate that job).

Last but not least, I began making blanks for the settee backs.