Limber holes!

Planking continues, and since we're about to start covering up the points where the frames meet the hog, we had to think about limber holes.

What are limber holes, you ask? Well, see, the frames divide the interior of the boat into compartments. The lowest point on the bottom should be between frames 4 & 5, or so it appears - in other words, if water gets into the boat, it's going to want to settle down in the bilges between frames 4 & 5. So that's where we'll have the bilge pump intake.

Of course, we only want ONE bilge pump intake (or maybe one on each side of the CP case, I have to think about this)... so we want water to be able to get down to the lowest point. That means we have holes (well and truly protected with epoxy so they don't let water into the plywood) in the frames, right where they meet the hog, so bilge water can drain down to the pump. Limber holes.

We've cut some oversize holes and sealed them with epoxy, but we're not done. The plan is to wax some short (5-6") lengths of 3/4" OD flexible tubing, coat them with paste wax for easy removal, and epoxy them in place when we fillet (i.e. reinforce and seal with filler and epoxy and maybe glass) all around the edges of the frames. The waxed tubing slides out afterward (we've tested this), leaving nice, smooth, waterproof 3/4" limber holes.

Or that's the theory!

More planking

A couple of crappy phone camera pix of planking progress to date. As you can see, we've crossed the sheer stringer at the bow as well as the transom now. Planks will be getting shorter quickly now as we have to cover 3-4" less at each end with each plank on the topsides (i.e. at the bottom of the picture.

We put in a few tapered planks as we worked toward the keel, and as you can see, those planks are already much shorter than the topside planks. It's getting harder to force the curve on the topsides, so we might put in a tapered plank or two to make it easier there, too.

Not long now 'til we fit the whisky plank!

There's always something...

...that gets in the way of working on the boat. This time it's a cedar shortage in the shop, combined with deer season (as subsistence hunters, Courtney's folks have to get out there and fill the freezer!). Next scheduled work day is Sunday, when we'll rip up a bunch of 14' cedar boards and get back to planking. And post pictures, of course!