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As I had mentioned before, it seemed like a fair number of my summers as a kid started off with my father trying to get a jump start on hurricane season, planning sailing trips for as early in summer as possible. And, as I had mentioned before, Mother Nature has her own timing.
I recall one summer we planned a longer trip to make a few stops around Charlotte Harbor. After headed up to Captiva and spending a few nights at South Seas, we were on our way to Burnt Store Marina, when we began to hear on the VHF radio that there was possible weather disturbance in the gulf. By the time we got to Burnt Store, the weather report was predicting a rapid intensification.
The next day, the reports again predicted the storm strengthening in the gulf and anticipated tropical storm watches would start to be issued for the gulf coast by nightfall. We weren’t going anywhere. Burnt Store was starting to let folks know they would probably be closing things down tomorrow, and they didn’t want visitors staying on their boats at the marina.
At the time, they were building another section of the marina and had placed piles for future docks, and my father had somehow talked the dockmaster into letting us stay in one of the condos at the marina, and spiderweb our sailboat between those piles so it could ride out the storm. We took everything we could off the boat, and I recall sitting on the dock with the pile of gear with my sister, while my parents took the boat around to the other cove.
That evening, we were able to eat in the restaurant that overlooked the marina before they closed down, and, during dinner, we watched as the windows were boarded up with plywood, one-by-one.
My parents stayed up all night watching the weather on the TV while my sister and I fell asleep.
The next morning, we woke, and my parents were asleep on the coach, I looked outside it was just a little overcast. Turning on the weather, it reported that all the fuss for nothing, the storm had blown itself out! Mother Nature certainly does have her own timing...and quite a sense of humor, too! We spent the day putting everything back together on the boat that we had undone the the day before.
This weekend I started working on the deck. I had opted for the wood veneer kit and decided to use a similar technique to Gary Bart: spacing the veneer strips and infilling with wood filler. His blog is very helpful, and you can find a link to it on my Resource Page.
The other key point of this technique is creating the entire deck as a monolithic piece to be epoxied all at once instead of individual strips. This was very appealing as it seems a lot easier.
Starting with the veneer on the bow, I decided to shape it into a chevron for a little style. I drew the shape on the bow to get an idea of how it would look and to ensure symmetry
Then, I transcribed the actual bow of the boat onto the small piece of veneer.
I measured and cut the veneer into shape, remembering to cut toward the center of the veneer to prevent accidentally splitting the veneer at the outside corner where it tapers.
Getting it exactly right was little more challenging than I had expected, and after a couple attempts to measure the symmetry, I ended up just “eye-ing” it. The eventual shape was a little smaller than I had planned, but it’s ok, as it left the predrilled hole for the rigging easy to find.
With the bow veneer shaped, I tackled the wood veneer strips. The strips had some variation in color and I wanted to ensure the continuity of the running the same strip from bow to stern even though there were openings in the deck.
Starting in the middle and working my way out, I cut the first strip into the pieces to run from the bow to the stern, breaking at the mast, openings, and barney post. I used a square to line it up.
I began pinning the strips in place. At first, I used push pins in between the strips to keep them separate, but I found, as Gary Bart mentioned, it became easier just to “eye” it.
To mark the predrilled holes, I dropped a pin in those locations as well.
There’s also a diagram in the manual with the location of these holes in case you lose them. (I found this reassuring!)
Pins were put in place using needle-nosed piers. I was sure to line them up as best as possible in case the holes show through in the final finish.
Keeping the pins in a line also will help when it's time to tape the planks together.
A milk crate with a couple of wood blocks provided a great support to work on the boat after the keel is in place. The stand that you can get from Tippecanoe is great for display but working on the boat required something a little more stable.
Here’s a photo in progress.
You can see how I chose a darker strip for the center, then lighter ones adjacent to it as I worked out, for subtle style.
I was sure to overlap the strip in the location where the deck curved. I will cut that off in a latter step. (I plan to cut or sand that back once it’s secure)
I also overlapped slightly at the deck openings. Here’s the stern.
Finally, all strips were pinned!
A sea of pins!
Using Gary Bart’s technique that he describes on his blog, I began taping the deck into a monolithic piece.
I taped as much of the deck as possible with the pins in place.
Then each pin was removed, one-by-one. Holding the veneer down with a finger on each side is helpful. The pins that went through into the pre-drilled holes were left in place and will be taped over. They will help serve as guides to locate the deck in place.
After all the pins were removed, the entire deck could be taped.
Here’s where I changed a little from Gary Bart’s method. I decided to cut the strips that overlapped the perimeter of the deck before I epoxied it together. (We’ll see how this works). I needed to flip the boat so it would rest on the deck, but the barney post and mast sleeve were already in place. I also knew that, when the veneer will be epoxied to the deck, I will need to put weight on it while it dried.
...so I took a piece of wood and drilled holes at the same distance between the mast and barney post...
...you can see how the boat can now sit upside down the deck on the piece of wood and no interference from the barney post or mast sleeve.
Now it was time to cut back the overlap from the strips. Here’s a photo a of the bow.
Using a sharp x-acto knife, I carefully cut back both the veneer and tape with the shape of the hull as my guide.
It was best to work one section at a time, and in most cases, scoring it first instead of trying to do it all in one cut. Here’s a photo in progress.
Once all the excess was cut, the veneer could then be taken off the deck as one piece. You can see the pins in the photo are still taped in place for the pre-drill hole locations.
Planning to use the pins as a guide for the pre-drilled holes once the veneer is epoxied in place, I took the time to poke them through the tape so they could be more easily manipulated, and later pulled out.
The last thing I did was do a test run on the wood filler with some scrap wood.
This was enough for today. Tomorrow, I will work on the wood filler and hopefully secure the veneer to the deck.
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