Honey I varnished the boat !

Pathfinder project build blog – finishing main construction and painting.

In my previous post about the Pathfinder build I said that I was pretty well done with main construction as the hull and cuddy were finished aside from a couple of important details on both, that there was still the rig to build and lots of detail left to do. Where that left me was with hull and decks that were complete, if a little scruffy – I did the main priming, undercoating and first layers of topcoat months ago but they have inevitably received the odd dobs of epoxy or sikaflex as I did other work so it was definitely time to flat everything back and finish the paintwork…… for now.

Masking off to fit the anchoring cleats.

Construction-completion jobs.

Aside from a load of new detail such as adding more cleats and more stowage points I had two main jobs to finish the hull and then the cuddy ; with my timber order for the mainmast and boomkin also came the stock to make the rubbing strakes from so there was that to do and then in the same week the cuddy windows arrived so I fitted those one evening to…..just to say that we’re still having (officially) a heatwave and drought so i’m mainly working in the early morning or evenings here.

Bonding in the cuddy windows – grey tinted plastic.

The mast timber came as 8 long staves all in single pieces so there’s no additional joining work to do later on, the lengths of Iroko for the rubbing strakes came as shorter lengths though so I had to scarf those and the only scarf joint that iv’e done before was in joining the bottom boards. That joint obviously had to be strong but it was never going to be visible – in fact it’s completely glassed over on the outside and invisible inside the boat – the rubbing strakes though are highly visible and they create the final visible aspect of the entire hull so they had to both good joints and fair.

I chose to go with just a single rubbing strake each side just below the hull/deck line…..John’s plans show a second strake over the 3-4 hull plank line and some builders go with that and some, like me, prefer a single strake ; whatever, it makes for a handsome looking finish and practical too.

The rubbing strakes went on once for a difficult dry fit – as with the stringers they have to bend in 2 planes and twist with the aft tumblehome – getting them glued on with Sikaflex was inevitably a bit messy and took a while to clean up afterwards. The completion job, just done was to plug the screw holes with teak plugs. Just to say also that I had to use Iroko for the rubbing strakes as our man John (Moody) can’t import what he calls ‘proper’ teak and he reckons that the Iroko is better quality as an oily hardwood than the plantation teak now being imported to the UK.

Making the scarfs.

Painting.

For the first time the whole boat has it’s final visual appearance with it’s topcoats of the hull, deck and transom all decided and done. Decks are cream gloss except for the center panel of the cuddy roof which is light grey, the hull topsides are a slightly darker ‘light’ grey and the transom is grey with the top doubler piece finished ‘bright’. The inside paintwork isn’t quite finished because I have yet to finish construction around the aft end inside the cockpit where I haven’t yet bonded the stern seat/deck piece in because I still have to carefully put a holesaw through 3 layers of boat for the mizzen mast.

Next.

My main attention now switches to finishing lots of detail inside the boat – even now it starts to look a lot more complex with 2 anchors aboard and the centerboard lifting tackle finalized – at the same time though iv’e written up the ‘shed door’ with the first jobs for building the rig ; so far the list looks like mainmast and mizzen, bowsprit and boomkin, mainmast gaff and mizzen sprit boom and mainmast tabernacle all to build. The rig, I think, should be an entirely separate post and I haven’t worked out my build sequence yet although I have done the bowsprit and boomkin….one job on the bowsprit needs a redo though.

At the end of this build sequence post I may have some spare budget for the very expensive rudder hanging fittings so hopefully in the rig post we might get to see the whole boat pulled forward on it’s dolly, the rudder all complete and on and even the boomkin fitted……with that on the boat is at least as long as my previous boat (23 feet).

As this is a painting and finishing post and the work actually done I thought I would finish with a few pictures of the ‘finished’ boat as of the end of August so…..