With the boat turned upside down the last time, the side planks need to be installed. They are made of 1/2″ marine plywood, cut into 4″ planks and routed with a tongue and groove to fit the best side by side. I alway start dry fitting a group, to see if the underlying cross frames are supporting fair curves.

In this case, I will not be doing the last few rows until the boat is flipped over and I can make sure the shape at the top line is good. But most of the side needed to be done in preparation for final painting of the bottom. Jeff Margush lends a hand, actually you could probably make the case that he might be doing the work mostly by himself.

After the epoxy dried, I needed to shape the plywood plank down to meet the longitudinal corner molding, called the chine. This Okume Marine plywood is the best plywood I have ever worked with, being almost as easily planed as solid wood. It is a woodworkers delight to have these wood curls roll up from a sharp blade in a good plane, especially the ribbons below.

After doing whatever wood removal is needed, then it was time to add some epoxy fairing compound to smooth gaps and add nice fillets to the corners. Between a rasp, a scraper, coarse sandpaper with flat or rounded blocks, and a dust brush, slow progress can be made. The proof will be in the pudding of a shiny paint job, to see if the contours are good.

A bit more fairing on the sides, finishing the bow and stern contours, and it will be ready for the next nerve racking step: putting a huge sheet of the glass fabric on and trying not to repeat the snafu that happened last time. Too much epoxy over a complicated surface ran and pooled in an ugly mess, that required many hours of scraping and sanding. This time I know what I am doing?

Building a boat seems like a continual learning project, and hoping not to have to repeat too many steps. Sounds like life . . .