The day has finally arrived! I can write about planking the hull! We have three planks on the boat so far. The two 40ft long sheer planks that we scarfed together went on swimingly! The scarfs are totally unnoticeable, and the solid plank makes for a totally fair curve to the sheer. We were fortunate enough to have some friends help us fit the sheer planks which was really nice because the 40ft planks would have been a bit tricky with just the two of us. Now that the sheer is done it is super easy to put the rest of the planks on since they can just be clamped on to the planks above. The rest of the planks will just have normal butt joints rather than scarfs, so I can easily handle them myself. I have started to cut tapered planks aka stealers for the forward planks. This is necessary because there is so much sheer on this hull therefore there is much more space to be covered at the bow then the rest of the hull. Im hoping that I can fill in the distance and still have really nice flowing seams by starting the stealers right away with a smaller taper rather then using uniform planks for the first bit. We will see… I would like to sand the seams open a little so they show nicely on the finished hull.

getin everything lined up.

 You can see one of the scarfs at the bottom right of the last picture.

  They go on really easily now!

I just have to cut the rest of the stem rabbet, but that should’t take long. After that we should be able to just start hangin planks like crazy, and it’s about time!!! The halt of progress during the winter was tough… I don’t do well when im not being productive. Soon we will have a hull, which also means a WHISKEY PLANK PARTY!! Plans shall be made…

Thats it for now!