Hey everyone! Sorry for the long silence… We have have back to back visits from friends, and family lately. It was awesome to see everyone, and it was a welcome break from the boat! Unfortunately the last couple times I have tried to post something it wont let me upload pictures… Which is pretty lame because we have quite a few to share. Hopefully it will fix itself soon. Things like this seem to happen on this site fairly often, so we’ll see.

Anyway we have been crossing things off the list lately. We finished the stringers, cheeks, a few more deck beams, and we are ready to start planking the bottom! We have to do a supply run in portland to pick up some more fasteners and what not. Then we can start planking.  It’s about time to… The stringers took way longer than I expected, but hopefully we can make up some time and knock out this bottom planking! We have quite a bit of the deck framing done now as well, so once we finish the bottom it shouldn’t be to long before were laying the deck. We have decided to go with plywood for the deck. Most likely 2 layers of 3/8 AC /MDO or 3 layers of 1/4 luan then we’ll cover it with epoxy. Now I know there are some out there who will think were crazy for not using marine plywood, but the fact is people have been building decks out of regular exterior plywood for years. Sure marine ply is better, but we can’t afford it. The key is in taking the extra steps to protect the regular ply. Making sure you bed everything properly, and get a good protective coating on it. I have talked to people with decks built like this that are 10-20 years old ,and still going strong. That’s why I love Beuhler designs, and his overall philosophy on boat building. He’s not afraid to go against the grain, and promote an alternative view on boatbuilding even if it brings criticism from some. The fact is boats like this have been successfully working, and sailing in all conditions for years, and personally I like the workboat style. I have never been one for fancy, flashy things. I am quite content with wood, tar, and steel!

Well I will try the pictures again soon, and hopefully have a couple shots of bottom planking as well!

Have a good one!

Garrett & Ruth