4 weeks and 2 days soaked and Rediviva has swelled tight. Really at 3 weeks she was pretty dry but we are comfortable now moving onto interior preparations.

For the millionth time this means sorting through and organizing our lumber. We ditched our lumber in multiple places before launching the boat because we just needed it out of our space in the boatyard SO now we had to wrangle it all together to assess what we have. My awesome parents let us make a lumber yard out of the side yard at their house. Garrett cut sticks so we can properly store the wood through the rainy season. We got our workout for sure. One solid day, moving wood into the truck out of the truck, from the bottom of my parents property to the top, and from inside the boat up to the garage. A summary of what we have: Oak, Locust, Fir, Cedar – Red, Spanish and Port Orford, Redwood, Wenge, Blood, Zebra, and more Douglas Fir.

Now that we’ve got that sorted out next was framing for the cabin sole. In about 2 days Garrett got the ruff sole finished. We’ll be planking the floor and adding the floor boards after we’ve settled on the rest of the interior layout.

“Building the interior is so much harder than building the boat…”Garrett confessed. “I’m not an interior designer. We can’t simply just use the interior drawings from the plans because the one thing about the plans we didn’t like was the very narrow side decks. Now that we have 24 inch side decks the interior Buehler had planned will no longer work…so we have to design it ourselves. There’s so many different possibilities and building the boat I had a do-this, do-that, to this measurement instructions but the interior is a blank canvas. It is NOT something I want to do a second time…or third..so the pressure to think about everything is exhausting.”

It’s been about 2 weeks of discussion; or more like staring at our “blank canvas.” In my opinion what got us out of that stalemate was going over to Peggy G (Tiffany and Tyler’s boat, our old boatyard neighbors) and taking some real-boat measurements. Garrett dictated to me the dimensions and I made notes then drew up the interior, upper picture to right. Peggy G is an Aries 32, a round bilge double ender, making her smaller than Rediviva but since we are hard chined our interior space is comparable. It was extremely helpful to see the minimum space needed for things like walk ways, tables, and seating. Peggy G’s walkway at midship is right around 16 inches and her salon seating is at 18 inches with a table only 16 inches wide, and the settee is 21 inches perfect for lounging. These measurements are much smaller than we thought we could get away with. From cabin wall to cabin wall Peggy G is 6 feet where as Rediviva is 6.5 giving us a little more room to work with. So our head will be bigger at 3 feet deep and 2’6” wide:

 

Our head (toilet) will be on port (left side of the boat) with a full size bulkhead (wall) separating it from the rest of the cabin and a half bulkhead just inset front of the forward cabin face to divide it from the v-berth (main bed in the bow of the boat.) This full bulkhead is the first part of the interior, besides the cabin sole (floor,) that is one step closer to making a final decision on the interior layout. Like Garrett said earlier this is not something we want to do over and over again, especially when we start to plank and use finish lumber like Redwood, Wenge, and Blood Wood.

 

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We laid out our idea of the flow of the interior with sticks. A lot is still up in the air as we’ll continue to figure it out as we go but as the pictures scroll above:

Picture #1: Coming down the companionway, a good 2.5ft or so between the two-quarter berths and an 18-inch walkway between galley to starboard and engine box on port

Picture #2: Long counter galley (kitchen) on starboard (right side of the boat) equipped with 3-burner stove/oven (we already have) a fridge/freezer (don’t have) and sink (do have but might change)

Picture #3: Dinette seating with table. We were hoping for a U-shape or L salon but this is what’s most practical for Rediviva.

Picture #4: Port Quarter Berth. Extending under the aft cabin face it’ll be 7 feet or so long and wide enough for two. This will be for additional crew or visitors but also our under-way crash pad and where I can see us watching movies and having morning coffee.

Picture #5: Starboard Quarter Berth. Will be a single bunk, mostly under the aft deck so it may be storage when there’s no additional crew.

Picture #6: Looking aft. Companionway ladder will come straight down between the two-crew/passage bunks. The engine box may have the sink to allow more counter space for the galley. Box will be completely removable for engine maintenance. Partially, the last seat of the dinette will also be apart of the engine box.

Holes. Holes in the cabin ceiling. “It’s so hard to drill holes into the boat when you know she’s completely water tight and doesn’t leak any where!” Garrett said just before he lifted the drill overhead. I was happy to hear his reservations as there was a time I could’ve sworn he loved putting holes and tearing things off the boat… 🙂

 

Garrett added another beam to the ceiling to support the full bulkhead for the head. The rest of the frame work comes down the cabin wall then he’ll construct some cross planks over the ribs (frames) to secure a vertical support for the bulkhead to screw into and finally along the cabin sole there will be another board for the bulkhead to secure at the base.

 

 

We paused in the middle of framing the head because before we install the permanent wall Garrett had a good idea: soup the bilge. I know I’ve written about boat soup before but for those of you who don’t know boat soup is a sailor’s slop designed to keep their wood thriving. Each salt has their own brew. Garrett’s mix for this purpose is mostly Stockholm tar with linseed oil, to keep the wood saturated and protected.

This halted our progress for the rest of yesterday as it’s quite potent. I remember our second wooden boat, Bravata, how her bilge sparkled after her first souping in years. I felt this same pride now.

4 weeks old as a floating boat and she is taking her first steps towards total completion. We are still waiting for all engine assembly parts to arrive but sinking our teeth into the interior is such a joy. The masts and deck hardware come next. Before long we’ll be waving at you from the bay under full sail!

~Ruthie