One side of the hull panels epoxied together.                                    Epoxying the deck panels together.

Not having a garage, and due to the humidity in Florida at this time of year, I decided that this boat would be built inside, in the front extra bedroom of my town house. It would stretch out into the hallway and make living a little difficult, but that was about my only choice and I really wanted to build another boat! When finished, it would have to be launched out the 2nd story window, or if I got lucky, it might fit down the staircase and out the front door.

I decided to build 3 short saw-horses using 2x4s and metal brackets to support my work-table. I then bought two 6-foot 2x4s and two 10-foot 2x4s to serve as supports underneath the table top. (I joined these 2x4s together with metal frame brackets for two 16-foot lengths.) For the table-top I decided to use 1/2 inch mdf, as it's cheaper and straighter/flatter than plywood. I had the store cut the mdf into two 8-foot long sections (2-feet in width). I temporarily screwed the mdf to the 2x4s, and then covered the entire table with plastic sheeting.

Due to limited space, I could only join one side of the hull panels together at a time, and then the deck panels. I found the puzzle joints that Shearwater uses to be really unique - the pieces fit together well, and there was no room for the pieces to "jimmy" or move while the epoxy and glass cured over the joints. (This can be a concern when working with butt-joints.) I covered each epoxied and glassed joints with plastic, a 2x4, and then a brick to make sure the pieces lay flat while they cured.

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Stitching the kayak together

The hull and deck are temporarily stitched together.                                             Checking the straightness ofkeel at bow and stern ends.

Once the panels pieces were epoxied together I beveled the edges. The directions for beveling were quite confusing (some angle numbers in the instruction book literally didn't add up), and so a lot of the beveling was guess-work. In general I only beveled through one or two layers of the plywood, as I wanted a clean edge to show on the outside. I ended up beveling less than I should have, and some angles weren't correct, but it all turned out fine in the end. After the panels were more-or-less beveled, I stitched the panels together. It was quite difficult to get the bulkheads and temporary frames into the two bottom keel pieces (as it says in the instructions, a second pair of hands comes in handy here). But once the two bottom keel pieces were stitched, the other hull panels came together nicely and smoothly. It turned out to be much easier to stitch a multi-chine hull together than a hard-chine hull (where the panels have to bend more drastically). I removed the mdf and 2x4s from the saw horses, and made two v-shaped brackets on two of the saw-horses for the hull to balance on. After the hull was loosely stitched together, I tightened all the wires and then checked the alignment with a level across the gunnels and hanging a plumb bob down from the bow and stern tips. I then stitched the deck together, carefully placed it on top of the hull, wired it temporarily to the hull (that was a pain!), and tightened all the deck wires.

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Epoxying the seams and filing

Filing and rounding the deck seams.

While the deck was temporarily stitched to the hull, I epoxied the seams on the inside of the hull that I could get to (through the cockpit), and the outside deck seams as well. (I made sure to cover the bulkheads, temporary frames, and bow and stern tips with plastic to prevent permanently glueing the deck to the frames.) I avoided epoxying the wires as much as possible. After the epoxy cured, I removed the deck, and epoxied the rest of the inside hull seams, and around the rear bulkhead (I'm cutting a new front bulkhead that will be located further back). Some of the panels I adjusted slightly with a razor blade so they aligned better. Once these had cured, I then turned the hull over and epoxied the outside seams of the hull. Once this epoxy cured, I cut and removed all the wires (a soldering iron works great in removing wires that have been embedded in epoxy - just clip the wires and hold the iron next to a wire, which heats up the epoxy enough so you can pull the wire right out), and epoxied the outside seams with thickened epoxy. This thickened epoxy fills in any gaps, and gives you something to sand down and round (other than wood), so you have nice clean lines along all the seams. This is something that you do with Pygmy boats - it does probably add a bit of weight (as well as lots of extra time filing off the excess thickened epoxy), but it guarantees nice clean lines between the panels on the outside of the boat. Shearwater says to just file all the seams round on the outside, but that means that you will be filing wood, and sometimes you will file down into the next layer of plywood, leaving messy-looking seams that aren't straight and are of varying widths.

After the thickened epoxy cured on the outside of the hull, I filed and sanded all the excess epoxy off and smoothed all the chines. A file with masking tape around the end works well (the tape keeps you from cutting into the plywood with the tip), as well as a random orbital sander on slow speed. It takes quite a while, and you have to work carefully, but the end result is really nice.

I then moved the hull off of the sawhorses and brought back the deck. I epoxied the underside of all the deck seams and then clipped and removed all the wires. I then flipped over the deck and put thickened epoxy in all the deck seams on the outside of the deck. After that cured, I flipped the deck back over and glass-taped all the underside deck seams, and saturated any exposed deck wood (on the underside) with two layers of epoxy to seal the wood. I placed the deck back on the hull temporarily (with wires) to let it cure on top of the hull.

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Glassing the inside of the hull

The inside of the hull saturated with epoxy.                                                          Glassing the inside of the hull.

Once the deck cured, I removed it from the hull and sanded out any rough spots or spikes of epoxy on the inside of the hull. I then saturated the entire inside of the hull (and rear bulkhead) with epoxy, using a 1/8" yellow foam roller (usually only found in boat-building shops or ordered from Pygmy). This method of glassing is what Pygmy recommends, as well as does the System Three "Epoxy Book." Shearwater says to just lay the glass onto the (un-epoxied) wood, and pour the epoxy on and work it into the glass. By saturating the wood first with epoxy, you are easily able to wet-out the glass cloth and ensure that it goes clear and disappears. If you don't saturate the wood first with epoxy, it is very difficult to thoroughly wet-out the glass cloth, and you will be left seeing the weave of the fabric in places that weren't fully wetted-out. After this saturation coat cured, I laid the glass into the hull (in two pieces for behind and in front of the rear bulkhead), leaving a little room to go up the bottom of the rear bulkhead on both sides. I then applied the epoxy, mixing 6 ounces at a time, onto the glass cloth with a 1/8" foam roller. Once I had 6 ounces applied, I went over the area with the roller to make sure all the cloth was wetted-out, and then squeegied up the excess with a plastic scraper. I made sure the glass cloth lay well into all the chines, without air bubbles. After a few hours, the epoxy was set enough to run a razor blade along the shear seam to remove the excess fiberglass.

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Cutting the hatches

Hatch openings cut.

Next came the scary part of cutting the hatches from the deck. I cut out the hatch cover templates from the plans, and traced them over blue masking tape placed on the deck. The placement of the hatches and their design seemed questionable. Shearwater has the left and right edges of both hatch openings running along the seam between the center and outer deck panels. That seemed a little odd, as the hatch lip spacer would then have to be bevelled to almost nothing to fit flush under the deck - rather pointless as it would then not have much contact with the deck underside and therefore not provide much support. I wasn't able to move the rear hatch cover off of the seam edges, as then it would be right against the rear bulkhead. But I was able to move the front hatch cover towards the cockpit and off of the seam edges, as I had also moved the front bulkhead more towards the cockpit. This would allow me to bevel the hatch lip and hatch spacer here less, and would provide a stronger place for the hatch cover to sit on.

I enlisted my father and his saber saw to cut out the hatch covers. He tried the first hatch without drilling any pilot holes for the blade, but because the deck couldn't be held solidly in place, the blade slipped and gouged the deck slightly. We decided to drill a series of holes with a small drill bit for the blade to slip in instead. Once that was done, everything worked fine, and the hatches were cut.

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Designing "inlays"

Henry helps with picking out the veneers.                                              The two turtles for the hull are cut out and ready to go.

I had seem some pretty neat inlays on wooden kayaks, and decided I wanted to put something on this boat. One of the things that attracted me to Shearwater Boats were the inlay designs and veneers that you could purchase. It turned out that the "inlays" were cut out of thin veneers with an exacto knife, and then laminated onto the plywood of the boat. Nothing is removed from the plywood, which makes it easier, but it does mean I will have to be very careful when sanding my boat down for varnishing, as these "inlays" will be slightly raised up. I was interested in one of the designs advertised on the Shearwater site, but after waiting several weeks after inquiring, and receiving nothing, I gave up and decided to design something of my own. (First a new front bulkhead, and then later a front bulkhead pattern and piece of plywood, were also promised, but they never materialized either. Needless to say, I knew that if I had any building questions during this whole process, they would probably go unanswered as well.)

So I bought the "Wood Identifiers Kit" at Woodcraft, which gave me 50 4"x9" samples of all sorts of veneers. I picked the veneers that would most contrast with the plywood, and then drew some sea turtles after looking at various photos. I decided to put two "swimming" sea turtles along the hull, and then 3 more sea turtles climbing over the deck. Each turtle consisted of 21 pieces, that all had to be fit together relatively tightly, so they took quite a while to cut out - about an hour to an hour and a half for each turtle.

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Laminating the hull "inlays" and glassing the hull

Weighing down the inlay with a bag of sand.

Fiberglassing the outside of the hull.

It was now time to glass the outside of the hull. I first saturated the hull outside with epoxy, and then placed one of the sea turtles onto the epoxy before it dried. Before-hand I had filled up a gallon ziploc bag with sand (leftover from my sandbags for the hurricanes of the previous fall!), and used this to weigh down and flatten the veneer pieces once they were on the hull. Since I was putting one turtle on each side of the hull, I had to lean the hull on its side and I could only saturate one side of the hull at a time. I made sure to put the clear side of the ziploc bag onto the wood, and not the side of the bag that said "ziploc" on it, for fear the dye would come off and get onto the wood. I was a little surprised to find the ziploc bag almost stuck to the epoxy when I removed it, so for the other side I first put down a piece of clear plastic (which I knew didn't stick to the epoxy) before I placed the ziploc bag of sand on top.

Once both sides of the hull were saturated and both sea turtles epoxied on and all epoxy cured, I laid fiberglass cloth along the whole length of the hull. I found that I could smooth it over the bow tip, but along the stern tip I had to cut the cloth and wrap each side around the stern. I trimmed the cloth about an inch below the shear, and then applied epoxy, 6 oz. at a time, with the 1/8" foam roller. It was difficult not to have air bubbles trapped along the edges of my "inlays" - if I do this again on another boat, I'll try and sand the edges of the veneers so they blend gradually into the plywood.

For some reason Shearwater doesn't have you fill in the glass weave with more epoxy until the boat is almost done, which means you have to sand the glass cloth and epoxy after your first coat (epoxy only bonds to itself when re-applied within 72 hours.) This seems quite odd, as you will only weaken the glass cloth when you sand into it. Instead, I did what Pygmy suggests, and applied 2 fill coats of epoxy to the outside of the hull in 2 consecutive days.

Once the epoxy had all cured, I flipped the hull back over and installed a new front bulkhead. Since I'm short, the front bulkhead that came with the kit was farther forward than I needed it to be. So I used this front bulkhead as a temporary frame instead, and then measured and cut another front bulkhead that would be placed just forward of my feet. That enabled me to get another good foot or more of front storage space. I glassed both sides of this new front bulkhead before I epoxied and then glass-taped it in place.

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Permanently attaching the deck to the hull

Deck is taped to the hull and ready to be permanently attached.

Before epoxying the deck permanently to the hull, I sanded areas that would be epoxied to give them "teeth" for the new epoxy to bond to. I sanded along the inside of the shear seams on both the deck and hull, the tops of the bulkheads, where the bulkheads would meet the deck, and the bow and stern tips (for the end-pours that will happen last).

After that was done, I laid the deck back onto the hull and taped it in place with strapping tape. There were a couple spots where the tape wasn't strong enough to hold the panels in place, so I drilled some holes and wired a few spots. I just tipped the drill up at an angle so I could drill diagonally through both the hull and deck. That way the wire could be inserted straight and easily. Once this was done, I checked alignment one last time, and epoxied the outside of the shear seem along both sides of the boat (skipping the taped spots). Once this had cured, I removed the tape and wires, and tipped the boat onto one side and used thickened epoxy along the inside of one shear seam and along both sides of the bulkheads (where they attached to the deck). I was able to reach in (from the hatch openings) to within about 1 foot of each end with the epoxy. I laid some glass tape on both sides of the bulkheads (where they attached to the deck), in the thickened epoxy along the one side of the cockpit, and along the shear seam near one side of the rear hatch opening. The next day I tipped the boat on it's other side, and filled the other shear seam with thickened epoxy, and then laid tape on.

I filled any outside shear seam gaps with thickened epoxy, and once this had all cured I sanded the shear seam edges round. I found that the random orbital sander worked best for this. I made sure the shear seam was round enough for the glass cloth to lay flat over.

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Glassing the Deck

Glassing the deck.

During the week I had cut the remaining 3 sea turtles out of veneer that are to go on my deck. I then sanded the outside of the hull just below the shear seam (for about 1"), and put some masking tape along the whole length of the boat, 1" below the shear seam. I saturated the deck with epoxy, and put the veneers on the deck, each weighted down with a plastic bag of sand. After this had cured, I laid glass cloth across the deck, and trimmed it to fall somewhere along the masking tape. I used the foam roller to epoxy the glass cloth, and while it was still green, I cut into the glass just above the masking tape. I was then able to peel off the masking tape to remove all the excess glass and leave a clean edge. I also trimmed the glass out of the cockpit opening and hatch openings.

After the epoxy had cured overnight, I followed up with 2 fill coats of epoxy. I tried to wipe up the drips that ran down some parts of the hull so I'd have less to clean up and sand down later. I also saturated and glassed the two hatch covers (one of which has a turtle on it).

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Cockpit coaming, hatch covers, and hatch openings

Attaching the inner cockpit coaming to the deck.

Once all the epoxy on the deck had cured, I sanded around the cockpit and hatch openings to smooth any sharp edges. In the meantime, I saturated (twice) the inner cockpit coaming (the end grain soaks up a lot of epoxy), and glassed both sides of the outer cockpit coaming and hip braces for strength. I also epoxied the pairs of hatch supports together, as well as all the eyelits to the back of the backrest (which I also glassed, on one side).

I used thickened epoxy to put the inner cockpit coaming on, which I clamped down with about 20 C-clamps and clamps made from slices of pvc tubing. Once this had set, I then epoxied and clamped on the outer coaming. I found that both pieces of combing did not fit exactly along the edge of the cockpit opening in the deck, so I had to do some cutting and sanding after things cured.

I then worked on the hatch covers - I cut each hatch bar to fit the length of each hatch cover, and then spent quite some time sanding down one pair of hatch supports to fit the front hatch cover. (The hatch supports for the front hatch cover are identical, despite the fact that the angle of the hatch cover changes dramatically from one end of the hatch to the other. One set of hatch supports for the front also had to be trimmed width-wise, otherwise it wouldn't fit within the hatch lip opening.) I epoxied the hatch supports to the underside of the hatch covers, and epoxy-sealed the wooden knobs and closing bar. This is when I noticed that the brass nuts that the knob bolts were to screw into were cut extremely crooked, and not completely threaded all the way through (they were threaded about 2/3 of the way around the hole). You had to be extremely careful in how you put the bolt in, as it would easily get stuck halfway into the nut and not move anymore. Even at their best, I could barely get the nuts all the way up the bolts. I also noticed that, since the nuts were cut crooked and at an angle, that meant that the closing bar wouldn't sit straight, which meant that it wouldn't close that hatch well and tight. So much for Shearwater saying their hatches closed tight and were virtually waterproof! This certainly wasn't something I'd want to rely on on a week-long trip, and neither did I want to spend 20 minutes each time I tightened a hatch cover, re-threading the bolt into the nut five or six times and hoping I wasn't stripping it. I would have to replace the brass nuts and have new ones cut that were actually cut straight and properly. I spent a lot of time wishing this were a Pygmy kit - none of these problems would have come about if it were!

I then started to work on the hatch lips and hatch lip spacers. I decided to epoxy the spacers to the lips, to make bevelling the edges easier. Once this epoxy had set, I used the sander to bevel the edges. For the front hatch, because I had moved it back and thus moved the edges off of a seam, I didn't have to bevel the pieces too much. There was still enough surface area to epoxy the lips to the underside of the deck. The back hatch spacer/lips had to be bevelled quite a bit, so there was very little hatch spacer left (I was glad I had epoxied the lips to the spacers otherwise I would have likely sanded off my fingertips!). I sanded the underside of the deck around the hatch openings, and epoxied the lips in place. I put two layers of glass tape on the lips where the closing bar would meet to provide strength, as Shearwater recommended. After this had cured, I tested the hatch covers. I found that the front hatch cover, since it is quite angled, went on relatively well after a couple minutes of fumbling. The back hatch cover, however, since the deck is at less of an angle, would not fit on in any way since there was not enough space between the underside of the hatch cover and the closing bar. So I had to remove the closing bar and sand down the depth of the bar, trying to make the depths the same on both ends. I was finally able to get it so there was enough room to fit the hatch cover on to the boat, but it wouldn't close straight. Whether that's from sanding down the bar at both ends, or the fact that the nut is completely crooked, I don't know. I'll have to wait until I get new ones cut before I can figure that out.

Another thing I noticed was that the hatch covers (especially the one on the bow) did not fit perfectly into the hatch openings. This is most likely a result from cutting the hatches out of the deck before the deck was attached permanently to the hull. (The deck shape gets changed slightly when you're trying to wire and tape it to fit the hull exactly.) Probably a better thing to do would be to wait to cut the hatch openings and cut them after the deck's been attached to the hull and glassed in. The rear hatch sits in the opening fairly plumb, but the front hatch cover is a little less peaked than the actual deck. I'm hoping that I will be able to make it watertight with some added foam along the left and right edges of the hatch cover.

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Endpours

Endpour for the stern end, done once the boat was up north.

I got extremely lucky, and found that I was able to get the boat down the staircase and out the front door (!!), so there was no "exciting" launch out the 2nd floor window. It was a couple days before I was to head up north, and I was glad to be finished as far as I needed to be. I had planned to customize the cockpit, do the endpours, and sand and varnish the boat once I got up north. But a couple days before leaving, I realized that I would have no way of locking the boat down to my truck without a hole in the bow tip. I wanted to be able to lock it down, as I would be stopping one night at a motel on my way up.

For the Shearwater boats, you do the endpours after the boat is put together, as the endpours supposedly help hold the deck to the hull as you can't reach to the ends with epoxy along the inside of the boat. I needed to get the boat outside and lean it up on end against my building. I managed to get it up on end (it was as tall as my 2 story building), and strapped it in place against the fence. I mixed together 6 ounces of epoxy, and thickened it slightly with some wood flour. I then stood on a chair, and poured it into the bow tip through the front hatch opening. I then checked inside with a head lamp, and was surprised to see it had settled nicely in the bow. The only thing was that I probably put in more epoxy than I needed, but there was nothing I could do now. I was curious to see how hot it would get as it cured, as there was little surface area showing. When you do the endpours for the Pygmy boats, they're held in place with a piece of cardboard wedged into each end, and the hull is not covered so there's more surface area showing. The bow tip did get quite hot, but after a few hours it had cured enough to bring the boat back down and back inside. When I inspected the bow tip, I found what looked like braille dots, about 10 or 12 on each side, that weren't there before. They were bits of glass that seemed to have poked through the epoxy, or gone "un-clear." I thought this odd, as the epoxy on the outside of the boat at the bow-tip never seemed to have gotten that hot to have softened, but who knows. Later that evening I drilled a hole through the bow (first with a 1/4 inch bit, and then a 5/8 inch bit), and sealed the exposed wood with epoxy. I also sealed the wood of the hatch lips and put another coat of epoxy on the outside cockpit coaming (which I had glassed).

The boat was now ready to load up onto my truck for the long drive up north. Once I got up there, I would trim the hip braces to fit, cut the seat, put in thigh brace pads, and do the endpour at the stern end. I would also sand down the boat, varnish it, and put on the deck rigging.

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Outfitting the Cockpit

The cockpit customized to fit with mini-cell seat, hip braces, foot "pegs", and backrest.

I decided not to use Shearwater's funky foot brace system, as it looked like a lot of work and I just didn't trust the design. I was happy with the Keepers foot pegs I has used in my Pygmy boat, and now Pygmy was selling metal studs that you can glass to the inside of your boat, so you don't have to drill through the hull for the bolts. So I planned on going with the Keeper foot pegs, but as I started to outfit the cockpit with mini-cell foam, I decided to just install a small piece of foam along the front bulkhead instead of foot pegs. Since I was outfitting the boat just to fit me, there was no need for move-able foot pegs. I also decided not to go with the recessed deck fittings that Shearwater supplied with their boat. Instead, I bought the plastic eye-pads that Pygmy sells for their boats. I bought enough to do 2 figure-eights, one for each end of the cockpit, and for one bungee each going across the stern and bow ends. I also bought the hand toggles from Pygmy, as they fit my hand comfortably and have held up fine carrying my Pygmy fully-loaded.

I cut and sanded (with Dragonskin) the mini-cell foam block Shearwater provides for a seat, and glued that to the bottom of the cockpit. I futzed a bit with the wooden hip braces that came with the kit, and then decided against using them. They seemed to be "one size fits all" - one hip brace size for all the Shearwater boat models, and it was going to take quite a bit of cutting and sanding to get them to the size where they would fit properly. I also didn't like that they were so wide - they were almost twice as wide as I wanted them to be. In the end I decided to create hip braces from 3 inch mini-cel blocks, which would be more comfortable and easier to mold to exactly the right shape to get a tight fit. I then decided to go without the back-brace Shearwater provided. Shearwater provides wooden eye-lits that are to be epoxied to the back of the back rest (for the bungee and strap), as well as one for the underside of the deck in front of the rear bulkhead. (Surprise, surprise) the wooden eyelit was WAY too big and wide to fit under the deck in front of the rear bulkhead. Everything just looked so bulky, and from my Pygmy boat I knew that my back rarely touched or used the back rest. So in the end I decided to outfit some more mini-cell along the back of the coaming where my back would be in contact if I were to lean back. If I needed more support later, I could easily add more mini-cell.

I also padded the underside of the knee braces and the bottom of the hull where my heels rest with 1/4 inch mini-cell foam.

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Sanding and varnishing the boat

Using masking tape to create the pinstripe down the shear seam of the boat before varnishing.

To sand the boat, I first started with 120-grit sand paper on the random orbital sander. I used this to get all the drips and high-spots on the boat. I then followed with 220-grit on the sander, sanding flat all areas that I could. After that I switched to sanding by hand along the direction of the wood grain, first with 220-grit (to get rid of the small coil marks that the sander left in some spots), then 320, and then 400. The turtle "inlays" took some care when sanding, and there were definitely some air bubbles trapped around the edges of the "inlays" under the glass. I also spent some time sanding down any sharp edges on the glass tape used at the bulkheads and around the hatch openings.

I vacuumed as much of the epoxy dust off as possible, and removed the rest with a wet rag. I then went around to all the popped air bubbles with a safety pin to try and remove as much white epoxy dust from them as possible. I followed up by washing the boat with a light solution of soap, and then I used a tack cloth to lightly remove any remaining epoxy dust. At a crafts store I purchased a small vial of paint (water-based) to use as a pinstripe just below the shear seam. I laid some masking tape down along the shear, about 3/4" below the seam, and on the shear seam, which would enable me to paint a clean line.

After the pin-stripe had dried, I removed the masking tape. 2 months would pass before I could start varnishing. Finally in mid-July the humidity and temperatures dropped enough so I could varnish. I decided to start with the hull first. For this boat I used System Three's UV spar varnish, which I hadn't used before (I had used Captain's spar varnish several times on my Pygmy boat). I applied the varnish with a foam brush, starting at the bow. I varnished in temperatures in the 70s, with humidity around 60 percent. I quickly found that the brush strokes didn't disappear with the System Three varnish. This meant I spent a lot (meaning, way too much) time sanding down the previous coat to get rid of the brush strokes. I tried thinning the varnish with mineral spirits, but that did little to help. I ended up applying 5 coats each to the deck and hull, and the brush strokes are very visible. I ended up being quite annoyed with all the time wasted on sanding down the varnish, only to end up with brush strokes, even in the final coat. Captain's varnish is definitely the way to go - I wish I had gone out and purchased a quart of it instead of using the quart of System Three varnish that came with the kit. I was so annoyed with the final finish on the boat, that I almost decided to sand off all the varnish and start again with Captain's, but at the same point I was getting annoyed that two months had passed since I had finished building the boat, and I just wanted to get it on the water. I decided to deal with the brush strokes and get the hatches and deck rigging on. I figured in a couple years the boat would be ready to be re-finished, and I'd tackle the brush strokes then.

After the varnish was dry, I put on the deck rigging. I drilled holes for the bolts, screwed them into the wood, took them out, dropped some epoxy into the hole with a Q-tip, and then screwed the bolts back in. I put a figure 8 in front and behind the cockpit, and one bungee near the stern, to hold down the ends of a spare paddle. I may also put a bungee going across near the bow.

After I finished varnishing, I glued the foam around the edges of the hatch openings. I'm curious to see how water-tight these hatches are. The design's a bit cumbersome, but hopefully I'll get used to it. I'm going to have to make sure I always have some sort of knife with me when I need to use the hatches, as a thin blade is needed to pry the hatch cover up and off. I noticed that in one of the pictures in the instruction book there are two fingertip-sized grooves cut into the deck so you can get a finger under the hatch lip to remove it. I'm a little wary that this will only let water catch and pool along the edge of the hatch opening, inviting itself into the hatch. I contemplated attaching some kind of small handle or eyelit to one edge of each hatch, to enable me to have something to grab onto to lift the hatch cover up. But I'm worried it will only get in the way, so for now I'll stick with the "pry it open with a knife-blade" method. We'll see...

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Completed!

My Shearwater Bluefin 17, finished.                                                                        Rolling my new boat.

Here's the final picture of the boat, varnished and with all the deck rigging on. I didn't keep count of the hours I spent sanding, varnishing, and outfitting the boat, but it was probably around 40 hours of sanding down the epoxy, and probably 30 hours for varnishing (which should have been more like 5 if I had used Captain's Varnish), and 10 hours or so customizing the cockpit and installing the deck rigging and hatch foam. The boat was fully completed on July 23, 2005. I took it out to see how it rolled/how watertight the hatches were, and was pleased to see how it felt. The front hatch leaked slightly, but I expected that and will fiddle around with adding more foam in the hopes it'll seal better. A few days later I took it out for a lake paddle in some wind, and found it to be much more responsive than I thought it would be. Compared to my 14 foot Pygmy Arctic Tern, which is a hard chine boat that is 2 inches wider, it was a little more fickle to the wind, but it actually turned just as easily on edge. Speed-wise, it seemed to be about the same. I imagine this will all change when the boat is filled with more weight and actually sits at its correct water-line. With just me in it the amount of boat in the water was much less than it should - which means it will turn easier, not go as fast, and probably be affected more by wind. When the boat's properly loaded, I imagine I'll find it to turn a little less easier, but it should track better and probably go faster. I do like the feel of the Shearwater hull better than the Pygmy hull - it just seems much more responsive, and the bulkheads make re-entries and emptying the boat a lot easier.

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