After a couple of big weeks we treated ourselves to a day off. We have had a season of glorious, settled weather with mostly light NE winds, sunny days and very little rain. Port Sorell is a beautiful spot and we love to take walks along the foreshore tracks. On Monday we headed to Hawley Beach, with fond memories of our daughters wedding there last October.

Then it was back to work.

We have broken with orthodoxy, as usually the first job after turnover is to join the hulls together. Instead we decided to get straight onto weatherproofing the stern steps as they are open to wind-blown rain from the east. We are well and truly over messing around with tarps every night! Also these will be the primary access into the hulls as we move building operations inside.

So we had a couple of small but historic moments. Deb became the first to officially set foot “inside” the boat, as she filleted the internal seams in the aft void. Also we purchased and fitted our first bit of hardware. Weirdly, of all things, it was our swim ladder, as it is incorporated into the starboard stern step. We have also decided to fit mooring cleats, so backing pads have been fabricated and will be glued in place prior to screwing down the deck panels. Later on two small stainless steel flush mount inspection ports will be fitted on the deck to give access to bolt on the cleats and laddder, plus a 6″ plastic inspection port will be fitted on the bulkhed to allow internal ventilation into the ajoining space. Thats boats: and why the darn things take so long to build. A lot of thought for just one meter of length!

Meanwhile Deb spent a lot of time grinding down random screws points that had penetrated through, mostly at the but joins.

Now that the hulls are right side up we have started making some important decisions. Firstly we decided that the port hull will be the master cabin, and the starboard hull for guests.  We could then allocate the shower room, so Deb began preparing for fiberglassing the shower sump. She also prepared for some internal structural fiberglassing above the keels as called for in the plans.