In the eye of the beholder

The month has gone by remarkably quickly. It felt that progress had slowed: we didn't manage too many sessions working on the boat and a couple of those were truncated by watching the Super 15 finals. Had you told me a few years ago that I would get fed up with watching Rugby, I wouldn't have believed you, but it has become a grind. Not helped by the dismal efforts of the Hurricanes, I suppose. Let's hope the World Cup will bring back some sparkle.

We did actually achieve quite a bit. Fitting the beautiful oak gunwales suddenly transformed a hull into a boat. Now apart from the tholes (rowlocks) and the rudder, the outside is pretty much complete (though we are still searching for inspiration for the ornament on the prow). The planks were 'filletted' - a bead of filler smoothed into the joints along the length of the boat - to ensure a watertight seal. We also spent a fair amount of time sanding. The discovery that the excess epoxy from our previous gluing and filling scraped off easily when we applied a paint stripping heat gun was a great relief and time saver.

Last night, though, was possibly the most satisfying session since we laid the first plank: we applied the first coat of the protective epoxy, with stunning results:

Shiny

It really does look this good: I think the great debate as to whether to paint or not has reopened. If you click on the picture you can zoom in pretty well and you'll see there are blemishes, including, of course, the scarph joints on each plank. However, there is an element of character and an honest portrayal of our first attempt at boatbuilding, which maybe should not be covered over... We shall see.