Well, since the transom, stem, and molds are all in place, we might as well build a boat. We’ll start by marking the shape of the bottom and cutting it out. As with Bernie, we are doing a stitch-and-glue bottom and garboards, in deference to the dry climate and the fact that the boat will mostly live in dry dock.

Out come the icepicks, to batten out the garboard.

With the garboards beveled and glued on, we are calling it a boat. Enough of a boat for its first party, anyhow.

The heartbreak of making strakes. Turning $500 worth of beautiful clear Port Orford Cedar into $250 worth of sawdust and some very fine, thin planks. But oh my god does this process smell sweet.

Using Mr. Reach-around to mark the bottom for grinding it flat.

On the floor: making one very long crooked plank out of two shorter ones. In order to get the scarf joint at the proper angle to accommodate the curved garboard, we first spiled out the garboard shape on paper. Then we marked the boards for the proper joinery.

Today we spiled the shape onto our two new long crooked garboards and cut them out, thereby doing away with another 50% of the remaining planks. If only I could get the mill to cut me long, thin, crooked planks it would be a lot more efficient. We are about ready to start riveting.