Cockpit dry fit

Now THIS is starting to look like a boat ! All that neat work with stringers , cleats and all ,has gone underneath the cockpit sole.

Cutting out the panels was not so hard. Just took a few back and forth for minor trimming. No problem lifting a little weight around at 9:00 am with my garage steaming at about 96 F....

The first and only cardboard template I cutted was one side panel. That is it. And I actually did not use cardboard but "buttery cooking paper" . I like working with the stuff because it is transparent and molds pretty well.

So after I had cutted my cockpit side panels, I cutted the cockpit deck panels. I just placed one side panel on the boat and made sure it was nicely leaning on all frames, than placed a sheet of ply on top of the decks and use a pencil to mark the inner (against the side panel) and outer line (hull). Took the plywood sheet out and cutted along the mark. By the way, I measured panels on one side but made sure they also fitted perfectly the other side before cutting the twins. You never know !

One I had my decks cutted, I used them as templates to draw the cockpit floor curve. Indeed, the curves of the decks and the floor are the same. So I lay a plywood sheet on my working table, placed the deck panel on top and marked the curve for the right side. Flipped it around and marked the left curve. Just make sure you take the right references and place the curve where it is supposed to be.

Worked like a treat and after two liters of sweat I was finished.

By the way, my new measuring unit for boat purposes is not hours, or feet, or pounds.

It is just liters of sweat ! No pictures of that for now !!! :)

Just as an aditional detail to whoever is making a long cockpit version, my floor was made of three panels which can clearly been seen here.