I was in a bit of a quandary this afternoon when I went down to the workshop. The varnish I put on yesterday is not sticky but it is still quite soft. If I put another coat on today I would not be able to do anything on the boat until Sunday. But the varnish is still too soft for me to be climbing in and out of the boat without leaving foot and finger prints all over the varnish.

In the end I decided that I would sort out the timber I have for the spars and then cut the correct lengths for the bowsprit, boom and gaff. The remaining two coats of varnish can wait until next week.

These are the 12 pieces of timber that will form the bowsprit (left), boom (centre) and the gaff on the right. These will need to be planed on two adjacent faces and these planed faces epoxied together to form a 4x4 solid piece once the epoxy is cured. Sounds easy. The flies in the ointment are getting the epoxy applied and the wood clamped together whilst the epoxy is still usable and also making sure that once the piece have been cramped up tight, the resulting spar is straight.

Should be an interesting weekend.