The task for the day, or the one with which I'm starting, is the bottom boards. At the moment when you get into the boat you are standing on the inside of the hull. Whilst this is not a problem it is usual to have bottom boards resting on the hull or on blocks so that you are not standing on the hull. There is a gap between the boards and the hull so that if there is a little water slopping around you don't get your feet wet and therefore slippery. In dinghies the bottom boards are most likely to be long slats to keep the weight down.

The bottom boards in Naiad will be Oak since the cost of reclaimed Oak is very much less than Mahogany, from which bottom boards are traditionally made, and also less that Sapele which is generally used as a Mahogany replacement since Mahogany is now quite scarce and thus the high price.

I bought three lots of reclaimed Oak back in February for this purpose and since I received them they have been sitting in our utility room which is cool and dry.

Now, the problem with reclaimed wood is that it is not the best quality so you have to pick the best bits. I deliberately bought more than I needed so that I had more choice.

So, here at the battens that will be glued edge-to-edge to make the aft most board for the cockpit.

These two sections will make the other two boards needed in the cockpit.

And these two are for the cabin. These two will be split in two lengthways as there is a rib halfway down the hull, so these two places will form four board.

So, five pieces that need to be glued together. Once again, I don't have enough cramps! The glueing will have to be done in batches.

I used a very simple cutting jig when cutting the battens to length. The block is set to the correct position such that sliding the batten against the block and then cutting the batten results in a piece the correct length and all the pieces are the same. It helps to be lazy sometimes.

Time for a break.

The first task after the break was to plane all the edges of the cut battens. Then it was glueing and clamping.

It was a toss up as to which happened first. Running out of cramps or running out of workbench space. The cramps won.

I had to use G-cramps on the long cramps to stabilise them. Without these the cramps fell over and it was quite difficult to get the battens lined up, glued and clamped as a result.

I have all but two of the boards glueing, the other two will be done tomorrow.

Time for lunch.

The penultimate task for the weekend was the preparation of the quant, bowsprit and mast for varnishing. For the quant and the bowsprit the meant suspending the items from the rafters so that the parts that need to be varnished are not touching anything. For the mast, which is already suspended, this involved a couple of hours hard work. The mast has already had thee coats of varnish but it has been four days since the third coat was applied and the instructions recommend that the varnish be lightly sanded to provided a key for the next coat. So I set to. Initially I used 240 grit sandpaper but this was way too fine, used a lot a sandpaper and effort, so I switched down to 120 grid which did the job well. Still took a long time, there's quite a lot of mast!

Once all the varnish had been sanded I wiped the mast with an old teeshirt and then paper towels soaked in alcohol to get most of the sanding dust off the mast.

Time for a long tea break and a sit down.

The last task of the day was the varnishing. The bowsprit received its first coat and so did the two ends of the quant. The mast received its fourth coat and they all looked very good when finished. I do find it quite relaxing applying varnish but then I use disposable brushes so once I'm finished I just toss the brush in the bin. No messy chemicals to wash the varnish out of the brushes and no trying to find somewhere to dispose of it safely.

This is the state of the varnish as I closed the workshop doors.

So, how did I do wth my weekend list? This is how it pans out:

Whisker shrouds - Done.

I'd say that was pretty good progress. The sanding of the mast and then the varnishing of the tiller, bowsprit, quant ends and mast were not on the list but were carried out anyway.