3 steps forward and one step back!  No launching this weekend but such is boat building.

And let me apologize for the lousy photos, they are not up to my standards but I didn’t feel like redoing them tonight.

Lets start with the transom. As you can see it is in place and once the caulking sets up it ready for a few more coats of varnish. I had someone tell me I couldn’t do a wine glass transom on a skin boat guess what?  I did. 😉

Finished the oars except for the handles. I still have to refine the shape of those and I am going to oil them rather than varnish them. I have never had good luck doing that but I am going try it again. I had the ‘leathers’ or actually masons twine wrapped and varnished in place. If you think sewing hurts your hand try this! First time in two years my hands are really sore.

Hopefully I have applied the last coat of Varnish to everything. While I was at it I repaired a kayak paddle and varnished it. It has nothing to do with this boat though.

I assembled the outriggers onto the frame and placed them in boat to double-check clearances before I start to install the varnished trim. That is when I saw my serious blunder!

See that big crack in the cross brace? That is not really the problem, notice the grain runs up and down? That is the problem. There is no strength in the joint. It broke from installing the screws that hold the outriggers. This is the most stressed joint on the boat. All of the force from the oars is on this joint., it has to be strong and this is terribly weak. That was a big blunder that I should have noticed.

I have been debating and I am seriously considering just scrapping this one. Keeping the outriggers but building a new frame from plywood. The oak frame should be more than strong enough with the cross brace grain running the right direction. but the time it will take to fix I could probably just build a new one. Plus I think the plywood would be lighter and just as strong, probably a little stronger.

Then again sitting here looking at this picture I have an idea on how I fix this and make it  stronger too. Next post we will see what I decide. As I write this the wheels are turning….