South hull flipped.
There are only two more strips to go on each side of each boat. Until the boats are christened appropriately, I refer to them as North and South. South has the more difficult finish, since one strip won’t fill the gap. I decided to flip it over and have a look at the inside. If the hull/keel joint looks messy I’ll bail on this tough stuff and run a router down the seam and finish off with a nice accent strip.
All it took was removing two screws and, with the help of my lovely assistant, South was off the molds and right side up on the floor in about 10 seconds. Each boat weighs maybe 20 pounds at this point. Terri and I could easily hold it up between us with one hand each.
We set it down, stepped back, and both just kind of stopped breathing.
Oh my. Very cool.
The good news is all the seams look great. With only two strips left to go that makes it hard to justify changing anything now.
We took some time to admire the elegant lines. It’s a nice reward, and makes me feel much better about the hard work left.
After looking at the sweeping curves for a while, I realized I could split a strip, joining bead and cove halves from the same piece of wood to make a slightly wider plank, and the splice will essentially be invisible.
Ok, so maybe now’s not the time to panic and do something foolish.
Time to mount South back on the molds and sally forth.
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