Those Troublesome Skegs Mistakes Were Made

So the skegs have been cut, spliced, drilled, countersunk, stained, and finished. Now we only have to mount them. Easy, right? Ahem.

I looked for a long time to find just the right sealant and adhesive for the skegs. They get bolted down of course, but you have to seal them really well, both to adhere them and to keep water from creeping into the bolt holes. You want something that is flexible, waterproof, low adhesion (since you dont want to tear the boat apart if you need to replace the skegs), and wont cost an arm and a leg.

They had something that would probably have worked at the local marine supply place.  But I was suspicious that they turned me upside down and shook out my pockets to see how much money I had when I walked in. Everything there was ridiculously expensive. They sold tubes of standard window caulk for $20, the same stuff you can get at the hardware store for less than $5. I went to the internets and found something that fit the bill for much much less.

As a former contractor, Ive used caulk a lot. You apply a modest bead of sealant and apply pressure, wherein it spreads out nicely along the surface. That was my theory here too.

I mounted both bottom skegs before I realized that the caulk was not cooperating.  The thick sealant didnt really spread and remained as a modest bead.  I put all the bolts in, I had everything together.

At first I thought, eh, its probably okay.  Then the more I thought about it, a boat with inadequately sealed holes in the bottom was not a great idea. I realized as much as I hated it, I was going to have to do it over.

Removing the skegs was easier said than done.  If this is low adhesive, Im glad I didnt use anything gnarlier, and Im glad I didnt tear up the boat any more than I did in my efforts.

I removed the skegs, scraped off the sealant, sanded it down, and refinished.

Then I applied the sealant the way I should have from the beginning, very generously.  

I drove the bolts part way through and set the skegs in place, struggling a bit to line up all the holes.

Then I went under the boat, added washers and nuts, and tightened the shit out of everything.  I struggled a lot with this as some of the bolts were a little too short and needed to be replaced.  And some of the bolts were a little too long and needed to be cut. This time the sealant went squish out the sides like it was supposed to.

The bottom skegs met up nicely with the forward skegs.

The result was a much more boaty looking boat.

The last thing I need to do is a little finishing work to the countersunk ends of the carriage bolts.

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Correcting Mistakes II The Usefulness of Square Corners

When we went to put sheets of plywood on the top, er, bottom of the boat hull, they didnt really line up.  WTF?  It seemed unlikely that four sheets of plywood were manufactured not quite square, so we had to look elsewhere.

When we assembled the stringers with the cross beams, we had squared the pieces more or less, but little errors at the quarter inch level really add up over a 20 foot boat.  We hadnt thought to square the boat up as a whole unit.

So now we measured corner-to-corner to find that there was a difference of about and inch and a half.  Not giant, but enough to make the plywood fit funny on top, er, bottom.  We hadnt made a rectangular boat hull, wed made a parallelogram.

That night I had a dream:  We were using a come-along to square up the boat.  Brilliant!  Thanks, subconscious!  So that morning, we grabbed my come-along and screwed big-ass eye bolts into the opposite (long) corners.

My come-along didnt go the distance, so we borrowed a hooked chain from the boat trailer and doubled it up.

We worked for a while to find the route for the chain and the come-along that when tightened wouldnt tear the building form apart.

We then started working my rusty come-along to square the boat.  Kai was working the come-along originally until she realized with horror that one of the two stops that keep the ratchet from violently unratcheting broke off and fell out.  She didnt want to have to explain to people for the rest of her life about that gnarly scar across her forehead so she passed on that job.

So I got to work the come-along.

After a half dozen clicks under tension the boat was approaching square.  Oh wait, too far.  Back off.  Whoops, too little.  More tension.  We played that game back and forth for a while.

Until finally the two corners were within a quarter inch of each other. Once we got the sheeting on the bottom screwed and epoxied down, the boat would stay square.

Next we sheet the bottom of the hull.

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