Moving on to the boat itself, I painted the sides and frames adjoining the thwart locations, because they will be hard to reach after the thwarts are in.
While that paint dried, I started work on the small spars, the sprit and the club. The sprit is to be 10 1/2 feet long, with a maximum thickness of 1 3/4". That is an inconvenient thickness to find. I decided to laminate it of two nominal 2x spruce boards. At the fore end it should taper down to 7/8". and at the sheet end it is only to be 3/4" thick. Anyway, there was was quite a pile of rejected lumber at Home Depot before I had selected a 2x6 12' spruce board with straight grain and only small sound knots- an oversight on their part. I ripped two pieces 2" wide on the table saw, and glued them together with epoxy, clamping them to the still-extant strongback with all my clamps. Tomorrow or whenever, I will run the glued piece through the thickness planer to make one 1 3/4" square piece before marking and planing the tapers. With the offcut of the 2x6, I chose the best 4' section to make the club. The plans just say make it 4' long, with no details. I planed the piece to 15/16" square, then tapered it to a shy 3/4" square at the ends. I don't know if that is the right size. I just want it to be strong enough, but light weight in case it hits someone (i.e. me) in the head.
When these minor spars are made I need to set about finishing them as well as the mast. There will be several coats of varnish to apply. The weather pattern at this time of year is not good for varnishing: hot and sunny early, thunderstorms late, and humid all the time. I ought to try to find space indoors for it. I can always carry the spars outside for sanding between coats.
By the time I'd rough-cut the sprit and club, the paint was long since dried. I went ahead with final installation of the forward rowing thwart, gluing and screwing it in place. Then I could install the centerboard trunk. I applied a thick coat of epoxy to the keelson in the way of the centerboard trunk, and laid the trunk in place, sliding it forward into the notch in the thwart. I dropped two bolts into place to align the trunk, then climbed underneath and drove the other six bolts up through the bottom and the trunk logs. Then I pulled the first two bolts, drove them up from underneath, put washers and nuts on them all, and tightened the bolts down until there was epoxy squeezing out, both outside and in the slot. Cleaning up that excess, a good day's work was done. Tomorrow the after thwart can go in.
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