Unicorn, a small electric fantail launch

 Ballast Tank, Ballast Pump, Bilge Pump, and Rear Seat Lot's of progress!   The ballast tank is closed in. The floor is 3/8" AC plywood. The dark hole above the charcuterie table post is access to the tank. The hatch that goes over that hole is gluing up in the upper left. The front edge of the rear hatch is unsupported so I added a small oak board (eventually two boards) under it. That's what all those clamps are for. The rear floors are also installed. I cut the slot for the ballast tank fill/drain port in the wrong place in the rear hatch and had to fill in the goof. The end result is probably a better fit than if I had cut it correctly in the first place, and the grain in the plywood patch miraculously matches almost perfectly! Here's what it looks like with the rear hatch removed. The bilge pump and float switch are screwed to a piece of plywood that is set in an epoxy puddle. The grey hose at the top is the bilge drain hose. The blue valve and pipe below it are c...

 Outwales: Bending Wood the Hard Way A little review. The top most part of the hull, the part you would grab when pulling yourself from the water into a small boat is called the gunwale, pronounced "gunnel". On a wooden boat, it usually consists of an inwale and outwale. On my boat, the inwale was installed when the boat was upside down because it supported the final run of the strips used in the hull. Now that the boat is right side up (why is it "upside" down but not "upside" up?), the outwale can be installed. Because the inwale had to support the hull before there was any other structure, I wrapped it around the stern as one piece, then scarfed in second pieces on both sides to extend up to the bow. But the outwales were installed from stern to bow in one piece: 16' of 3/4" X 2" ash boards with their ends butted together on centerline at the stern. First the paint had to be sanded off the hull where the outwale would go. These two picture...

 Timbers? Ribs? Frames? First off, we had seven great days in France! TL;DR: There seems to be no consensus on what the things are called that run from the keelson (if there is one) athwartships (across the hull), curving along the inner hull and up to the inwales (the inside part of the gunnel). One very old source has no entry for Frames and says this about Timbers and Ribs: Timber. A general term for all large pieces of wood used in ship-building. Also, more particularly, long pieces of wood in a curved form, bending outward, and running from the keel up, on each side, forming the ribs of a vessel. "Ribs. A figurative term for a vessel's timbers." What?!? I choose to call them ribs for no particular reason. But I also call them sticks because that's what they are before they go into the hull. As usual with this project, there was a bit of trial and error and lots of how-to videos. Wood softens when heated up to a certain temperature. Fortunately that temperature f...

Drive and Steering FINALLY! The steering and drive systems took significantly longer to design and install than I was hoping, mostly due to many many mistakes, miscalculations, and lack of adequate planning. Very frustrating. Note: The orange cable in this picture goes from a battery on my work bench to a motor driver to test the drive system. Steering The steering system is electric with manual tiller backup. The black and white parts are 3D printed on my printer. The blue and silver blocky thing is a waterproof giant scale servo from the Radio Control (RC) hobby world. It has gobs of torque for being so small and should   be strong enough to turn the rudder. It is back-drivable so the tiller can be used to steer, without removing the servo. However, for electrical-safety reasons the servo's cable must be unplugged before using the tiller. The tiller is made from a large red oak board that I think came from Scholar's Retreat, aka THICUT, aka what used to be my grandmother'...

Glassing the interior This is what was I was working on over the last month. We call it the Bump Out. I removed 2 sets of double windows on the south west end of our sun room and pushed part of the wall out 18" so we could make the TV look built-in and have storage for Vicky's knitting supplies and a small cubby for Poppy to sleep in. Back to Unicorn! I put 8oz cloth (also called 8oz woven roving) on the entire interior surface of the hull to stiffen it and to make the interior more durable. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the "expensive" cloth, but I STILL had problems with bubbles. They are less visible in this thicker cloth but what a PIA. Even with the thick cloth, the hull construction is clearly visible which was intended. I also started working on the rudder assembly and drive system. It turns out that my initial (apparent) success in drilling the drive shaft hole straight was not so successful afterall. If you look really closely at the picture sh...

Turning Unicorn Upright First, a short update on finishing the hull. I ended up sanding off the poly (again) and some of the paint, putting on two new coats of paint with a foam brush, "tipping" the paint smooth-ish with the foam brush, and then put on three coats of poly in quick succession in the hopes it would "pull flat". The finish is better but still not actually smooth. You get what you settle for. The Big Day (Poppy provided emotional support) A major step in small wooden boat construction is turning the hull over. There are several techniques to do this depending on how big and how heavy the hull is, and how many helpers you have. Unicorn is about 14 1/2' long and I think the hull weighs roughly 75lbs. Since it was just me doing the task, I elected to use the two-lift method and go very slowly . The whole process took most of an afternoon, following, generally, these steps. build a frame or cradle(s) to support the hull when it is upright. This frame is...