I headed over to the shed and fired up the propane heater. Five minutes later I ran out. Dang. So I took both tanks to get them filled up and went back to the shed.
I decided to start with something simple so I cut foam to go in the gaps between the belly tank and the stringers.
You'll note that the rear deck piece of the plywood has been cut in two. It dawned on me last night that with the conduit running to the back that while the single piece was a nice piece of craftmanship, there was no way I could manage it and the conduit at the same time. So out it came, and in two it was cut.
I started work on the rear bulkhead next. My patterns came out again, and sure enough, they fit just fine.
I had planned that I would do the port side in 1/2" plywood and the starboard side in the 3/4" plywood, but that plan changed as well. I just couldn't come up with a neat way to make the transition so I decided to do both sides in 3/4".
I laid the port side of the pattern on a sheet of plywood, traced the lines, cut them out and hauled it into the hull.
It fit really well! You can see where I only partially cut for the sides. I wasn't sure how far upward to cut the angle so I left it short. Then I took a piece of string, anchored it at the upper corner of the forward bulkhead, stretched it to the rear bulkhead, found the point at which it was level and intersected that angle and made a pencil mark. I hauled the panel back out, finished cutting the angle and the vertical for the sides and hauled it back into the boat. Just for fun I set the digital level on the side edge and what do you know!
That's pretty close!
I repeated the process for the starboard side.
And then I put both pieces in.
And the fit between the panels is this close. It's literally so tight you can't slip a sheet of paper between the two halves!
Because of the change in how I'm installing the belly tank the rear bulkhead is actually being installed 3/4 of an inch further to the rear to make room for the hoses from the tank.
Now I also have to account for the height of those hoses. It's actually fairly tall on the cabin side, but on the rear deck side it's not so bad. Remember there's the additional 1" to account for the height of the tank and the 3/4" for the thickness of the deck plus I want a lip on that entrance to keep water out so there will be plenty of room for the hoses. In addition to the three from the belly tank (filler, vent and fuel line to the engine) there will be one more, the fuel line from the starboard side tank. It will cross over to the port side in this space to join up with the ones from the belly tank and the port side tank.
I can't get far enough away from the bulkhead to take a single picture from the stern so you'll just have to use your imagination and piece these three pictures together.
Now this, of course, has created a real conundrum, there's no door! So I set up a sawhorse next to the side and clambered into the cabin.
And there I sat for almost an hour looking at these two pieces of wood.
How wide should the door be? How tall? How much arch in the roof? How big should the rear window be? The window in the door? Will the door swing? Or slide?
I drew lines. And scratched them out. And drew more lines. And scratched those out...
Finally I gave up and decided to let things percolate for a while. The only decision I did make is that I will cut the door opening and arch after the two bulkhead pieces are fully installed. They're such a tight fit that I am completely sure that if I removed them to cut the door out that they would never realign correctly.
6 Hours