Fitting the Hairpin and Adding the Frames

Fitting the hairpin was fairly straightforward. It sits on the cross supports at the camber of the deck and is attached to the hairpin with blocks screwed to its underside and to the cross supports. The support at the stem was a bit fiddly to organise mainly because I hadn't thought it through! The forward end of the hairpin is in the photo below.

At the stern of the boat there is a laminated block glued between the ends of the hairpin. I had been glueing up pieces to make this block over the past week or so. Now it is in place I think it might need another layer adding to it. Most of this block will be cut away to make it conform to the shape of the hull.

With the hairpin in place the ends of the cross supports are trimmed off so they don't interfere with the planking when that begins.

Fitting the frames was straightforward; they stand on top of the hairpin and are attached to it with blocks screwed to it and to the frames. That all went smoothly and I was pleased that a batten along the line of the keel touched all the frames nicely. The three photos below show that the boat is taking shape and beginning to look like a boat!

With the frames in place I am reclaiming some of the space in the shed which was taken up with the stacked frames. Tomorrow's job is to do some more reorganising so that I have more working space and don't need to be continually climbing over things that are lying in the way!