Finally, after an eternity of sanding ( okay 15-20 hours) the inner hull received its coat of primer. I worked extra diligently on the parts of the cabin that will visible ( the As Good As It Gets part) but as for the parts that will be hidden under the cabin decking lets just say they are sanded and leave it at that. I am not painting the watertight compartment in front of bulkhead 1 at the bow or the compartment at the transom. I have lots of primer left so I am going to do a second coat of primer before applying the 3 coats of finish paint. 
There is an "oopsie" in the Pocketship manual at this stage of construction. The manual forgets to mention to put in flotation foam in the watertight transom compartment before sealing it up forever with the cockpit decking. The designer of Pocketship is adding this omission to the next revision of the manual. The manual is still probably the most comprehensive instructions you are going to see for a project this large. As a novice boat builder I would be lost without it. The designer is also fantastic at answering emails pertaining to any questions I have had about the construction process.
This transom watertight compartment is also the lazarette storage so I have made a modification and added some some extra cleats you can see in the photos to install decking above the foam so that stuff stored in the lazarettes does not get lost in or chew up the flotation foam. The extra cleats are on the bottom of the transom, the bottom of bulkhead 8 and the bottom of the footwell sides (not shown in the photos). A few more coats of paint ( and more SANDING after the second primer coat) and it will be on to installing the cabin decking, cockpit decking , and upper hull assembly.
I couldn't resist a photo of what the teak cabin decking looks like against the white cabin hull.
2 comments:
Hi Dave,
I'm at the point of dealing with aft flotation, and potential lazarette "floors" (or not). Did you seal the lazarette floors to the cleats and sides of your PS permanently (i.e., epoxy to cleats and fillets to hull sides)? And did you make the (new) lazarette bottoms slanted inboard for drainage of any water which might enter through the hatches?
All this would seem to need completion before painting the hull interior.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark,
The lazarette floors were permanently sealed to the new cleats. The lazarette bottoms were not slanted since in a perfect world the lazarette hatches are supposed to be watertight :) Of course , in a non perfect world it means at least once I wiped up a bit of water inside. Overall though I preferred the lazaretto floors rather than storing stuff on top of foam insulation and having the additional benefit of an extra watertight buoyancy compartment.
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