Building Meerkat, the saga continues

by John MacBeath Watkins

 There was a nice breeze blowing off the water, so I figured this was a good day to use up the last of my Smith's clear penetrating epoxy sealer (horrible, smelly stuff). There was just enough for the outside of the boat, so the inside will be sealed with something different, probably from this thread:

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...etrating-epoxy

Today, I built and dry-fitted my mast step. I have a nasty habit of not drawing these design elements up, just thinking them through and building them, which usually works fine, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to go the final step and glue it together and install it.



The boat is much deeper than the El Toro I got the rig out of, so the bottom of the mast step sort of hangs up there in the air. Well, I've built a drain in it, and with it up high like that, it's bound to drain well, so no rot, right?

The step will snuggle up against that bulkhead with no gap between the pine sides and the cross piece. I'll put a plank across the top and use an edge router to make the hole in it for the mast, then put a little molding around it. The hull seems quite stiff now, even without the decks on.

By the way, there's a build thread here: http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?150763-Building-Meerkat-a-very-small-catboat

More posts on this topic:

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/06/building-new-boat.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/07/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat.html 

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/07/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat_25.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/07/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat-yet.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/07/putting-on-goop-building-meerkat-very.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-meerkat-saga-continues.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat_16.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/09/building-meerkat-very-small-catboat.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/09/meerkat-now-black-by-popular-demand.html

 http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/09/splash-launch-and-first-sail-building.html

 http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/10/meerkat-victorious-building-meerkat.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/10/meerkat-gets-meerkart-and-some-sailing.html 

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2012/11/picture-of-meerkat-racing.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2013/02/building-meerkat-alternate-rig.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2013/03/by-john-macbeath-watkins-well-its.html

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/2013/04/building-meerkats-crabclaw-rig.html