I Can Almost Taste It Now - Part 1

There have been a ton of little things happening in the shop over the past month.  Individually, they were each pretty small and didn't warrant their own post, but together, I've wrapped up most of the odds and ends needed to get the boat in the water. 

For starters, I devised a way to hold the center thwart securely in place but making it easily removable to open up the cockpit for sleeping.  I installed 2 threaded inserts on each side of the boat on the base where the thwart sits.  Then I turned some cherry knobs and drilled them out to accept 1/4" threaded stainless steel screws.  I tapped each side of the thwart for the screws and mounted a block that would allow the thwart to 'grab' the daggerboard trunk and help transfer the load while under sail. 

Next up, I finally came to terms with the fact that I really needed to install a bow eye for trailering at some point.  I didn't want to mainly because I don't like the look and the installation would be difficult because the bow is so narrow.  I found a nice stainless bow eye online (I don't remember where) that had 2 - 3" legs.  I like the 2 legged bow eyes because the don't spin if the backing nut loosens up. 

To install it I carefully measured and re-measured where to drill to make sure that I had the legs spaced properly and to ensure I could access them from the inside to get the nuts on.
Moving aft, I finished rigging the boomkin with a small harken carbo block and a clam cleat to handle the mizzen sheet.  I also drilled a small hole just above where the boomkin goes through the transom so that the sheet can pass through from the block to the clam cleat.  I took a few photos but there isn't really much to see. 

I also finally finished up the rudder assembly and mounted two cl-257 auto release clam cleats to control the rudder's uphaul and downhaul.  I used small padeyes screwed to the leading and trailing edges of the rudder to attach the uphaul and downhaul. 

There are a bunch more updates, but I'll split it up into a second part later this weekend.