Adventures in a Mill Creek 16.5

  The deck went on today. It was a bit of a mission in the small space and took me about five hours. My clamp box (the red plastic container in the back of the photo) is now empty!!

  I was just starting to fit the deck when it occurred to me to count the nails provided. The number in the bag was fewer than I'll need, so I have contacted Fyne and they will be sending more. In the meantime, I decided to paint the inside of the forward and aft compartments. In other developments,  I have booked to go on a 5 day sea kayak course in Scotland in Spring next year...very excited!

  I did a dry fit of the decks today. They fit OK (phew) but the front section sat very flat instead of having a nice dome. I know that it will be better after nailing, but I decided to fit an extra mini-support about half way between the bulkhead and the bow. This will also let me have a slightly bigger front hatch and make it easy to load camping equipment etc.

  I am just making the two seats at the moment. I nearly ended up in a pickle when I realised that the seat slats provided in the kit were not all the same length. The shortest was about 4mm shorter than the longest. Not much, you might think, but it was a bit disappointing to find this in a kit of pre-cut components. I had to mark and trim 26 of them.  After that that the seat assembly went quite smoothly. 

  The first trip (albeit over land). With some help, I moved the kayak into the lounge so I could sit in it and mark the locations for the two sets of foot braces. The journey was uneventful and happily it fitted through the back gate easily enough when tipped onto its side. It is now back in the garage and I have glued on the foot brace risers and bolts.

I bought these footrests with the kit - they are fairly basis, but are adjustable and seem very robust and also fairly light. I decided that I didn't want to drill through the hull so I also bought the fixing kit that Fyne sell (the 'bighead' bolt pictured on the left of the footbrace). I actually bought two sets, but I only need one because of the 'riser' blocks that the Mill Creek 16.5 needs - Doh! It was going to need a lot of modification to get them to fit. Not just drilling out the threaded hole, but also filing away enough of the aluminium so that the nut could be tightened. So I decided to make some some wooden supports that will (I hope) allow a less invasive fit. These are strips of 9mm plywood and the footbraces will be bolted to them from below. The supports will then fit to the bighead bolts, or directly to the riser blocks. I made these from pine - originally the base of a pallet... Here they are getting a coat of epoxy.

  I gave the hull a light sanding and then flipped the boat over and planed the sheer clamps so that the deck will sit nicely on them. Next was the 'end pours' - filling the bow and stern with thickened epoxy to provide strength, and something to drill through for the lifting ropes at the ends. I made a little dam from an offcut of plywood and lined it with plastic, and then taped it to the inside of the hull. The epoxy poured in the top nicely...and then oozed straight out of the bottom - the masking tape was not up to the task! I had to scoop the ooze back into the mixing pot and ended up stuffing the base with some rags to complete a seal. I will remove this before the epoxy has set, and pour the rest of it with a better seal (duck tape, I think).