Sixth strake no.1. Winter is close.

I closed all holes in heat isolation I could find. Temperature at night drops to 4 degrees already. Kerosene stove is keeping temperature in the shed around 25 degrees but once it is shut down it drops circa 5 degrees per hour.

Still enough for the glue to partially cure but it prolongs curing period so I cannot start working on the next strake before 12h pass.

To mount the sixth strake I tilted the jig so the plank is not falling from molds. Another ingenious detail of Francois Vivier thoughtful design.

Dry fitting to scribe overlap area and to test where and which clamps shall sit. Stem part was pretty easy on this one - unlike all previous planks - but a bit more challenging was transom part. The plank has a slight twist before it lands on the transom. I forced it with compression clamp on the last mold.

As angles became more abrupt one needs to resolve to some wedge-tricks.

With tilted boat the work becomes much easier - not much laying on the floor or crawling underneath. Very convenient.

I take a snick-peak to the inside - mate, it looks like a boat there, ain’t it!?

Since this plank is also enclosing midships flotation tanks I scribed areas to be covered and painted them with epoxy, three layers. I will have hardly any access to them so the time was now or never. That added a bit of time to the process. While flotation tanks were still accessible I added fillets where applicable. It will be nicer with these when I reach inside to grab a beer or tools, not meeting rough, goo-covered edges.

There was quite aggressive bevel to cut for this plank so lots of exposed end grain on the previous plank. I sealed it with several layers of epoxy until the wood was saturated.

Finally the strake was offered - and accepted - to the boat.

Squeeze-out used to add nice and fat fillet to flotation tank floor against the planking.