We had guest around for Easter Sunday dinner so I wanted to show the most progress for the least work. I had already put the floor in the settee area to make it a more usable work area. It was hard work stepping around the keel floors but now that there is a floor in place it is quite a useful work area. The most progress for the least work was to cut the plywood for the bunk tops. The forepeak was easy because I had already installed the edges that go around all the tricky framing and was left with just straight cuts. In the quarter berth area I had arranged bearers so that there was one rectangular piece and one tapered piece.
One of the benefits of having visitors around it that it prompted me to tidy up the boat building materials that had been sitting in the sun room for the past six months. Now we have a clean tidy sun room back to enjoy.
Today, Easter Monday, I set out the foredeck plywood and marked out the shape of the sloping area at the front of the cabin. That proved less difficult than I had expected so I had time to complete the fairing of the gunwhales all the way to the bow, cut out the first layer of most of the foredeck up to the anchor locker and add an extra 12mm plywood layer to the rear of the anchor locker. The optional anchor locker calls for two 12 mm doublers over the 9 mm frame plus a laminated beam checked int the gunwhales. The beam is laminated ready to install and the two 12 mm ply doublers are glued into place. The forward 12 mm doubler is difficult to fit after the hull skin is on and in hindsight I should have fitted this before the skin. The consequences were that I had a big of bogging to do with thickened epoxy to seal all the joins.
12 mm plywood floor provides a nice work area in our Didi 40 Cr
Quarter berth bunk tops in our Didi 40 Cr.
It was easier to install the vanity front on our Didi 40 Cr before the side deck was installed
The bunk tops in our Didi 40 Cr provide a very comfortable work platform for fitting the foredeck plywood
The first two 6 mm ply layer on the foredeck of our Didi 40 Cr are cut and ready to glue in place.