Framing up

I almost titled this posting 'Erection Day' but that somehow seemed innappropriate.

I erected the boat cover this weekend. The ends need to be finished off and the tarp pulled over but that can wait for a less windy weekend.

Saturday I connected all the frames together. Then the wind piped up so I decided to put my energies somewhere other than struggle with 16 foot bows in the howling winds.



Sunday was not much better but the urgency to get this job done meant that the wind wasn't quite as bad as the day before.

Not too much to say. I tied a strap on the bow and from the deck pulled it upright. Then I slipped it over the ground frame which in most cases was stiff enough to walk away from for a minute. I had scrap sections of strapping that I used to temporarily hold the bows into position. I just went down the line erecting the bows.







The ridgepole is in three sections. I dropped the middle one in first and secured it to the bows and then attached the two ends. I had some metal fittings from an earlier experiment so I decided to use them to anchor the ridgepole to the bows.



There is plenty of headroom in the middle on deck. I can't walk around but that isn't going to happen without vertical walls which are too pricey to consider right now. Its definitely an improvement over previous years.





I have some room at the ends of the boat. I didn't taper the ends of the cover much this time so I would have more storage room at the ends. Not much in the middle but again, I had to limit myself to 12 feet of width and this is about as good as it gets at a boayard.



With the bows up I had to re-adjust the whole structure a bit to center it over the boat. It really doesn't weigh much and it was easy to horse around into position. I added a couple of extra lengths of strapping diagonally along the inside to stiffen up the structure. I have a few more lengths which I might use next week but I am holding off for now to see how the ends are going to tie off. The ends need to be somewhat pointy to take the winds. Not so much from the stern but the bow points directly northeast which is rather open so a pointy end on the bow will really help.

Amidships the bows are a bit tight. There was more springback than I had anticipated. I will either have to stretch them apart a bit (next week) and/or add some chafe protection at the rubrails. The bows rest only lightly on the rubrails but I expect the structure to move around all winter and chafe will definitely occur if I don't do anything about it.

That was it for this week. I am looking forward to finishing up the cover next weekend and perhaps taking a short break from boatwork. Then again, I am anxious to finish the cabin sole installation and get to work on the interior so we will see...