Stir Ven @ 43°S: June 2012

What this is about

We live by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel in Southern Tasmania. It, and much of the Tasmanian coast, offer amazing cruising possibilities. Previously, we owned an old, sturdy and fast 33 ft Huon pine sloop that we loved. The things it didn't offer - easy portability to other waters, shoal draft, beachability and the simplicity of dinghy-like sailing - are the things we gradually craved more and more.
For at least a few years I have thought that I should build an open, or mostly open, 20-something footer that would satisfy these urges. After much looking around at designs, we finally settled on the Stir Ven.
She is beautiful, fast, seaworthy, floats in 25cm of water and is designed as an adventure boat on which one can spend a few nights.
We hope she will be ready for use by the summer of 2012/13!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

ready to deck

I haven't posted for 2 months and it's partly because I have not been building that much. As we also run a small market garden/vegetable farm, I had to do many jobs during autumn such as planting green manure and garlic, putting in new fences and building a farm shed to store our equipment that had been lying around for too long.
Anyhow, I have just spent the last 3 days working on the boat full time and it's been great. Even better is that I have the next 10 days to spend on pretty much pure boatbuilding.

Where have I got up to?

I have been cutting and installing the deck beams, half beams, the curved coaming backing, the mast staunchion.

forward

amidship

cockpit taking shape

staunchion with centre carling left slightly proud so I can plane the deck camber into it

nice to see the sheer line reflected in the coaming carling and flotation chamber battens

So now, I'm ready to put the decking on. But first, I'll paint the interior . I have already done 3 coats of epoxy in the flotation chambers. These won't get painted. I have also painted the stowage bins in the cabin and the lazarette. So now, I'll paint everything with one more coat of epoxy then use the high-build dtm-985 under the floors and a 2-pack primer everywhere else.