I've been decking of late. It's straightforward - cut pieces out, glue them in. The only reasonably complex bit was the bridge on the aft end of the deck. I steamed a couple of bits of 8x18 Tassie Oak in place to form a nicely shaped arch to support the aft end of the deck, then buttered them up and put the aft deck in all at once.
Once I've done the coamings, I'll make up a radiused piece to go in the corner here, as I don't much care for the sharp corner.
So now that enough deck is in place to try it out, I thought I'd mount up a rowlock in it's final position (on a 6mm coaming piece, and 18mm above the deck) to see how that works for rowing. This is where Mogget was very keen to help. Clearly we're going on an adventure, and he's got to be involved.
Perry's modelling the "oars down" position, with a 2.4m length of timber pretending to be an oar. Even with quite a short bit of timber, it looks like the ergonomics work reasonably well.
With the oar down, there's a little bit of clearance between the bottom of the oar and the edge of the deck. This is with the rowlock on 18mm of coaming. To ensure clearance between the oar and gunwale, I can either extend the oar (perhaps to 3m) or raise the rowlock. Either should be straightforward, but I'm keen not to have the coamings too high, as I just know I'll want to sit on the decks.
In the next photo I've asked Perry to put the oar on his knee, to ensure the tips of the oars can get out of the water. He's sitting with his knee fairly high, which isn't quite right, but even then the tip of the oar should be out of the water.
Finally here's a photo of the rowlock in the down position. I think they look quite nice. For reference, I've got the rowlock centered about 10cm aft of bulkhead 6. That puts it about 60cm aft of the front edge of the rowing thwart.
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