I was able to borrow a special tool for picking up things in difficult places, it has a syringe like plunger at one end along a flexible line it pushes out retracting fingers that when pushed out widen and when released pull back closing to grab hold of the thing you are trying to pick up. I got that screw that broke off as well as the piece of cedar that I was trying to get when the screw broke off. I may need to use it again tomorrow as I dropped some blobs of coving putty that will harden into pebbles and if they dont stay stuck may rattle around in there. Nothing serious though, they are very lightweight and cant do any harm, it just annoys me knowing they are loose in there.

The plans call for ply pads between the end of the forebeam and the inside of the hull deck panels. It was quite a task just trimming them enough so that the ply would fit and what’s more, because of the curve of the hull both fore and aft and up and down further complicates getting a flat ply pad in and the space filled. The up and down was fixed easily enough, I cut a couple of kerfs in the ply pad and the curved hull fore and aft I ended up needing a double thickness of ply on the forward edge of the beam to fill it up then the rest was filled with glue and glassed over.

Before I did that though I glassed the rest of the unglassed joins inside the front section. I think that designers have a wicked sense of humor or perhaps they know how much people will enjoy these boats that they make us work hard for it. Glassing the curved hull side to the flat bulkhead (curved to flat means bunching on the flat section and stretching on the curved section) through a small opening, working blind because you can only get your hands through and not your head and upside down would have to be about as hard as boat building gets. I bet designers have a chuckle to themselves whenever they think about us builders having to do this.

Once all the glassing was done I coated the play pads with resin and stared wedging them in between the hull side and forebeam then coved and glassed them in. I used a number of smaller pieces of glass first then once I had the ply completely glassed over and onto both the beam and the hull side I finished them with longer thinner tapes completely sealing the forebeam to the hull sides. All that was left to do was glue and glass the ply pads for the foresail stay plate in place. Again these were pre-coated in resin and then glassed to the inside of the bulkhead. The glass is just to hold it in place until I drill the holes and the bolts go in. The resin coating of the pad is probably not required, it is a dry cavity, if I get water in there I have much bigger problems than water causing rot in the ply pads.