The plans call for stiffening of hull from inside where ever there is not a web and sole (the web and sole performing the same task). In the bows I used 3 strips of 13mm duflex glued to each other and glued and glassed down along their balsa edge but in this case I have used a strip of 50mm plywood glued to the hull at 90 degrees to the ply layers and cut to 100mm and then trimmed at each end for about 700mm toward the centre from front and back leaving the middle 700mm at full 100mm height. It was necessary to shape the plank because the plank does not bend easily (it does a little over the 2 meter length but not much) across the layers (it will bend very easily along the layers but does not provide the strength that way). By trimming about 50mm off from the edge to 0mm at 700mm from the edge at each end of the plank it fitted the curve of the hull between the bulkheads. It still needed some coaxing down to meet the hull which I did with screws to hold it whilst the glue set and glue filled any other voids where it did not full meet.
Unfortunately I pushed one screw just a little too deeply into the plank trying to get some grip and it protruded through the hull, which meant I had to grind back a section of hull, removing the copper epoxy and bog to get back to glass and I glassed a patch on to reseal the hull. I bogged it wet on wet, the next day I sanded it all back fair ready for a re-coat of copper epoxy which I will do when I do the dagger case exits. This 5 second mistake cost me 2 hours work.
Once the keelson had set overnight I coved and glassed it on. The glass consisted of 2 layers of 600gsm uni along the top (50mm) and then 2 layers of 450 gsm double bias overlapped to seal it to the hull. I peel plied the glass so that I would not have to sand it again. Once the glass had set (overnight) I coated it with a thick coat of white epoxy. This has a double purpose. It acts to fully seal the inside of the locker and provides a smooth wipe-able surface so it will be easy to keep clean and the epoxy cures very hard so that it resists scratching from sharp edges of the stuff we might throw in there. I have not faired the inside of this or any other locker on the boat, I just want it smooth enough to touch so that there are no sharp splinters of glass to catch on and it wipes clean, other than that I don’t care that it is not as fair as it could be and that you can still see tape lines through the white epoxy. It is the inside of a storage hatch. To me this is not a place that needs a shiny smooth mirror finish.
I also reshaped the rear bunk opening. I had marked out a new angle for the inside to make the shape symmetrical by turning the 90 degree upright side into the same angle as the outside but this would eat into the hanging space and I was not convinced this was the way to go. So instead of making the inside angle match the outside, I made the outside match the 90 degree inside to form a square. It works much better. The reason I felt I needed to change it is because I had to raise the base height. This made the opening feel too narrow, making it a square has opened it up again.
The way I have made the bed base/under-bunk hatch top is to have a lid hinged in the middle that sits inside the lip of the base. The hinge allows 2 things, first if you need to get or put something into the storage it can be done via the hinged lid without having to completely remove the bedding by just lifting the forward half against the hinge in the middle. If the entire lid needs removing it can be folded in half and lifted out. The end are also hinged (to each bulkhead fore and aft) which enables the opening to be the full length of the storage. We may be putting pushbikes or even a motor scooter in there, as well as a surfboard or short canoe.