One Month into the Build

We're a month into the construction of our Tiki 30 at this point and progress continues at a steady pace. The main focus today was on the details that have to be finished before the hulls can be decked and the cabins built. The triangular support boxes under the crossbeam locations were finished up, complete with the solid sub decks that cap them and add critical strength to these sections of the deck.

The finished support boxes are shown below. The shape not only provides great strength, but is designed to intrude only minimally into the accommodation space, as the widest parts of the supports are located in areas that are otherwise unusable for any practical purpose.

On the work benches all the deck assemblies are being completed off the boat so that they can be completely finished on the underside before installation.

The decks are reinforced by the glued-on stringers, which we are also fairing to the undersides of the panels with a wide radius fillet as shown below. Again, all solid stringers in the interior are rounded over and and faired in so that no sharp edges can be found anywhere. This makes for a much nicer finish, prevents moisture from accumulating and causing rot, makes everything easier to keep clean, and eliminates hard corners that can cause injury to crew below while in a seaway.

This is a closer view of a finished foredeck underside, showing the fillet details.

Lots of other parts have to be fitted and installed in the interiors before the cabin sides and roofs go in. These include shelves along the outboard edges at the sheer level and the built-in parts of the galley and navigation station. Work will continue on this next week. Once the decks and cabins are built, the hulls will be stable enough to move and these tables will be rearranged so the boat can assembled near the front of our shop.