Topsides Painted, Outboard Mount Installed

The hull topsides have been sprayed with two coats of red Awlgrip, providing a nice contrast to the white Petit Vivid bottom paint and the decks and cabins, which will be painted with white Awlgrip.

Here is the forward deck, removed from the beams for finish sanding. We have lots of finishing details going on simultaneously as we are jamming seven days a week now to get the boat ready for the Mystic Wooden Boat show in Connecticut the last weekend of this month.

The outboard was delivered the other day. It is a Yamaha 8hp, 4-stroke with long shaft and electric start, and should be an ideal match for the Tiki 30.

With the outboard on hand, we were able to design and build the motor mount, and install it on the bottom of the cockpit sole. Below, you can see how the sides of the wedge-shaped mount were glass taped to the adjoining surfaces of the bottom of the cockpit.

In this side view of the motor mount, the glassed-in structure has been filleted and faired to the underside of the cockpit sole.

Here is a view of the motor mount from the cockpit. It is centered fore and aft to keep the prop in solid water between the hulls.

The foam-core cockpit sole had to be epoxy filled in the edges where we cut out the opening for the motor mount. In this view you can see the transom for the outboard clamp at the aft end of the wedge-shaped pod.

We have also built a covering box that encloses the outboard from the top and serves as a cockpit table as well as a place to mount such instruments as the steering compass.

Detail work is also going on down below in both hulls as we finish such things as edging all the shelves with teak fiddles and trimming the exposed bulkhead edges. Below you can see one of the main bulkheads with teak trim being formed for its edges. We are making these trim rings by gluing up layers of very thin teak that can take the radius. The clamps hold the layers until the glue sets, and then the rings are removed from the boat for finishing.

Here is one of the bulkhead trim rings, shaped and sanded and hung outside for varnishing.

The companionway hatches have also been varnished.