By Lorne Swarthout

We have almost finished scraping and sanding the interior of our new racing boat, Hudson Star. Leaning over into the boat, engulfed in noise and dust: certainly the least pleasant job in building a cedar strip boat. But everyone pitched in with a will and now it is almost as smooth as a baby’s a__. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will give the interior one last lick with some hand sanding and then put on a sealer coat of clear epoxy. On Sunday (Jan 28) we will start the fiberglass process. As we did on the outside, we will lay down two overlapping layers of cloth.

We might also start creating some templates for interior frames (like in picture 2). There will be 7 or 8 frames across the boat. We will fine tune the templates after the fiberglass is complete, trace them on to 1/2″ plywood, cut and trim until we have a nice fit, and then epoxy them in place. The frames will support the seats and give stiffness to our eggshell hull.