Bridgedeck upper

Commonly called the deck, the bridgedeck is the most used part of the yacht.

 

The first project was to cut the notches to take the fore aft deck timbers called ‘Stringers’. In one of those magic thought days, we had decided to pre-cut them prior to painting, and we are very glad we did.

 

No sawdust over the newly painted surfaces and no chance of accidental drops of the saw on these surfaces too.Next was to install braces to hold a 68 x 19 strip of timber, used for re-enforcing the deck floor in the main bedrooms.

 

 

While we had the paint out the other day, we conveniently painted these pieces in the hope to reduce upside down painting after they were installed; this appears to have worked well too. Following this came the trial and cutting of the 42mm x 19mm strip lengths to run fore / aft below the deck floor. With the length of the 11.6m Easy, the 42 x 19 strips were not long enough to run in a single piece from the fore to the aft, this meant more time scarfing.

 

 

 

 

We chose not to do this, but double up on 42 x 19 over the joint, then glue and screw. Yes, we know the aesthetics of this type of join are not very pleasing to the eye, but it will be hidden at all times.

 

 

 

 

 

Above the forward single beds in each hull, we have chosen to re-enforce the roof/deck floor timber and in the process, provide easy fastening points for the false ceiling we intend putting in there.

 

 

Additionally, a quirky little storage area has also been built in and pre painted prior to putting the deck on. This abutted a huge locker and worked extremely well. The deck panels (standard 1.2m x 2.4m ply) fit rather well fore/aft, you would think the design was planned around the plywood sheet size.

We chose to start on the forward port hull first then work across to the starboard side. A word of caution came a little to late for us.

The hatch cutouts would have been best left till the whole deck top was on to prevent an accidental step-back and premature thump into one of the double beds (with broken bones to-boot). Apparently, the designer has experience and appropriate words to discourage the willing.For those following this build with their EASY plans, you will find that this centre hatch does not exist. This is explained in a lot more detail during the build of the bridgedeck and will be our only access to this area.

 

Apart from the two panels that covered the forward single bed areas of each hull, all the panels were cut and predrilled, then given a coat of resin a day before gluing and screwing.

On one of the panels, we thought we could save time by just cutting and gluing. The time spent then resining afterwards inside the boat far exceeded that had it been done before gluing.