Floorboards | Fitting The Rest Of The Full Length Planks.

There are eight full length floorboards running from bulkhead 2 at the front to bulkhead 8 at the rear of the hull - four on each side of the centre board case.

I refer to them as either port (P) or starboard (S) and by number, going from the centre board case outwards to the side of the hull.  Thus P1 to P4, and S1 to S4

Fitting them does not require a lot of work, other than making sure that they are the required 1/8" apart.

However, it does require focused attention and bearing in mind our mantra mentioned in the previous post ("measure it twice, and cut it once") I immediately made a silly mistake when marking up and drilling the countersunk screw holes.

There are lift out sections in the floorboards, two boards wide and on both sides of the boat. They run between floors 4 and 6, meaning that the lift out boards do not require to be fastened down to floor  5.

The first plank I marked up and drilled was P2, and of course I forgot that the lift out does not require screw holes.

So I cut and fitted ash plugs to fill the holes, hoping that they would not be noticeable. They are ... at the time I considered it to be a big deal but on reflection it is a purely cosmetic issue, so I downgraded the incident from Cock Up to Silly Mistake.

Here are P2 and P3 being test fitted. You can just make out the bungs in P2!

I used a countersink drill bit in the plunge router to bore all the screw holes. Here it is.

Before each plank is fitted pilot holes have to be carefully drilled in the support floor or bulkhead cleat.


The planks were fastened down with temporary dry wall screws, which will be replaced with silicon bronze wood screws when the planks are permanently installed later in the build.

Here is S4 in the process of being fitted. A drill driver makes short work of the very many screws, and a piece of stiff wire is useful in aligning the floorboard with the pilot holes.

There is insufficient room for a drill to be used below bulkhead 7 and below the cleat for the cockpit sole on bulkhead 8, so a new tool had to be purchased.

This right angle drive made it easy to drill pilot holes and drive screws in tight corners. An excellent piece of kit!

Here we see all eight full length floorboards fitted. Note the unusual pattern and colouration in the grain in P4 at the rear. I don't think it is very attractive but as with the plugs it is a purely cosmetic issue, so I placed that plank where it will be hidden under the cockpit decking - out of sight and out of mind!

The next step is to fit the curved floorboards, which had me scratching my head for a bit ...