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Putting on the outer gunnels.  

Once the outer gunnels are nice and dry, we can attach the inner gunnels!  We've been having nice warm weather for epoxying, so we're doing as much as we can.  Saturday we glued together the lug - one end of it is shown below.  Daddy had already cut the wood - 4 pieces with angles so that they fit together with a hollow inside square.  He saved the pieces cut off that would fit into the middle to use as plugs for each end and for the area where the lug meets the mast.  You can see in the end here how the pieces went back inside when we glued it all together.

Today we routed the edges of the lug to make it rounded, except along the strip that will be going up and down the mast.  Then I gave it a fine sanding so it's ready for a clear coat of epoxy.

After we had the lug ready, we did a bend test on it.  This is for the sailmaker to determine a more exact fitting of the sail depending on the properties of an individual piece of equipment.  Based on the size of the sail (our plans call for a 80 sq ft area), you hang a corresponding weight from the lug, then measure at 3 points along the lug the distance from a string strung straight across down to the lug.  It is scary tying ~3 gallons of water to a piece of hollow wood (well it was tied to the area with a plug) that you just spent a lot of time creating.  You really hope it doesn't break in half!  But no worries, it is very strong!!
Next we get to build the boom!

After I left, I think my dad also put clear coats of epoxy on the lug, the centerboard seat, and the tiller extension.  We had drilled holes in the centerboard seat to plug with maple dust epoxy, that will then be drilled through again to put bolts through to attach the seat to the centerboard.  We won't actually glue the seat on so that in the future the seat can be taken off and the centerboard accessed and removed if needed.