I found myself with no resolution to my "diagonal bracing issue" this morning. After standing looking at the boat for twenty minutes or so, holding this stick of wood then a different one, after which I switched to plywood strips, I was no further along in my decision. I cut out the wires in the bow and then retreated to the kitchen for a pot of coffee and the hope of a message explaining the diagonal bracing. I keep thinking back to the short story on Wharram's website "Stick to the plans"! I need to stick to the plans. KISS - keep it simple stupid -you know very little about hull design and even less about cats. ...but, but, but what's the big deal, these diagonals are nothing big - they are called out as 18x25 mm in softwood. What can they be all about? So I think some more and resolve to not loose sleep over this issue tonight - no waking up a 0430.

The morning is draining away and I need to get something done so I resolve to return to the shed and do some work, make progress. What can I do? I can glue the rest of the joints; stern to hull panels, bulkheads to hull panels and bunk and deck beams to bulkheads. I work for the next five hours gluing, after ensuring everything is square, going slowly to ensure clean complete joints with no dry spots. I take care fairing the joints (see the photo of the stern to hull sides) without and mess. I let the joints partially set up and then come back to clean up any glops of Gelmagic epoxy. But a whole day of work has done nothing to put the diagonal bracing issue to rest. I'm thinking about how to get a nice second layer epoxy fair done with a curved scraper in a variable angle and width joint, not to mention curved when the idea of using a soft rubber ball comes to me. See the photo of a racketball ball in the bow to get the idea. This may just be the trick. I'll try it tomorrow, I think, when the realization hits me once again. You can't fair the hull until the diagonal braces are done. Now it is 2300 hours, Monday night, and I'm searching diagonal bracing hull design. I come up with some promising sources - the USS Constitution had diagonal bracing for hogging and sagging. I get links to catamaran building forums but never find the diagonal bracing threads. It's starting to look like I'll be lying awake trying to resolve the force vectors not only about this but a new issue; mast and rigging forces on the main beam.

Today has been a good day of building - thinking ahead, focused on the work at hand buoyed by very good news, a letter from Jeckells. Sails are on order, delivery date 01-Feb-07. I'll mail the signed order confirmation back to Jeckells tomorrow.