Balky bulkheads

I gave in to my consternation that the inner gunwales do not go the full length of Moe. This morning I scarfed in the center section. I may have to cut them out again to put the oar-blocks in, but until then, I feel a whole lot better about it.

Then I set to work trying to locate the proper position of the triangular bulkheads that, in the WEN, seal off great triangular sections from the cockpit. These triangles are inaccessible on the WEN and are likely filled with foam for floatation. This troubles me greatly. Once again, I am giving in to some inauthentic modern thinking: The sealed off triangles are no longer needed with modern boating techniques and waterproof containers. And they are total rot traps, as they cannot be bailed out when the inevitable seepage gets in them. So I am opening them up to the adjacent hatches. Sorry, Norman. Although they will be difficult to utilize or bail, with some contortions both things can happen, and perhaps the boat will not rot to death immediately.

The blue wiggles* show where I scarfed in full gunwales. The red drawings are the triangular bulkheads which I am about to put in. The green arrows show the giant holes I hacked in the stern bulkhead today to provide access and anti-rot drying to the triangles. The green x-es are where I will hack more holes tomorrow.

I am afraid I may not get my historic replica merit badge if I keep doing things like this, but...oh well. My conscience will not let me do otherwise.

* I just looked up the fancy typographic name for the blue wiggles, as, being a typo-geek, I thought there must be some cool word like ampersand or ellipsis, and I would be remiss without using the very special name. All I came up with was "curly brackets" so I stuck with wiggles.