Building a Glued Lapstrake Rangeley Lake Boat

Page 12: Interior Details and Thinking about Colors

Coaming being fitted

One of the challenges of building a boat much lighter than the original design is to not have the resulting boat look anemic. For this reason we added coamings to the bow and stern decks. Without coamings the 1/8" thick deck edge would be vunerable to damage, and it also would look a bit wimpy. The coamings add a lot of strength to replace the strength of the solid 7/8" thick decks in the original boat.

The finished coaming

We have finished the decks and the coamings that cover the deck ends, the seat, and the floorboards. Remaining items include rowing cleats for your heels and turn buttons to secure the floorboards.

Sternsheets and backrest

Regarding colors:
It's hard to go wrong with a white hull. I think it was Nat Herreschoff who said "The only colors to paint a yacht are white and black, and only a fool would paint a yacht black".

A dark blue sheerstrake will look nice, too. Then varnish on all the interior, excepting floorboards, which will be left bare. And varnish on the gunwales, decks and coamings.