When I went to reinstall the deck support beam, I realized that the deck had seriously sunk and I was going to need to jack the sucker back up if I ever hoped to get the support poles back in place. Using my car's scissor jack again, along with a scrap piece of steel conduit, I was able to raise the beam back to its original location. I temporarily attached some of the fasteners to make sure that the beam stayed in the correct location. I really don't want to drill more holes in the deck. I was quite surprised by the amount of force needed to lift the beam and bend the deck back into shape, but I'm really glad that I rebuilt the lower support structure now!

Well, my riblets have healed enough to allow me to crawl around inside the boat again. I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, though. I had to fiberglass the seams of the bulkheads that I replaced, and once I'd glued them in, they effectively divided the rear of the boat into little 3' x 3' boxes. I then had to climb over and into these bulkheads with about 1' of headspace. The inhumane contortions necessary to crawl around back here are difficult to imagine. You're either curled up in a fetal position or you've got a bulkhead cutting into a random body part. And then your thigh cramps up. Having fun yet? And then I had to lay fiberglass tape and epoxy it all. Thank god epoxy takes time to cure or I would be a permanent fixture in here. If boats could speak, I'm sure this one only knows curse words.

Well, the broken rib and crazy heat have kept me from doing much work. According to my mother-in-law, who is a nurse, and of course common sense, if you want a broken rib to heal you must not move around that much. For several weeks. It's very difficult for me to sit on the couch and not do anything for weeks at a time. I've got stuff to do dammit! I ignored the advice of professionals and spent the weekend sanding the bottom of the boat. Oooh, bad idea. It messed up my rib so much I couldn't do aything at all for a week. Dammit. I'm trying to take it easy, but surely there are things that I can get done.

Suited up in a coverall, safety glasses, gloves, and a respirator while performing contortions inside a small boat in 90 degree weather with fiberglass dust flying everywhere probably doesn't sound like your ideal weekend, right? Not mine either, but the wifey is far too smart to subject herself to such masochism. I've only been able to do this on the weekends because it takes about a week for the horror of the previous experience to fade enough to do it again. I don't care how well you think you're protected from fiberglass dust, it WILL find your skin! And then let the suffering begin.

I've been grinding out poorly fiberglassed structures in the boat to properly fix and re-fiberglass them to my standards. I've ground out both quarter berths [quarter berth: a sleeping area which runs under each side of the cockpit], the mid bulkhead [bulkhead: vertical dividing partition to add rigidity to the hull]  and the rear starboard bulkhead. Why only the rear starboard bulkhead, you ask? Because there wasn't a port one. Seriously. You can see the before and after below. They still need to be fiberglassed in.