Test fit of mast

A week ago I was up North to bring the spars.  The mast did not really fit in the car and had to stick a little bit out of the front passenger window.
A police car stopped me but the top was not sticking out beyond the mirror so I could go ahead.  Lucky me....

This weekend my wife and I were up North.  Good friends from South Africa were visiting what was more important than working on the Peapod.

We did a test fit of the mast.  Due to several layers of epoxy and PU varnish on the hole in the front seat and on the mast it was a mis fit.








The corrective action was to increase the hole with a rasp. 

After several tries the mast did fit through the mast hole but the dowel in the heel of the mast did not yet fit into the mast step.

Later I did also remove some wood from the dowel but could not do a test fit anymore due to the rain.




What could be done was fitting a copper rubbing strip on the keel.

Also I fitted a swivel block on the keel for the sheet and put epoxy primer  on the rasped mast hole.

Next time maybe it is possible to have the first sail although the inside of the boat still needs a final coat of satin gloss PU varnish.