Floorboards and stretchers

A great deal of thinking has gone into the floorboards for our Skiff, the traditionalist wanted slatted boards made from ‘real’ wood but in the end, as with most of this build, the choice naturally fell on Plywood. We, the build team, wanted something relatively easy, hard-wearing and easily replaceable when worn out. There was also a substantial amount of spare ply left over from the planking sheets which could form a significant part of the floorboards. We decided that 18mm ply would give the sort of strength we were after, 9mm is too flimsy for this kind of boat (it will have to take the stresses from the stretchers), 12mm would probably be OK but we had plenty of 9mm so two layers of 9mm glued together would do the job nicely. Having decided on the board material we needed to work out the support system – concerned that support strips glued to the floorboards would rub on the hog and wear the paint away allowing water ingress we decided that ply strips glued to the hog and garboard would keep any wear away from structural elements of the boat.

The floorboard support strips glued and filleted to the bottom of the boat

The laminated boards were profiled to fit on top of the strips without rubbing on the planking surface.

Floorboards fitted in place

We intend to cut finger holes to aid easy removal after we have devised our stretcher bars and the method of attaching them.

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