I just finished installing the skeg on the Skerry. The skeg is a keel-like piece of wood at the stern the helps the boat track straight in the water. I assembled the skeg about a month ago by gluing two pieces of plywood together. Unfortunately the fit wasn’t perfect and I had to spend a couple hours with the random orbit sander, block plane, hand blocks, and chisels to get it to fit the curve of the hull and stern.
When I got the fit just right, I measured the bottom of the hull to find and mark the centerline. I then drilled four pilot holes through the hull from the outside. With my girlfriend holding the skeg in place using a carpenter’s square to ensure it was perpendicular to the hull, I drilled larger pilot holes from the inside of the hull and into the skeg using a special countersunk drill bit. The bit drills a normal pilot hole but then opens up for the screw head so that the screw head can be embedded in the hole and caped with a small piece of wood. The drill bit is also adjustable for depth, which is super nice.
I then covered the skeg and hull where they will make contact with some epoxy thickened with silica. Finally, I used a screwdriver to sink the screws into the hull and skeg. It came out perfectly perpendicular!
Because my skeg was a little bit warped at the stern, the thin piece of the skeg that ran up the stem was curved to starboard, I built a funny jig to pull it into place while the glue cured.
Time Spent: 3.0 Hours
Total Time In Build: 59.5 Hours
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