Shortening the Port Stern

Didn’t I say that cutting stuff OUT of the hull stresses me out a BIG TIME? Did I? Well, I repeat that again!
The stern fitting should be pretty straightforward after the stems are fitted - after all they are much shorter and easier to manage.
But… well, there is always a little more to that.
In this case - a little less. The thing is, the stringer comes to the stern almost exactly at the point where the bottom part of the stem finishes. Which means it would land on the connection between two parts of the stern. Not ideal for many reasons but one of them is that it would land on the butt strap.
So the plans call for a minor surgery in this place - namely cutting off 160mm of the bottom part of the stern, so stringers land on the top part, right above the butt strap. Seems pretty straightforward job to do but cutting into a piece of hull is always stressful.
And it is not an issue of measuring- actually a millimetre one way or another won’t matter much, but the problem is to make it perfectly straight. Because even small discrepancy here will make the edges of the stern point in different directions which might be a little problematic (well, still possible to correct but not something I’d like to do!).
So we are back to our trusty laser level. And few supporting bits to provide nice, straight edge for the jigsaw. Preferred to cut a little guide because I’m always a bit unsure if I should measure 38mm or 40mm for this jigsaw. In theory it is 40 but that’s dead center - and a cut starts always a bit off due to the thickness of the blade. And it depends on the blade used.

So the prep was a bit extensive for a 170mm long cut- but it seems it worked as expected and we have port stern slightly shorter. Not for long!
But that will be for another day- it took surprisingly long to cut nice brackets for the stern, which follow the line of the stringers and stern as well. And now they still have to harden after an epoxy bath.

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