Spray Rails

Greg and I had a nice diversion from the seemingly-endless task of sanding and fairing this weekend as we mounted the spray rails to the boat. For those of you who aren't familiar with spray rails, they are designed to reduce the amount of water that sprays you (and your friends and the deck of the boat) as you cruise through the water at higher speeds.

We built the spray rails out of cypress, which Greg chose for its extreme rot resistance. He bought three 10 foot long 1x1 sections, which we scarfed together to form a single, long rail, and then we diagonal-cut the single long piece, forming our two spray rails. After this, we prepped the spray rails by touching up the rough spots and by pre-drilling the holes.

Greg wasn't sure how he wanted to mount the spray rails... whether to follow the water line, the hull from the bottom, the hull from the top, or some hybrid. In the end, we followed the hull from the top, and drew our line using a jig. We epoxied the rails in place, and held them with stainless steel screws. After the epoxy cures and we do more touching up, we will fill in the screw holes (which were counter-sunk) with epoxy, making the seal truly water-tight.

Once again I forgot my camera, but I will try to get a shot or two in the near future.