Framing the deck
As you can see from the picture of the old deck, there is a complex latice of supports that keep the deck in place.
The reason for all these supports is that the deck is only 1/4" plywood yet needs to support the weight of one or two adults moving around on it... sometimes even moving quickly.
For these supports I used a combination of plywood and cedar. All of the wood was thoroughly painted with epoxy resin to ensure that it never sees any moisture.
In the bow of the boat I opted to use fewer, but stronger, supports than the original. The center beam is made of the same strong wood that I used in the keel replacement. The ribs are made of 3/4" plywood laminated with a cedar top. The reason for using a cedar topping on all of my supports is that it is easy to sand, is rot resistant, flexes well, and provides a nice wide surface to eventually laminate the 1/4" plywood deck onto.
In the stern of the boat I used 3/4" plywood for the main supports and a combination of cedar and plywood for the shorter joining pieces.
Again, all of the wood was coated with epoxy resin to ensure it is completely water proof.
I framed the sides of the boat with a plywood/cedar laminiation. I wanted this to remain flexible so that I could get the rounded look that the original deck had. For the sharp corners I used a few thin cedar layers and laminated them with contact cement. These corners are not structural and will be heavily fibre glassed for strength.
All of the framing joints were fibre glassed to the hull and had epoxy resin reinforce the interior joints.
Here is a close up of one of the interior corners that I built. The nice thing about cedar is that it is very flexible.
I made one mistake when framing. You will note above in one of the pictures I have a black access hole. Unfortunately I did not frame with that in mind so I had to create a modification to the bow.
The end result of my framing looks like this:
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