Battens, seat riser, rubrails and floatation tanks

One of these many jobs at boatbuilding which do take time but results are hardly visible.

I fitted all battens supporting floor boards. A bit more fiddling was required for seat risers - I had to enlarge and adjust openings in bulkheads and frames, to properly “seat” this long batten.

I made all battens, rubrail and gunwale from Siberian larch which I ripped before winter. Today all got plaining and sanding, to be ready for installation.

Dry-fitting:

I realized that gluing them now would be a mistake: I need to first fill flotation tanks with foam. And before filling with foam I need to epoxy-coat these tanks. Which can be done only during weekend, when I can run several coats wet-on-wet during the whole day.

Well, I removed battens and started fitting the foam. Someone suggested to fill chambers with liquid/expanding foam. That would ensure entire chamber to be filled and would be much quicker to do than cutting and fitting these panels. Yes - but it would be a messy job. Besides - I want to have possibility to remove the foam if I would need to access these chambers. Even with seat risers and all battens around I will be able to extract panels. Digging in hardened foam would be a miserable activity.

Another possibility could be to fill chambers with styrofoam “chips” - these which are used to secure packages. They would fill the space entirely so no cutting and fitting needed. Extracting them is easy. But will there not be a lot of air pockets in between these chips? Pockets which will fill with water should the boat capsize?
I need to check this option.

Anyway - during the week I plan to install rub- and gunwales. Weekend, if it will be warm enough, will be used for epoxy coating the interior.