I believe that most of the wood on my 1964 boat is mahogany.  Oak is not a bad choice, but do try to source white oak, as red is more rot prone due to the cellular passages through the wood. White’s passages are encapsulated, red is like a giant straw.

Having played with Dynema on my big boat.  That is what I would use over wire.  It not only is very resistant to stretching, but it is nicer on the hands and pulleys than wire.  If also will not release “fishhooks” if a strand should break.

Last time I painted a car, I dampened the floor before painting.  Even if wood or dirt, it does help keep the dust down.  You do not need to soak it, just make sure it is wet enough to keep any dust stuck to it.

Glues are one of those impossible conversations as camps seem to pop up as soon as the word is mentioned.

When I rebuilt Spark’s mast and redecked her, I used epoxy.  I knew it was strong, waterproof, and forgiving of improperly prepared surfaces. It was also what I had at hand. So far I have had no regrets in doing so, but I do hope I never need to intentionally split the mast or remove the deck again, as I doubt either would give up willingly. Used sparingly, it is a wonderful glue, but liberally applied it quickly makes a mess.

Having done the deck on 5942 last year,  I can assure you that the ply is not 2mm, but much closer to 5.  While I have done a lot of building with Epoxy,  I only used it on my GP as a glue.  Rather than nailing the deck down, I used thickened epoxy and many 20 litre containers full of water to hold it down while it set and hardened.

I did not “seal” the inside of my boat with epoxy, but instead used white oil based marine paint on the underside of the deck and on the inside of the hull, leaving the ribs and stringers in their varnished state. You can catch a bit of it here with my included pictures of my forward buoyancy and storage compartment I built.

I still had some cleaning up to do in that picture, plus more varnish on the bulkhead.  The hatch is a large Compression Style Deck hatch,  it requires no hinges or latches, but turning the two levers screws in two arms that pull it tight to it’s frame, rendering it watertight.

I have an older Series 1 boat I use for day sailing and cruising.  Not to Oliver’s standard, but I make do.  I cannot say on the newer glass boats, we got very few, if any of the “mark” boats here in the US.  If you scroll through the forum, I think you can still find talk of an outboard.  The older wooden boats were designed with the idea that engine could be fitted,  When done, usually a removable flap was cut into the aft deck to allow the outboard to clamp to the transom.  The only issue I see is that most boats are fitted with the full with horse, an engine hung off of the transom would get in the way of it’s travel.

If you are truly interested in hanging an outboard,  I would consider bolting on a bracket to the transom itself that would move it out of the way of the horse.  You will not need a big engine, I would consider something like a torqeedo, ePropulsion, or even a trolling motor.  I use oars on Spark, so I know you will not need a lot of power to propel a GP any distance with an outboard. Lighter the better!