2007 building logs

November 07 More strip planking

There is still a lot of strip planking to go on the build, the inside bows on each hull and the forward hull to underwing roll, then the big one, the cabin roof. There will still be another small stripping project, the daggerboard cases but first I need to make the daggers, I doubt I will have all of the planking done this month but I may get a start on the daggers.

November 01 Ready to glue the planks

Using 25mm wide strips of 3mm mdf as straps I have levelled the planks to each other in the Starboard hull. In most cases you only need a screw at the top and bottom, but for some of the more uneven panels you may need to put a screw into each plank around that is low or high.

I still have the reshaping work at the stern to do but I did that last time after I had glued the planks to each other in front of it so they would not lose their shape. I ran out of time to glue the panels today, but I hope to get time to do some of that tomorrow.

I did get some time to back fill the cored out panels on the dingy with a mixture of glue and filler. Once it is set (tomorrow) I will give it a quick sand to remove the sharp edges and I should be able to attach the lids back on with hinges. Then I have a few minor fittings to glass in and I am ready to paint it. I will give it a coat of white 2 pack undercoat (highbuild) and another light sand, then I will get it painted. Then I can launch it!

November 02 Planks glued

I had a good day today, and I managed to get the planks on the starboard side glued strip planking. I also filled the rest of the panels on the dingy and sanded the ones I did yesterday and refit the hatch lid. I still have to attach the hinges and locking latch and I will also cut out a small hole for the petrol hose to get out through a locked locker, so I can leave the dingy unattended and not risk losing the tank.

Today was a similar day to the day I glued the port planking, raining but really humid so it didn't feel hot until I started working, then I felt it and I was fairly tired once I had finished. I worked all afternoon and managed to get all that I wanted done. I am not quite at the stage of glassing tomorrow, but not far of. I still have all of the reshaping work to do.

The usual gluing method was employed, mix up some glue of varying thickness depending on the gap size in the planks, if the gaps in the are are quite narrow then a runny mix, if they are wide then a thick mix so it doesn't just drip out again, and then squeeze it into the gaps using a flexible scraper and then clean up any spill through underneath with the scraper.

Tomorrow I should be able to get the glass hung on the job and trimmed, and the stern curve shaped ready for wet out on Sunday.

November 03 Planks Sanded

Today was another one of those days. On a build as long as this you get days that go brilliantly and days when things don't go your way. Today was latter. I started the day by running a saw cut down the middle of the remaining planks to be shaped and turned and twisted and fastened into place. Well that was the plan, and that was what worked on the port hull. Unfortunately the starboard hull had other ideas and as I bent each of the planks into place, they broke! I broke 2 planks on the port hull and not in this section, in the flat section that I already have in place (I broke 2 planks there on the sb hull too but as with the port, easy to anchor them to their neighbour), but on the side section I didn't break any planks on the port hull, but as the picture below shows, I broke them all on the starboard side.

No matter, the beauty of this material is that it is fairly easy to repair mistakes or accidents and possible to make just about any shape. I will glue smaller pieces together and fill the gaps, a bit more glue and bog that I otherwise would have needed but after a bit of sanding and grinding, i will have it back into shape before glassing, hopefully tomorrow whilst the temperatures are still mild.

I have removed all of the screws except the top and bottom ones, and sanded the rest of the panel so if I fill the gaps and then wet out the glass whilst the glue is still rubbery (wet on almost wet) I can save having to fill and sand them again.

I doubt I will be able to glass tomorrow as I will need to sand and grind the shaped section once the glue is set, so that in itself requires an overnight set.

November 04 SB Stern shaped

Its amazing what some glue and bog can achieve. I managed to make up a shape by just pushing planks up against the broken sections, jamming them in where I could and filling spaces as I went and before long I had almost found the shape. I still have a big high spot, even more pronounced than the high on the port hull, but again, with a grinder I will find the shape needed, back fill with more bog where needed, and glass it when it is correct.

I also filled the inside of this section as much as I could with glue, so that as I sand down the high corner into a gentle curve, there is something behind it as I may go a fair way through the planks in places.

I also did a little more work on the dingy, sanding the hatch backfill and fitting the hatch lids back on. I still have the front hatch to sand back and I have not fitted the hinges and latches yet.

Whilst I did not get the glass on today, I did decide to fill the gaps so that the wet out is faster and uninterrupted by having to fill any gaps. Today's work was somewhat satisfying, when things go wrong it is nice to be able to solve the problems that are thrown up. Once the shape is sanded and back to a nice curve I will glass the panel.

November 05 SB Stern shape refined

With a little more sanding and re bogging, the stern is starting to look like the shape it needs to be for me to glass it. Remember I am not fairing the hull now, just getting it close enough to glass, the fairing will take place on the boat once I have glued the stripped panel onto the hulls, which I wont do until I have made and put the daggerboards in, finished glassing the bulkheads and made and fitted the keelsons at the bow, so not for some time.

I also finished fitting the hatch lids and giving the dingy another light sand to be sure it is ready to paint in the next few days.

So now I will get on and glass the panel outside and give it a light coat of bog. Hopefully before the weekend.

November 06 SB planking glass cut and ready

I sanded the last sections of the starboard planks, I decided yesterday to fill the gaps left by the straps and around the screws so that the wet out was faster and not interrupted by having to fill gaps as I went. So now the whole panel is sanded I was able to hang the glass on the boat and cut it to shape. Later this week I should be able to wet the glass out and apply a thin layer of bog. Mike reminded me that I will probably have to add extra layers of glass around the mast on these panels so I should not bog for a meter or so around this area. I have already bogged the port side, but I will just have to sand it all off back to the glass again, a little more work that I would have avoided if the full instructions on what to do to make the bi rig were available but unfortunately this engineering and instruction work is yet to be done. Hopefully it arrives soon so that the 3 of us building this boat with this rig will know what to do and when.

I also took the time to clean the floors again on both sides of the boat and underneath, using the dust extractor as a vacuum cleaner. I am hoping to spray the dingy with white primer later this week ready for a special paint job by a friend of mine. More on that later. Its always nice to have a clean shed, I often tell people that if you cant handle dust then perhaps boat building is not for you because it is the one thing that most people hate. I am finding that I need a big clean up about once every month or so. I look forward to a time once the boat is finished when I don't ever have to think about dust again!

November 07 Dingy bottom painted

I did not do any work on the big boat today, I only had a couple of hours so I spray painted the bottom of the dingy with primer and did a little more work on the hatch lids. I need to get the dingy painted by Friday because Paul a friend of James (and now a friend of mine) is going to airbrush it and needs a white base to work with. Tomorrow I will paint the top half. In the afternoon and evening today, Jo and I sailed on a 28ft mono in the Wednesday twilight racing at the Gosford sailing club as a guest of Dennis and Dave (the boat owner). We didn't do too well but hopefully we will improve as the season progressed. Jo and I loved it, even though there was a bit of a southerly blowing so it was at times a bit cold.

 

Tomorrow I hope to also wet out the glass on the starboard side deck, although I doubt there will be time after I paint the dingy. If I cant get it done tomorrow I wont be able to take the panel off on Saturday as there wont have been enough time for the glass to have properly set by then even if I was able to get it done on Friday.

November 08 SB planking glassed and bogged

I had a good afternoon on the build today. I got the dingy top painted in the morning, then had work to do most of the day, then in the afternoon I was able to wet the glass out and after an hour or so (more work to do which was actually fortunate as it passed the time) while the glassed tacked off a little so it would not move when I trowelled on a thin layer of bog.

I left a meter square area around where the mast will come through the panel un bogged so that I can apply the extra layers of glass that will be required to strengthen the deck around the mast. Glassing on glass is much stronger than glassing on bog, so on the Port hull where I forgot to leave a section bare, I will have to sand back the bog all the way to the glass.

Now that the panel is glassed and bogged, it will take 2 days to be set well enough to remove the panel from the boat and work on the inside of the panel. I will actually leave 2 of the temp  bulkheads on the panel and remove them from the boat with the panel (still attached) and add one at the bow, while I work on the inside of the panel and remove and replace them to glass it, before replacing the panel on the boat to fully set. This will ensure that I don't have a repeat of what happened last time with the glass crimping and bubbling because the panel had spread a little while off the boat and was glassed in that new shape before being bent back to the boats shape when it was screwed down against the bulkheads again to regain the correct shape. The panel should already be the correct shape as we put it back on the boat so wont cause any of the bubbles in the wet internal glass.

I may do some work on other parts of the boat if I get any time tomorrow as I wont touch this panel now until the weekend. Such as the forebeam that is still waiting on the bench to be finished. It will be nice to get the bench space back!

November 09 Forebeam work

I had a fairly easy day today, I just did a little work on the dingy, I sanded the primer back and did some work on the hatches. I will need to highbuild or bog the noses a little better as they are not fair enough for the paint job we want to do, so once I have a thin layer of bog on it I will sand that back then put another coat of white primer over that and then we can paint it.

I also finally (after months of procrastination over finishing it) got the timber u bolt blocks planed to the correct shape and size to allow the 2 halves of the beam to close around it. Before I did this the blocks were preventing the 2 halves meeting correctly. I didn't want them too small as I wanted the top and bottom to both glue to the block but too big and I couldn't make the halves meet properly. Now that is done, I can glue the blocks in, glue the U bolts into the blocks and glue the 2 halves of the beam together. Finally. After putting off the job time after time, in the end it only took an hour, less actually, to finish it. Silly really.

There has also been more work on Nine Lives, the cabin top is almost completed and work continues in creating the cockpit.

Tomorrow I will also start work on the inside of the planked section. Recently I am managing to do a little each day as well as the weekends and progress is definitely accelerating. For now!

November 10 Inside the SB planking

It is funny how fate works. Yesterday I wrote here that today I would start working on the inside of the planking. But I needed help to get the panel off the boat because it is too long for 1 person to get off on their own without risking damaging it, and I did not have anyone arranged to help me. So I went to the shed today intending to do other work and as soon as I got there, a visitor and his son were waiting to look at the boat, they had visited the old shed, did not know where the new shed was and saw us driving there and recognised our car and followed us to the shed and helped me once inside. The odds of that happening? Go figure.

So with the panel off, I gave it a quick sand then filled the gaps with glue. I learnt last time that it is easier to sand the glued sections because the glue helps make the surface smoother, and that it is much easier to wet out the glass without having to stop to back fill the gaps. I also decided after the problems I had with the panel shape movement that I would take a couple of the temps off the boat and place them on the panel to keep it the correct shape, and an added benefit was that I attached legs to the temps to act as a stabiliser while I work on the inside of the panel.

Once I had finished the inside back filling, I bogged the bows of the dingy. I am having the bows airbrushed by a friend and he needed them to be much smoother, in other words he needed them to be faired the way they should be. I wasn't going to bother as it wasn't a priority to have the dingy look professionally finished but then the idea of having the bows airbrushed sounded like fun so I am finishing the dingy a little better than I had intended. Tomorrow i will sand the bows and paint them with another coat of white primer ready for the spray job.

I have also done a little work on the hatches in the dingy. The hatches form part of the hull sides that people can sit on so to ensure there is enough support I have glued ply tabs into the hatches. One hatch is for the petrol tank so it will not be water (or air) tight as the petrol tank will need to be vented, but the other hatch is intended as a dry hatch so I intend to glue ply all around the hatch opening then glue a rubber gasket onto it that will seal when the lid is shut. I will still put a drain hole into all of the hatches, the anchor well, the petrol tank hatch and the watertight one, just in case water does get in you want it to get out again.

With all that, I did not get any work done on the forebeam. Tomorrow, I have to sand the inside of the starboard strip panel, sand the bows of the dingy and paint them white again, and perhaps get some work done on the forebeam.

November 11 Block glued into forebeam

Gremlins creep in at the most unexpected moments. I lay awake last night carefully planning the almost military set up of getting the u bolts into the beam and the 2 halves glued together in one fluid operation. I started by setting out everything I would need for the entire job in the order I would need them, including cutting lengths of double bias and uni glass. The intention was to glue and glass the blocks into place first resin coating the timber block then seating it in a bed of glue before covering it with a layer of glass, then mix some of the special flexible resin, glue the u bolts into the beam through the blocks with it, over a layer of uni on the outside of the beam by first wetting out a small 100mm section under the u bolt front plate then wetting out the rest of the uni once the 2 halves were glued together and wrapping the wet uni around the beam once it was glued together.

But as I was doing up the locking nuts onto the first u bolt they got very tight before the SS plate had been pulled in tight so in effect they locked early. I am told because SS is very fragile and that I needed to lubricate the nuts as they went on to prevent the heat from building and stripping the threads. I didn't know this (it is counter intuitive to me to lubricate something you want to lock tight!) and had already ruined the threads so I had to pull the u bolts back out and throw away the uni I had started to wet out and settle for just having the blocks glued in. I also cleaned the wet glue off the stainless straps to redo next time.

Assuming I had successfully attached the locking nuts on both u bolts, next I would have laid a small section of glass over the nuts inside the beam as a secondary protection against them ever coming undone, then i would have buttered up the front edge, back edge and centre cedar strip with glue and screwed the 2 halves to each other to set, wiping off any excess glue that oozed out, then once set I could remove the screws and back fill the holes and any other areas with glue, then later again sand it back and finally glass it, with a layer of uni already under the u bolt and around the beam. I would have just cut a slot in the next layers of glass over the beam at the u bolts. The entire beam outside will need a layer of uni with the threads along the beam and a layer of double and extra layers of uni with threads around the beam at the u bolts. Whilst glassing the outside of the beam I will also glass in conduit for the tramps.

This is still the plan but it will now have to wait until I replace the u bolt but at least the blocks will already be glued into the beam. Then once all that is done I will have to fair the beam, trim the ends to size and cut a slot for the bulkhead and then finally glue it into the hulls.

I had really hoped to finish gluing the beam today, so with that disappointment aside I went back to the dingy. I sanded the bog back off and then applied a layer of high build. One of the most annoying things about bog is that no matter how thin you try to apply it, you always end up sanding 90% of it back off.

Work will see me busy until at least mid week so not much will happen on the build until then, when I hope to get the inside of the strip planking sanded ready to glass, then back onto the boat for setting. I wont be able to glass until I have people to help me lift it back onto the boat whilst the glass is still wet. Last time we needed 3 to do it, one at each end and one in the middle and that wont happen until later next week.

November 15 No new work

After almost continuous daily activity on the boat I have not been able to work on the boat so far this week. There are various reasons for this mostly because of work commitments and also a minor cash flow issue preventing me from buying some materials I needed until today. So tomorrow I will definitely get some work done on the main build.

In the meantime I have done a little work on the dingy. I have bogged, sanded, faired, high built and further sanded then final coat painted the noses of the dingy in preparation for the final painting of the dingy. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on which way you look at it, I am so pleased with the way the faired noses look that I have decided that for the cost and work, i would rather fair and finish the rest of the topsides of the hulls, as it is such a shame to have the noses looking so good and the rest looking, well, not so good! So I have decided I will fair the rest of the hulls before Paul, my friend paints the boat. I should have it done this weekend and then maybe next week I will get the rest of the boat painted.

Using contact adhesive I have also glued on rubber noses and then shaped them to match the chine lines of the dingy as best I could. This provides protection for any boat I may approach in the dingy nose first. I also plan bump strips on the chine but will wait to see the paint job first. I have also completed the ply flange on the inside of the watertight hatch so I just need to contact down a strip of gasket rubber to seal this hatch. I am in the process of fitting the hinges to the lids. I then just have to over drill all the through panel fittings, back fill them then drill any holes for hatch drains, deck fittings etc. This tedious work for every screw and fitting is a portend to the hours and hours of work to come on the main build. Every time the glass skin of any panel is pierced it must be over drilled, back filled then the actual fitting put into the filled section to protect the balsa core from water ever getting to it, to prevent rot. Ironically it is not sea water that causes the rot but fresh water so any water that gets in under the waterline, whilst still a problem in that any seawater that gets in is heavy, will not rot the core. By any standard, I think our dingy already looks fantastic.

November 17 SB planking back on boat

I had a poor week in terms of work done on MM. I didn't get a chance to get anything done during the week and next week does not look like being much better, work being fairly busy right now. Today I finished the starboard hull to deck panel. I sanded the inside, glassed it and put it back on the boat to set.

As I have said many times on this site, sanding is an extremely unpleasant task. Another way to put it is it sucks or blows, whichever term you prefer! I hate it and today was no different. I decided last time that it is actually easier to fill the entire inside panel with glue then sand it all back off again rather than sanding just the panels then gluing the gaps and glassing onto the still wet glue wet on wet, especially on warm days like today. It is just too slow. I had 2 rollers go exothermic on me last time. This time I only used the one roller, and the wet out only took an hour or so instead of over 2 hours last time. BUT, the sanding, which seemed easier last time did not seem so easy today. Granted I didn't have any fresh 36 grit sanding discs left so I was sanding with near smooth paper toward the end, so that wont have helped, and I only had a 6" disc to use instead of my 8". I ruined my 8" last time I used it, I took a worn sanding disk of it, they attach with hookit to velcro backed disks, and was distracted by something, and a bit later when I came back to the sanding I was doing, I picked up the sander again and started sanding, and wasn't getting too far, so I stopped to check the paper. I had forgotten to put a new disk on so I was sanding with hookit. It doesn't sand too well and of course I ruined it. These soft pads are $50 each and I don't have any cash until next week so I had to borrow James 6" pad and 1 sanding disk! James had a good laugh at my mistake then told me he had done it many times!

I wet out the glass and needed to put a little more glue into the stern section at the bend to smooth it out under the glass. I also needed to take the temps off the panel so I took the most forward one off and left the rear one on, then once I had wet out past it, I put the forward one back on and took the rear one off, besides the shape retention of the temp, there was also the legs to stabilize the panel while I worked on it. Then after the wet out was complete, when I needed to put the panel back on the boat, I trimmed the 2 temps down to the boomerang shapes retaining the inside shape but only 50mm wide to remove all the mdf weight while we lifted the panel back on the boat. Because I used the temps while the panel was off the boat I don't have the blisters caused by the panel moving and bunching the wet glass on the inside, that I had happen on the port side. The panel still changed shape slightly which resulted in it not exactly matching the bulkhead shapes back on the boat leaving 3mm or 4mm gaps here and there. I could pull that down by putting screws in through the glass but I don't want to do that as it weakens the skin and has to be patched or filled. The gaps are small enough that glue will fill it when the panel is permanently attached to the boat and then both sides of each bulkhead will be coved and glassed to the panel, so it wont matter.

I have had the U bolt threads re tapped (thanks Leo) and it seems I may have imperial bolts and metric lock nuts! That is what lead to them seizing. Anyway, I can proceed with the forebeam even though I have the wrong locking nuts because I have 4 normal nuts for each bolt 2 nuts on each thread, they lock to each other anyway so I don't need lock nuts, and besides I also plan coating the nuts with glue and glassing over them anyway, cocoon the nuts so they could never undo. So with any luck I may have the forebeam halves glued together tomorrow.

Jo has updated her page, read it here, Jo's page.

November 18 Forebeam finally glued

I promised Jo I would spend the day with her today, not build the boat. Every now and then I like to take a day off the boat and go out with Jo and do something fun together. I was repeatedly told before I started building the boat that once I started I would have to say goodbye to any other activity but I have steadfastly refused to adhere to that concept. When the build gets too much or when Jo wins rock paper scissors (kidding) when Jo decides she wants to do something else we do. But having said that, I was really psyched to get the damn forebeam glued. I have put it off for so long now. So I got up at 6am and went in and got it done and was finished by 10.30. I also had time to bog the dingy. Again!

I started by gluing the U bolts into the beam (through the blocks and stainless straps) with the special Techniglue, over a layer of uni wet out where the bolt went through. I did up the nuts up tightly and then threaded on a second nut on each thread doing them up tightly again, then I made a pyramid of glue over the nuts and glassed over them with a layer of double bias, once set there is no way those nuts will ever move! Then once both U bolts were in, I buttered the front edge and centre strip with glue and put the top half of the beam on. I didn't bother to glue the back edge because they meet sharp corner to corner, so once I had screwed the top down along the front and middle I drove long screws through along the back to pull the edges in really tight and then I smeared a layer of glue in the 90 degree space on the outside edge of the 2 now touching corner. It is not much to hold it but the glue is only a temporary measure to hold pieces together for the time it takes to get glass on. Also this space at the rear will be filled by conduit for most of the length, the conduit is for the tramps to be attached to.

I also bogged a little more of the dingy, I decided with the bows looking fairly good, it really highlighted how bad the sterns and inside bows looked. I am not going to bother with the underside of the boat or the inside of the boat but I wanted the hulls to look good and for a little more work, maybe 3 or 4 more hours, the boat will look so much better. So I applied a thin coat of bog. I will sand it off again, leaving a much smoother finish with the grain of the glass gone. Then I will give it a coat of primer, sand that off too, to a much smoother less porous finish then spray it with cans of spray paint. Then Paul will airbrush the bows and blend out to a solid color at the stern.

November 20 A Quick apology

No new work on either boat, I am in Melbourne on business. My website server crashed (again!) and when they finally got the site back up again the next day, 3 months of post had disappeared. They used their last back up, which was way back in August, so I have to reload all the links since then, so for readers that are looking for past recent history, please bear with me while I re load all of the missing links. I only pay US$1 per month to host the site so I guess I cant complain too much, and I guess you do get what you pay for, but at around AU$16 per year I get pretty good value.

There should be more work later this week.

November 25 A little more work done.

On Friday Jo and I had a shipment of stock we have been expecting for our business and it was finally delivered after being delayed by a few months. We have been plagued for years by quality control problems so we employed a specialist quality control company to inspect a new manufacturer (that they found for us because our previous supplier would not submit to the QC inspections) so we anticipated that this shipment would push our small business to a higher level and whilst the delay was frustrating we understood that the procedures we were putting in place were to our long term benefit. To our shock, the shipment was the worst we have ever had and none of the stock is saleable. Jo is devastated and I found it very hard to get motivated to get any work done on the boat. I can usually use boat building as a great escape mechanism when stress builds in my other job (I am a partner in another business) but this was so upsetting, I just couldn't get sufficiently motivated to work much this weekend. We will negotiate with the QC firm for compensation but it could be some time before we know where we stand with it. It is a most distressing time but just another of the highs and lows of life. It will pass and I will soon recapture my energy.

This setback will also slow the boat build down until we recover financially as we will now have cashflow issues for some months (the cashflow issues of the last few weeks were because we had to outlay for this shipment in advance) as we are now out of stock of most of the lines that this shipment had and it takes a few months to get back in again. Fortunately I still have about 6 months work to do using the materials I already have, the cabin top, cockpit furniture, the rest of the strip planking, the daggers and cases, the keelsons to name a few, so hopefully Jo and I will have recovered by the time I need money for materials. I was planning on buying the interior furniture panels in early 08 but that may have to wait a few more months.

So the little work I did do on the weekend was to continue working on both the beam and the dingy. I am working on the dingy an hour here and hour there because I am keen to finish it and play with it over summer. All I am doing to it now is finishing work, I could launch it now but I am just tweaking it a little for fun.

Now that the beam halves are glued together, I am getting it ready to glass. The outside has the same glass schedule as the inside halves, that is, 1 layer of uni with the threads running along the beam and one layer of double bias. I also need to run some uni for about a meter either side of the U bolts with the threads going around the beam to beef up the load bearing and spreading ability of the anchor bridles. The first step was to clean up the excess glue using the sanding disc, then I ran the router along the sharp edge to round it off. I then used the orbital sander to sand the rounded section smooth. As I was doing this the beam toppled out of the cradle jig on the bench and onto the floor, I had a lot on my mind so perhaps I lost concentration. I jumped out of the way so I was not hurt. As it hit the ground I heard the sound of metal rattling inside the beam and my heart sank, thinking the U bolts were loose. But how could this be, I glued and glassed the nuts on, it wasn't possible. So what was the metal rattling inside? I pushed a strip of cedar up the middle and heard it move. I managed to pull it out, it was only a meter or so in. I had left a shifter inside the beam and may never have noticed it if not for the beam falling on the floor.

The meter or so drop caused the 2 halves to crack apart at one end. As there is glass around the beam at the u bolt their was never any threat of the beam coming apart, and in fact the glue did not break on the front of the beam, the crack has followed the grain of one plank then jumped the glue line and cracked along the grain of the next plank. This crack is about a meter or so, and I simply wedged them open and re glued them shut. This glue is only necessary until the glass goes on, then I reckon you could drop this beam 100 meters and it would not break.

So whilst I had hoped to glass the beam this weekend, I didn't have the energy. Instead I went sailing with a friend on my little mono. He skippered and taught me a lot about how to see gusts coming and how the boat will point higher as the winds gust more. I am still a long way off finishing the cat but I do need to start learning how to sail, and it was a lot of fun. This is part of why I want to finish the dingy. I am planning to buy a wind surfer sail, mast and boom and see if the dingy will sail. It should and if it does I should be able to learn more about sailing in it.

I had faired the bows in preparation for a friend to airbrush it. This lead me to see the huge difference that a little bog and sanding can make, and the contrast between the faired and unfaired sections made me want to get the visible areas of the hulls to the same level of finish before he paints it with the final finish. The dingy is still not at the level I will need to fair and finish the cat to, but as the paint went on the dingy, it highlighted for me how fair and well sanded the cat will have to be to look good. Even the orbital sander squiggles need to be sanded out by hand with fine paper in order to get the mirror finish you would expect. So again the dingy is proving educational for the main build. I thoroughly recommend a side project like this to practice up coming techniques on your main build. I am almost finished the dingy except for some final modifications I will make once the boat is painted, thing such as hinges and latches for the hatch lids and foam side bump strips.

Maybe I can get the beam glassed before the end of the month. I want to start on the next strip planked sections on the bows.

November 29 More work on the beam.

We are starting to come to terms with the problems in our business and I took some time to get some work done on the beam today. The rear edge of the forebeam has the front edges of the trampolines attached to it. There are a number of methods of attaching the tramps, my favoured method is to glass a 20mm internal diameter conduit to the beam and insert a 6mm stainless steel rod inside, cut scallops in the conduit about every 200mm and then lace the trampoline to the ss rod.

The 2 halves of the beam glue together in such a way as to leave a groove along the back that is exactly the right size to house the conduit. So today I cut the conduit to size and glued them into the beam, holding the conduit in place temporarily with screws. When gluing plastic you have to key it otherwise the glue cannot get a grip on the smooth plastic. Before the glue had fully gone off but after it had started to set, I coved a smooth transition from the beam to the edge of the conduit top and bottom, and filled the rest of the gap at the back of the beam where there is no conduit so that glass would go around the edge smoothly.

So once this is dry, tomorrow, I will sand it smooth and glass it. I need to put 2 layers of glass (one uni along the beam, on double bias) over the entire beam and will go all the way around in one piece overlapping at the back so that the conduit gets extra layers over it. I also have to run some uni around the beam at the u bolts for about a meter either side and again this will go over the conduit. Then once that is set, I will fair the beam using the notched trowel method of fairing. Some people have asked why I did not use a notched trowel when I bogged the round strip planked panel and I will to final fair it. But when glass is wet a thin layer of bog is a good idea just to fill the grain of the cloth. You have to sand glass before bogging if you don't apply it to wet glass anyway so you are going to sand it one way or the other so I prefer to sand bog than resin close to glass. When there are a number of layers of glass it is not so critical but if you only have one layer of glass as in the strip planked panel, I would rather not risk sanding through it.

There has been more work done on Nine Lives, it is almost at lock up stage. There is still a bit of glassing work to do, and then of course a lot of fairing.

We have been sailing in the mid week twilight racing on Dennis's mono every Wednesday night. We are slowly learning how to sail. Jo has added some more on this on her page here.