2010 building logs

October 2010 Surely fairing will start this month

After a month of not getting much done, which followed a month that I got a lot done I am hoping last month was an aberration and that I can make some serious progress this month, because next month it will start to get very warm again and stay that way for 4 months or more. I am hoping to have the nose cones for the boat made and shaped this month as well as turning the boat side on in the shed, more internal furniture work and for the other guys to get a start on fairing it. Time slips past so fast.

Oct 5 Sealing bulkhead 0 and securing foresail anchors

The front of bulkhead 0 needs to be sealed to the hulls so as to create the end of the structural part of the boat and onto it goes the shaped nose cone. In order to seal the bulkhead to the hulls I rounded off the edges and taped it. But before I could do that I had to glue the inspection port cut out back in, clean up the glue and glass it all over too. I had the front plate glued back in where we left off last month and glassing the front and edges was done in one go (in fact finishing the foresail anchor point was also completed while it was all still green wet on wet). One tip for glassing balsa edges is to pre-soak them with resin, I brushed some on and let it soak in then applied the glass.

Once the edges were taped and the front of bh0 had its additional layer of glass I resin soaked the outside ply pad and glassed that to the wet glass on bh0. I had put masking tape over the bolt threads to protect their threads while all this wet glass was going on and I also back filled the slack in the bolt holes with more glue. The glass had holes cut where the bolts were so as to glass as close to the bolts as I could. I then put the stainless steel straps on and did up the bolts (the bolts were glassed in from the inside but 1 of them did not hold tight enough and spun when tightened so I cut a slot in the end of the bolt and held it with a screwdriver while doing up the nut tightly). And then coved them and piled glue up around the bolts and glassed the straps on too. To add some beef to the fitting I ran 4 layers of 450g uni across the straps in order to make it super hard for the strap to ever lift off, most pressure will be levered from the top putting more pressure on the bottom bolt as the sail tried to pull the strap forward, although if I ever fly a spinnaker between the 2 main sails the pressure would be forward. But I cant imagine that the pressure would not snap the halyards before it could budge the anchor plates, remember these are not stays. And then a final layer of double bias to seal it all in and a smear of coving compound around the s/s strap to act as a moisture barrier, but above that a small trough will be left around the straps for a sikaflex layer first, which is flexible and wont crack with movement.

The glass over the bolts will ensure they cant undo themselves. I could not risk using lock nuts as they may have been too tight to get started or tight and as it was one of the 4 was not able to be tightened fully without turning and the solution although easy, was to cut the slot in the front. The other 3 held beautifully and it is all tight and secure now. My only concern will be to ensure no moisture can get in.

Oct 6 Foam nose cones

The boat starts at BH0 as a structure but is designed to have a shaped nose made of foam that is sacrificial, that is, if (and the chances are high in the early days months and years) I hit something hard enough, instead of damaging the integrity of the vessel, I make a mess of the noses but they can be replaced without having put a hole in the actual boat. But I have a couple of problems to solve. I spent more than an hour trying to figure out just how to shape the nose. I dont have an eye for it and the outside of the hull is at a different angle (to the centreline) than the inside making the centerline at the keel centered but then the centerline is not at the center of the top of bulkhead 0 and of course there are a number of chines that make the whole thing very complicated, well for me it is. I just cant get my head around it. So I came to the conclusion (as I am sure most other builders do) that the only way to shape the nose is to do it on the boat, get one done right then make some templates to guide me to making the second one match the first one.

And it is here that the first problem presents itself. I cant put the noses on until I turn the hulls and I cant turn the hulls until I get some decent wheels for my cradles and that is proving difficult. I can find wheels rated to 200kgs but I dont think that is going to be enough, I think I need at least 250kgs and even that for short periods wont be enough. The hull will probably weigh around 4000kgs when finished, and sits on 4 cradles and each cradle has 4 wheels, so assuming each cradle takes 1000kg then each wheel needs to be 250kg, but that assumes they all share an equal share, which is not always the case, for example when the boat is jacked up to get each cradle in place means that the boats weight is unevenly carried by one or other of the cradles. I am hoping that because the load will be temporary and static (not moving) that the wheels can handle it for that momentary excess load.

So with the delay in getting the boat moved I want to progress the work on the nose cones without actually gluing (and glassing) nose cones on. Having come to the realization that I could not come up with any way to map (draw a plan) of how to make the correct nose shape and deciding that the only way I will get nose cones shaped will be by shaping them on the hulls, I started marking out foam panels on the forward face of bulkhead 0 and calculating how much foam I will need. And it was here that I realized the second problem I have.

I dont have enough foam left. I should add that there is no set shape that the nose must be, there are guidelines, for example you dont want the nose too blunt or it wont cut through the water as easily and push a bow wave and water will climb the bow. Schionning have recently changed the styling of some of their boats to have reverse bows, that is longer at the keel than at the deck, which is the opposite of most hulls, that have raked bows at about 45 degrees. I favor the 90 degree square look bows and as sharp as I can safely make them and still have a fair and rounded bow. I was hoping to have the inside and outside lines parallel but this is not possible if I have a square bow because the hull lines intersecting point changes at different points as the chines change each side. So from front on it will still have something of a triangular look wider at the top and narrowing down to the point at the keel but I wont really see that until I start to shape it. So with the foam sheet widths marked on bh0 I can see where they need to start and finish (by height) in order to clear the hull shape for shaping down (so it starts oversize) from the center line out each side of the hulls (each side is the same so I only need to do this once but make 2 sets of the pieces. Knowing these sizes and how far in front of BH0 that the nose cone should be (I was going to make it 400mm but cut back to 350mm, the plans call for 300mm) allowed me to calculate how much foam I needed and it added to more than the foam I had left. The square bow requires a little more foam than a raked bow, cutting it back down to 350mm saved me some but not enough.

So I started experimenting with ways to save foam and it occurred to me to try to make the cones hollow to save some foam. Whilst trying this idea another idea occurred to me that had a number of side benefits besides saving foam. Why not build a ply box to go onto the front of bulkhead 0 in order to save on foam and at the same time creating a tongue and groove (the ply box being the tongue the hollow in the foam that goes tightly around the ply box the groove). This would enable me to fit the nose cones, shape them and remove them again to turn the hulls and give me a key that enable me to re-fit the noses back exactly before gluing them on and glassing the outside. The volume the box takes up saves me enough foam to finish them and also provide some extra stiffening for the foresail anchor points (you can never have too much strength!). A massive win all around and super easy to make. About the only downside is perhaps a tiny bit off added weight in the bows but if you offset the fact the ply box is hollow so the saved weight of the foam volume the box takes up when offset by the ply (9mm x 3 sided box) is probably about even and maybe one other minor risk is that box being somewhat more rigid than foam may damage bulkhead 0 in a collision but if I hit something that hard chances are bulkhead 0 will be damaged anyway so I really cant see a downside.

Next job was to cut the 2 sheets I have left (that's right I still have 2 full sheets of 1200 x 2400 x 40mm foam plus about half a third sheet in various size off cuts) into the part sizes needed to make the nose cones around the tongue boxes and still I will struggle to have enough to finish. These sheets are a couple of hundred dollars each so I want to avoid buying another sheet if I can help it. I still have to make the edges of the cockpit seating so I may be forced to unless I use duflex off-cuts which I could very well end up doing, I do hate paying for things I am throwing away. 

As I calculate and cut the parts needed I am mindful to cut 2 sets of everything, which generally means 4 of everything as each part is the same side each side of the center box on each nose. I am a big fan of pre cutting all parts for a given job then once you start you can go at it until you finish rather than constantly starting and stopping to cut the next parts, but as you are low on material it pays to know if you have enough material to finish a job before starting. I do, just. So next I started attaching the foam to the box. The idea is I will build the foam up around the box with 2 large foam parts either side of it, screwed on to be held in place, then I fill in between them, gluing the foam in but not to the box yet as I need to be able to remove the nose cone again until I am ready to glue it on, so a layer of plastic between the bulkhead 0 and the foam will fix that problem. The in filling with foam creates the key effect holding the foam nose in place after the screws in the sides are removed so the nose can now slide off and on the tongue and groove box. Then I add the rest of the foam to the outsides of the 2 starting sheets of foam to fill out the nose to the full width of the nose.

Today I glued the foam in the keel of the nose between the 2 first sheets. I made a slurry of resin and glue powder, very runny, smeared it onto each foam face and glued them all to each other and to the 2 sheets screwed onto the ply box. When this is set I will do the same along the top of the nose cone above the box and then finally the foam in front of the ply box.

Oct 10 More work on foam nose cones

Usually when I am doing 2 of something that are essentially the same thing I have in the past made both at the same time, and I did that when cutting the materials (foam) for these nose cones because I knew I didn't have enough to finish both, so I had to cut or nest the foam in such as way as to ensure I had enough to finish. Which I did. But when it came to gluing them together i decided to finish one completely before starting on the other. Just to be sure that what I was doing would work before committing myself to the other one the same way. It worked and I spent the weekend making the nose cones ready for shaping. What's more, they are a tight fit on the ply box "tongue" and I have a pitiful little pile of foam off cuts left that are pretty much useless. I will probably need about another half a sheet to finish all the seat front edges around the cockpit. The only annoying thing about being short of foam and making oversize nose cones for shaping is more than half of the foam I dont have any of and need more of will end up on the floor in shavings!

I mentioned I glue the foam panels to each other, but I didn't actually use glue powder, I used coving compound, because it is not as hard as glue and a little easier to sand so that when shaping it the glue does not offer a different resistance to shaping than the foam. It will make shaping a bit easier.

Shaping will not take place now until the boat is turned, still trying to figure out what to do about wheels. 250kg wheels are about $50 each and I would need 16 of them, which is a bit expensive ($800) for essentially a one time use item. I am now looking at 4 x 1000kg wheels (or I should say looking for) and if I can find some then we will weld up a steel dolly to go under the bridgedeck, but will have use for the boat-builders in the shed after I am launched so we will share the cost.

Oct 17 Aft bedroom furniture

Back inside the boat the furniture work continues, although I am back down in a hull again as I want to finish the aft bedroom as that is all that is left to do in the Starboard hull in terms of making furniture (there is still a lot of furniture in this hull to be finished, as in glassed into the boat etc but something or other is holding that up, for example I cant finish the cabinet in the forward bedroom until the mast posts are in) but all the furniture parts are made other than in the aft bedroom, so I want to finish them. That will leave just the port back corner in the hulls to finish, and the galley.

There are 2 areas to the aft bedroom, there is a section in front of the bed itself with the angled wall to the front and the bulkhead to the bed to the back. There will be a cupboard on each side of that. Again I have a hold up on the inside hull side, but I can go ahead on the outside hull side. I should explain the delay that will stop me making any furniture on the inside (chamfer panel) side of both hulls. When building a boat as big as this, it is inevitable that you will have changes of mind or changes of plan AFTER you have built furniture into the boat! Fortunately the change in plans is not hindered too much by the fact that I have built furniture by much but it will add quite a bit of added work getting around the fact the furniture is there and in the way and I have to go through it. What has happened is that the engineers of the masts have told us we cannot run the halyards out through the post sides just above deck level as was originally our plan.

So lets go back a step first. We would like to have our halyards led back to the cockpit, and with a rotating mast you cannot have the halyards exit the mast and then attach to the deck through a fairlead, because in order to keep the sail up you need to cleat the halyard off, so it is taught. This taught line prevents the mast from rotating, or if the mast rotates it wraps around the mast, pulling tighter but as it is likely going to be too tight it just will impede the rotation until the rope breaks or the sail tears etc. It just doesn't work. So our solution idea was for the halyard to run down the inside of the mast and through the top of the mast post and then out the side of the mast post just above the deck (but under the bottom of the mast) and then down the side of the cabin side to the cockpit winches.

Unfortunately the engineers have decided that the minimum 3 slots needed (halyard, reefing line, foresail halyard, maybe a spare halyard but we can live without those) would weaken the mast post at a point of very high load and even with a thicker wall it was just too risky. He wants the lines to exit close to the bottom of the post, he will allow for them to come out a little higher than the sole (so not out the very bottom) but not higher than about 600mm up so at about the point where the hull and chamfer panel meet.

So now the lines will run down each hull along the hull panel just below the chamfer turn, which is also below the steps or shelves all the way down each hull to the rear bulkhead to the outboard well, around a turning block and up the bulkhead and through the deck around another block and through fairleads and a cam cleat to the winch from behind it. Perfect. Lines hidden and it should work well, the outboard well is wet so no problem with the lines running through there and water getting in from the deck. The only problem is I have to go through furniture I have already made. Not a bit issue but more work, but I dont wont to be making more work for myself by making any more furniture along the route until I have all of the lines in place and through bulkhead conduit (I will use copper or stainless pipe with the ends flared) sorted out and I really cannot do that until the mast posts are in. I expect to receive them in about another 2 months. So not a long delay and its not like I dont have plenty of work to do in the meantime. So no more cupboards along the inside of each hull for a couple of months, or at least if I do, I have to make provision for where I think the lines will go, I do have a fair idea.

So the hull side cabinet in the aft bedroom is next. And it works in with my plans to have it built now as its size is dictated by the door position and the size (height and depth) of the rest of the hull side cabinets in the boat, but once I have it made it will give me the sense of proportion I need before making the inside hull cabinet. This is a very small room so I wont have room to make that sides cupboard the same size as other inside hull side cabinets, it has to be much shallower (same height though). So once I have made the outside cabinet, I will then decide what works on the inside hull panel cabinet.

The aft bedroom hull side cupboard will have a mini basin in it, for brushing teeth or a drink of water, every other bunk has access to its own bathroom so I thought it would be nice for that bunk to at least have a sink and tap. The water hose and waste pipe have been put in under the sole and through it under where I think the sink will be. I calculated the size of the bottom shelf and kickboard to the given depth of the cupboard at the set height (all of my cupboards are 880mm high) and because the hull side slopes in (narrower at the bottom) but the cupboard front will be plumb then the depth is calculable at any given height. So I made the parts and de-cored the front edge of the bottom shelf and back filled it. I glassed the kickboard in so that the next day when the edging was set I could glue it to the kickboard front (and 2 webs inside) and glass it from above. I also calculated the size of the shelf and the top and cut and de-cored them and filled all three parts and also a rail that will run under the top that needs its bottom edge filled.

Next day (Sunday) I sanded the edges and glassed the bottom shelf to the kickboard and then glassed the middle shelf in and the top rail. I did not glass the top on, preferring to wait until the rail was set so that I could clamp to it. Next day before I glassed the top on I realized (by checking with a spirit level, that I had miscalculated the size of the middle shelf and realized it was 20mm too big. I trimmed 10mm off, I could not trim to 20mm because my fill was not that deep. I could have trimmed to 20mm and would then have had to re decore the edge with the shelf already in and then refilled and re-sanded it in place. Too hard, so my door wont be perfectly plumb but I defy anyone to see it.

Anyway next day (Monday night) I glassed the top on. I also measured and made front panels for the cupboard, on the aft section there is a bench seat that doubles as a step into the now raised bed entry (I am yet to make the top for this bench which also doubles as a storage locker) and the side cupboard extends past and over it so the front section needs to be closed off. The front also provides an edge for the doors on the cupboard, and at the forward end of the cupboard I need the doors set back about 200mm in order to hide or protect the water and waste pipes. The doorway opening that is left is 600mm so 2 x 300mm doors will work fine.

Next I moved to the inside of the bedroom. There is a section on the inside side of the hull that needs a front on it to finish the bed area. There is room for cupboard created by the cockpit seating (under them) and with a front on and doors this creates a wall down that side of the bed. I was going to make the wall one long piece but there is a section in the middle that is too shallow to be a useful cupboard, only about 100mm deep. And because material is running out, cutting a panel 550mm (that is the height of that section) x 2000mm (the depth of the bed between the bulkheads) would mean that I would use the major part of an entire sheet as opposed to being able to make 2 smaller walls (and doors) out of the end of a sheet, leaving the bulk of the sheet still useable for other furniture. I had an idea for the section in the middle that will now not be covered over with a one piece wall. Instead of the wall covering it over and having an unused 100mm void behind it, I leave it open, put a shelf about half way up (or just a little below half way) and I can put a portlight into the panel as the other side of it is in the cockpit, so that if it is raining the port can still be opened as it is sheltered by the cockpit roof. More cross flow of air and light is a good thing. And the port should be above a shelf so as to be up as high on the seat front as possible so as to protect the port from any water that may crash over should the boat ever be pooped by a following wave with the port open, unlikely but possible so the higher the better, and because it should be as high off the mattress as possible.

So once I had decided all of that and measured the areas needed to be covered I cut the panels and then cut the doors out of them. The inside edges of the doorway and the outside edges of the doors must be de-cored and backfilled. The doors are made for the pieces that are cut out of the panel to make the doorway but in order for them to be usable you must cut them out without starting the jigsaw at the outside edge of the panel and you do this by starting the jigsaw on an angle without the blade touching and slowly lower it down onto the point you want to cut but be careful as the blade will want to wander until it grabs and could start in the wrong place if you dont keep control of it. And if you are not having curved corners you will need to start each edge cutting separately rather than going around the corner with the jigsaw.

The larger cupboard in the aft bedroom will probably need a shelf or divider to split the space but before I do that (and before I glass the front on) I will need to finalize the steering and probably the outboard motor controls as they both sit in the space directly above this cupboard although the outboard control wiring just travel through the space but the steering may need more mechanical parts in there. Probably not, as I will most likely have hydraulics but better to finalize and fit all of that before the front goes on as it gives better access to the space and works will be much easier. It seems that a lot of the build is held up by other parts of the build now. But as you get to the pointy end that is bound to happen more and more often.

Oct 24 Aft bedroom furniture almost finished

The finishing touch to the cupboards on the outside of the hull in the small room in front of the aft bedroom (it is actually 2 rooms, one is the bed itself, the other in front of the bulkhead is now part of the bedroom by the addiction of a dividing wall and doorway) was to glass front panels onto the cupboard to provide edges against which the doors will be hung. Because the cupboard goes up against and then over the seat/step cupboard already in place a panel front shaped to the step with a plumb straight edge formed on panel and on the other end there is 2 plumbing pipes (in and out) and there is no point having the doors open that far and expose the pipes to risk of damage so a small panel from the wall edge to past the pipe or at least past the more vulnerable pipe, the water in hose, made sense. With the size decided on, leaving a 600mm opening, the panels were shaped and the front and top edges de-cored and filled. The side edges are self explanatory but the top edges were filled because the panel will match the height of the doors so will be exposed, the bottom edge will glue to the shelf so will not be exposed. All that is left in that cupboard now is to coat the inside with the white epoxy I use to finish the internal surfaces (I have already sanded the tapes to remove sharp shards). The external finishes and door hanging will come at the very end of the build.

With the outside hull side cabinet finished attention could turn to the inside hull cabinet. Potentially this cupboard could have been much deeper and have more usable storage space because of the chamfer panel but as I have mentioned previously, space is a compromise, more cupboard space in a room like the aft bedroom means less standing room, and in this case the room is so small that the cupboard space would encroach too much on the comfortable use of the room. The idea of the room is to give the occupants of the back bunk a private area to get changed, the original plans and many boats of this style dont have this room, they just have the bulkhead with the bed opening and a curtain across the opening providing the only privacy for the occupants of that bunk from people in the saloon. This means getting changed lying down on the bunk, most uncivilized. The angled wall of the bedroom also provides the stairwell rear wall so is a much better solution, but for that change area to be usable there needs to be enough space to get out of the way of the door swing (the bottom step of the stairwell makes swinging the door into the hallway impossible) in order to shut the door from inside the room. This space is the space that a cupboard on the inside hull could have used. I kept the cupboard on the outside hull uniform with the rest of the boat as it provides continuity and also strengthening to the hull walls and also because there will still be room for some cupboard area over the chamfer panel as opposed to no cupboard at all if I left the space on the outside hull open. So with the outside hull cupboard in place the inside hull cupboard position or more appropriately the size of the open floor area could be decided.

The starting point was the available floor space, which is dictated by the hull side, at the point where the floor meets the hull panel. From there the hull panel goes up at an angle not square to the floor but that is the point where the maximum flat floor space is available, and essentially it is floor space more than anything else that dictates the footfall and therefore standing room in the room, you cannot stand on any space saved by starting the cupboard further up the hull panel so the cupboard may as well start at the edge of the floor hull join and go up square to the floor from there. Which is what I did. I got the front panel of the cupboard to end so that it met the hull at the height of a kickboard and so that a kickboard would not be needed, the hull panel can be the kickboard. Because of the depth of the space between a plumb cupboard front and the angled hull panel is so shallow there is no point having a door on the front or a shelf inside, the space is only 100mm at its widest, it is nearly unusable. I have a use for it however. I have mentioned that the sail handling lines will now run down the hull panels just below the chamfer and access will be needed to them, so having a cupboard with no front door and a fixed top does not allow for access, so the answer to a number of problems is solved by having the top hinged rather than fixed and the front fixed rather than hinged.

I will put a removable panel in the bottom of the cupboard created by having a hinged top, and that gives access to the sail handling lines underneath and allows for a usable cupboard space (access to the lines is only required if one breaks and a new one needed to be threaded through). The bench top that is hinged means that the top is not as usable as a bench but the space directly above that bench is hanging space so there is not much likelihood of much being stored on that bench top that would need moving to get access to the items inside that hinged lid. In order to support the false floor to the cupboard space inside I will run a batten along the front and another along the chamfer panel and the cupboard base will just sit on them. When shaping the cupboard panel I again had to meet the curved face of the seat/step and go over it to the bulkhead. I also need to seal off the hull side from the inside of the seat/step to the hull side so that anything put in the under seat space cannot interfere with the or rub against the sail handling lines as they will not be completely housed inside conduit (to reduce friction and the chance of fouling inside a conduit which would be extremely difficult to remedy) so a lid over the under seat space is the easy fix and provided an edge for the lid of the seat/step which of course will also be hinged. (The shelf on the other sides cabinet performs the same function.)

The cabinet front mimics the other side by having a gap between the top of the front (on the other side its got doors) so even though the front does not open it should match in appearance (from the outside) so I have glued and glassed a rail which protrudes above the front by the same gap (about 8mm) on each side and the lid will rest on (not glued and glassed to as is usually the case with front rails on cabinets, but of course this lid is hinged).

With the front glassed on and a seat step top cut to size now that the exact gap is revealed the shape of the room is revealed, with only a top on the inboard cabinet to be made and fitted. There is enough room to step around the door to close it and to get changed or otherwise be in the room and not feel fully enclosed. I was going to put doors on the hanging space but the feeling of being closed in made me decide not to, and also having doors on the hanging space would have meant that they would need to be opened in order to open the lid to the cupboard below, not a major hassle but in the end, I felt that seeing hanging clothes was not a bit issue, but feeling closed in was.

As readers would know, I am a big fan of symmetry and usually do a lot of forward planning of what I am trying to achieve but 2 things often happening with forward planning, you either change your mind or it is changed for you by circumstances. In the case of the aft bedroom it was a combination of the 2. I did not know when originally planning the furniture in this room that either the door would have to open in or that I would need access to the inside hull side for the sail handling lines. Unforeseen construction issues forced the changes but as often turns out, the changes also reveal unseen benefits. This room is now not as cramped as it would have been and is now far more comfortable. The only problem encountered with the change of plans is a lack of symmetry when viewed from above (it is almost invisible when viewed from in front) with the lid open of the curved front of the seat step. Because it is curved evenly from one hull side to the other but the cupboards are of a different depth the curve visible is no longer symetric. A minor point I know, but it annoys me nonetheless. I will just have to get over it (I am already over it!) because the rest of the room works very well. I am very happy with it. I get a kick out of a plan that works out well.

So next step is to cut and shape the tops for the 2 hinged sections, which usually means applying a section of top at the back that is glassed in that forms the edge to which the hinged section is hinged. Then I just have to put the side walls onto the section that becomes the nav station cupboard to seal that room off from the rest of the boat and still yet to finish the side walls in the actual aft bunk.

Oct 27 Aft bedroom furniture top parts

One of the frustrating things about making your own furniture and making it up as you go along is that there are so many steps involved that require a wait for parts to set, most of the time it is edge being backfilled that create the wait. And because I am pretty much making it up as I go along I am not able to pre plan to do a lot of filling at once so that I have all parts ready to go. Not that I would want to edge fill all day, it is time consuming doing a little at a time but I cant imagine how boring it would be to have to do edge filling only for a day. I do manage to have parts set aside that are pre filled for front rails and the like and they just then need to be cut to length but for shaped parts like bench tops I really have to make the part then edge fill it as I go.

I was on quite a roll on the weekend making the aft bedroom furniture and cutting all the various parts to shape and then de-core the edges and back fill them took pretty much all day Sunday. Then being away for a couple of days in Melbourne meant I couldn't do any further work until this evening. The top on the inboard cupboard has a hinged lid and is a angled on one edge, and all of my tops have been double thickness of 16mm duflex (or polycore) so there are a number of parts that need to be de-cored and edge filled and sanded before they can be glued together so in effect there is 2 lots of setting to wait for, the first being the edging then the gluing together before I can glass it all into the boat. The hinged lid will rest on the protruding 20mm of panel that I have glued to the top, it will all make sense when you see it go in.

So having edge filled all the exposed edges on Sunday evening as I finished up, tonight all I had to do was glue together the parts that needed to be glued to each other, and let them set. Then finally tomorrow I will get to glass the parts into the boat that will finish the inboard bench.

Another milestone has passed this week. It is exactly 5 years now since I started building the boat. I built the strong back in the first weeks of Oct 2005 and then glued the first panels in the last week of Oct 05. I had thought I would be finished by now, but it is most likely that I will finish this time next year. A year longer than I had intended but I have enjoyed the time I have put in, enjoyed nearly all of the work involved and maintained my interests and relationships other than boat related, and Jo and I have maintained our travelling. Its true that I am now getting impatient for the boat to be finished but I have to be realistic and enjoy the rest of the build, because I think i will miss it when it is over. Not that I wont have a myriad other things to keep my busy, like snorkeling, fishing, exploring islands in the Whitsunday's, nah I dont think I will spend much time missing it! And I am impatient for the boat to start looking shiny.

Anyway, on we go. A lot changes in a year, and there are so many unfinished loose ends of the build that will soon be finished so the boat will start to change a lot over the coming months. A lot of shiny things will get bolted on, only to be removed again before being finally bolted back on just before launch. But each part that gets glassed in permanently is one less job that needs to be done.

Oct 29 Aft bedroom inboard cupboard top on

After 4 days of do a bit, let it set, do a bit more, let it set, I have finally glued and glassed the pieces into the boat to finish the aft bedroom inboard cupboard, well almost, I have glassed the last top panel in, (not in the pics but it is done) and next I will build a box over the wiring conduit and glass the ply cupboard end/bedroom wall in to finish it, and make an inside base for the cupboard that doubles as a lid over the void that will have the sail handling lines running through it. And of course I have to white coat it all inside and just before I final finish the boat the tops will be laminated. I have glued and glassed a pine rail to the hull panel at the same height as the pine rail glassed to the inside of the cabinet front and onto it will sit a ply plate that covers the void and acts as the base of the cupboard. It is only 200mm deep and angled because of the chamfer panel so it wont fit much more than small items.

The space above this cabinet top and lid (which will eventually be hinged) is a hanging space so assuming things on coat hangers hanging above it there wont be anything stored on the bench top anyway so it wont impede the hinged lid, and whilst the hanging clothes will need to be pushed aside to open the lid, you can still access whatever is put into the cabinet.

As each of the furniture parts in each room get installed the boat gets one step closer to completion and the forward rooms are almost finished, the aft in this hull almost finished, the bridgedeck is about half finished but I am about to do more on it, and that leaves the bathroom, shower and laundry. Then it is time to finish all of the unfinished parts of these areas that are waiting for one thing or another (or just me getting back around to them) to tie up all of these loose ends before we to on to the final stage of the build, another slow, time consuming part, but one that will be very satisfying, final fit-out and finishing work. The shiny bits. And handles, locks, hinges, and all the other things that go un-noticed in any house, light switches, taps, light fittings, power outlets. Connecting it all up and making sure it all works. Time consuming, but man I cant wait. Very exciting.

Oct 30 Aft bedroom step finished, Nav cabinet work

Lots of little jobs done on Saturday in order for lots of little jobs to be finished in Sunday. Such things as back filling eges, glassing smaller parts together before the piece goes into place (because glassing these small parts in place might be too difficult to get to) or painting some parts with white epoxy off the boat to ensure I get the white epoxy where it is supposed to be and not everywhere else it is not. And of course some parts cant go into the boat until some other part is glassed in and I did a bit of that too, so whilst I was flat out all day (on a fairly hot day, summer is fast approaching) there was not much of substance to show for the days work but I did feel extremely satisfied. I know when I have had a good day working when I drive home sore and tired but knowing I got a lot done, even if it is not visually obvious.

First job was the relatively easy task of grinding down the triangular pine stringer glassed to the chamfer panel to provide the other side of the support for the drawer base, one had already been glassed to the inside of the cupboard front. Because the chamfer panel is angled the pine stringer top face was also angled so only the corner was presented to the base, this is not an issue but the broader the edge the better the surface bedding it gets. I had considered grinding the corner down before glassing it on but that would have meant that I would have to be very precise with my glassing of it on. By grinding it down after I was able to get a very level platform. Being timber (and not part of the hulls) I can put a screw into each corner to hold the base down and I probably wont ever need to open it up again, but if I ever do it is just 4 screws to remove. Very easy, and no-one would even know it was there if I didnt tell them. For all intents and purposes it is just a drawer base.

That pretty much finishes that cabinet but above it is a conduit path that passes from the stairwell wall on one side and through the main bulkhead on the other as the wiring, controls and information passes around the boat. From the stern power for starting the motors, as well as radar information from the radome to the plotter screen and other power and data must travel through the bulkhead and from forward under the top step of the stairwell power must come from the batteries and power board as well as a depth transducer data from the port hull to the nav area (chartplotter screen). So a lot of cabling moving through the area. Initially I was not planning on needing for it to move through conduits under the stairs or through furniture to be hidden as I was contemplating having a raised floor with battens and ply floor strips with cork over it, and under which cabling could travel in a very direct route but have (for now) abandoned that idea as un-necessary. I have plenty of head room and the floor area to be raised after furniture is in is minimal so I may still do it but it seems unlikely now.

So in the middle pic above you can see the conduit coming in from under the stairs so next step was to cut conduits through to the back of the boat. As mentioned, because of the radome being in the starboard aft corner there is probably a need for more conduit space than needed coming aft to the nav cabinet (which is directly above the aft bedroom on the bridgedeck). I still find the easiest method of cutting conduit holes to be the die grinder and router bit. I guess a hole saw would be equally easy and I do have one, but in many cases due to changes of mind or plans holes need to be cut in places where getting a hole saw in is impossible so I just do them all with the die grinder now. Next I simply glued and glassed these 2 conduits in. The space in between these 2 through bulkhead conduits will be covered by a box that presents a face and a top to the cupboard area in the bedroom, the top becoming a small shelf and the front will have a power outlet (a 12v and a 240v) on the front face. The back of that area goes directly to the under bottom shelf area of the nav cabinet.

Next I finished a little more on the step, glassing a support at the bulkhead to hinge the lid to and glassing another thickness to the front edge and shaping it to the curve of the front, de-coring it and filling it ready to replace it to the step once set and sanded. This lid will eventually be upholstered as a seat as well as a step. Then I coated the wall that separates the bedroom from the nav cabinet with white epoxy. I am using 9mm ply because I have plenty of it and not much polycore left so apart from a little extra weight there is no reason I cannot use it, but it needs to be sealed with epoxy and I am using white epoxy on the inside of all other cabinets so I gave it a coating off the boat so it would dry without drips or runs painted on a bench horizontally as opposed to vertically in place.

Then to round out the day I started building a ply box to house my supersize (15") plotter screen. There is nowhere large enough outside at the helm to mount the screen to the helm (and for security reasons I dont want it mounted outside of the locked boat, a good screwdriver as a crowbar and that screen is gone leaving me a hole in my bulkhead) and mounting it inside the boat means it is in the way when not in use (which is most of the time) so the best solution was to have a hinged lid to the bench with the screen housed in a box under it, and that can elevate on brackets up into place for use when underway or when we might want to use the screen to watch a video in the cockpit.

Oct 31 Aft bedroom pretty much finished,

Following on from the myriad of small jobs started yesterday I pretty much finished the aft bedroom, well not the actual bed area, that still has a couple of cupboard fronts to be glassed in and a shelf, but I have some work inside the front of those 2 before wanting to glass the front on but I should be able to get the back one finished next weekend. But today I glassed the side wall into the aft bedroom, that separates it from the nav cabinet. On that side wall is the other side of the conduit box lid support strip so that also enabled that lid to be fitted and effectively finish off the small room in front of the aft bedroom. Of course there is still all of the actual finishing work, door hinges, locks and knobs, laminates, upholstering including the seat and the wall linings, and light and power fittings and a sink and tap.

I also glued and glassed a second thickness to the front of the curved fronted seat/step top and de-cored the edges all around and filled them. Today I sanded the edges ready for it to sit in place waiting for hinges and a latch. In order to sand a concave curved front you need a convex curved sanding block. That just leaves the side edges of the curved front that will need another thickness to match for finish this section of construction. I am extremely happy with how this room has turned out. It was not part of the original plans but I suggested it to one of the designers and now it is part of the standard plan for all builders so I feel a bit proud of that. But the furniture inside this room is totally self designed and it has worked out to be very practical as well as attractive. Heaps of storage, it completely conceals all of my mechanisms and wiring and manages to look pleasing. Hopefully I can do it justice with good final finishes.

So in just a couple of weeks this back bedroom has taken shape from nothing to almost finished. Sometimes it feels like progress is painfully slow, but this furniture has progressed well and is now close to its final shape.

The only other thing I manage to do was to get started on the nav cabinet box which, as the name suggests, is pretty much just a box built into the top of the nav cabinet, which will have a hinged lid that forms the bench top when the chart plotter is stowed or can swing up and open to allow the plotter screen to be extended out and up onto a stand so that it can be operated through the open window from the helm and of course be very visible from the helm or from the cockpit (it can swivel around to face the port side of the boat so that we can sit out there to watch a dvd if we want) and then when not required it can swing back under the lid. The lid will be able to swing back over to re-form the bench top when the plotter is out also so that it can be used to plot on paper charts should I ever need to use them. The audio for a movie or music will run through the speaker system I will run through the boat including waterproof speakers in the cockpit. I have not settled on a window design yet but a swing open window is about the only option not possible because the steering wheel will be in the way, but I favor a sliding window.

I intend to line the inside of the plotter box with felt for some other soft material as well as foam (as in sponge) so that it sits in a soft case environment. Usually this kind of screen is hard fitted to a bulkhead but as I wont be doing this (I dont have the area for that) I will need for it to be snugly fitted into a safe place for it to travel when not in use, which when underway would be up and in use.

So I got close to 80 hours this month, got a bit done, and I am fairly happy with the progress. There is still so much to do that I at times think there is no way I can get  it all done in just 1 more year but at other times I think well there is just this this and this and I am done, so if I can get another 10 months of 80 hours and a couple of 100 hour months then I think I can finish my part of the work (I have a fairer that should start soon but he is very busy with work, which whilst a good sign of his reputation is frustrating because I want to see the fairing get started and another builder that is going to do the windows, internal linings and some of the mechanical stuff, but he is so busy I cant get him to start either.

So a satisfying month for the tangible changes and the progress achieved. Soon the mast posts will arrive (probably not until December but there is a chance they will arrive in November) and work will start on fitting them but next month I plan on getting more work done on the galley furniture. Its going to start to get warm so work will get harder and slower but at least it will still be interesting.