Cabin Fever

If you remember, I originally drew a "blister" style coach roof; this had one degree of curvature (part of a cone) but probably, when it came to practice, too much curvature for the 6mm ply. Instead I have redrawn with a hard chine (already dubbed "stealth") coachroof. Not only is this easier to build but means we can use the offcuts of the cedar battens and plywood. Waste not want not! I am also convinced by the argument put forward by a local boat builder that it looks more in keeping with the hard-chine hull form.... Access under the coach roof; note the grey high build added before the coach roof structure.... thinking ahead for once!

At the moment just bogged in with glass fillets and already solid as a rock!! Frame spacings are based on our experience of the support required for the 6mm ply when building the deck.

More Sprit

Just to explain what we did concerning the last blog: Firstly we wrapped the existing pole with 4 layers of uni UT-C400/500 then we wound some more carbon winding filament to make sure it was nice and tight (we did the winding by putting the pole on a hand drill and fed the filament on while is span round.... slowly!!). Finally we added some XC411 carbon to affix the pole to the bow and the existing structure we had. I light bogging with some micro-baloons and finally a coating of high build (I will add a picture later) A little more bogging and fairing will be required. MMmmm perhaps we should have just gotten a bigger pole!!

Bow WOW!

After much umming and ahhhhing we have decided to go with a fixed bowsprit for hull no.1 - This was not the original intention; the carbon tube we aquired for the sprit just didn't look man enough for the job... We did consider beefing up the section and recutting the launch tube, etc, etc but in the end thought it would be quicker and easier to run extra uni-directional carbon fibre on the outside rather than cut and shut our exising work. We can also support it further with the bow i.e. a fixed sprit (also we had some spare carbon). The intention is to mechanically fix the sprit (bolt on/off) so we can remove for trailering and stowing. This is probably the most technical piece of work that we will attempt on the boat and assume that subsequent boats will likely use a retracting sprit.

Chainplates

The chainplates have arrived. These are 6mm Stainless with backing plate. We got these made up by a local metal worker to our drawings. The plate is bent to pick up the angles of the shrouds.

In order to get the chain plates at the right height we made a small jig by glue gunning some scrap bits of wood to the chain plates. We then drilled them off before adding the cockpit sides (see previous blog)

Chainplates aligned with the jig on the side deck

Cockpit Sole and Sides

Well; quite a bit to blog about - looks like Gerry has been very busy. I did lend a small designers hand this week but I cannot claim much credit!

So starting where we left off....

Cockpit:

The sole at this point, whilst bonded down, was still causing Gerry and onlookers concern about the bending we were seeing underfoot. However as the sides go on, plus a little taping to protect the deck and then the footchocks - all should be well!

Cockpit sole:

A thin layer or 165g glass all over the sole was added to protect the wood from all our stomping and dropping of screwdrivers and weather etc later on. This also has the benefit or stiffing the deck further. We actually extended the glass over the cedar batten (filleting first) then peel - plyed.

Next we added battens to increase the gluing area for the side panels (exactly as we did for the cockpit sole). The amount of bonding area that we have added is massive and lesser solutions may be appropriate!! Reinforcements for the deck gear (e-plate) were also added . For the chainplates we reinforced either side of the bulkhead with more layers of glass and another layer of 6mm ply.... should be stronger than the pins!!

E-plate shown here is for the spinaker ratchet flip-flop block.

Cockpit sides on - shown with fillets