Mobile uploads; thanks Billy!

Well we had an important milestone in the build last night called LAUNCH.  Here are some photos of her going in the water.  We put the rest of the deck gear on (some temporarily) finished off the sails and then went for a sail.  She's good :)

Well Gerry 'bout time we put it in the water....

Splash time!

She floats (at least with the straps still on)

and with them off!

ready?

Dilligaf

Well that is certainly a name Gerry:

We're back! Fitting the keel.

Top plate is finally on; this is a flat aluminium plate bolted through into webs which in turn are riveted through the section.  You can see some of the deck gear on the plate but not the wichard pad eye which will lift the keel and the boat from a single point.

We lifted the boat by its chain plates where it balances and lowered onto the keel.  It was a bit tight but with some persuasion and some fairy liquid ( other brands of washing up liquid are available) she went on.

So... onto the trailer and to the sail loft.  I have heard it before but Gerry assures me it will be I. The water within two weeks.  Note the addition of the non-skid; starting to look like a bought one!!

Painted and ready for fit-out

In David Herritage's new premises, hull painted before clear coat

Just Hanging around drying for the weekend

Non skid next, nice paint job by Ben Cassford at David Herritage Racing Yachts in Cowes

In her new resting place outside work

Rig back in, fit-out starts next

The idea for the colour below

As the mast and boom are now in place, all fittings etc can now finally go in place. More as we get closer to launch day (before it gets too cold to sail)

Getting There. . . . . Slowly

More Photos as we approach painting time.

A fair amount has been done, got the rig in 2 days ago, rigging sized, all measurements taken and sent off to North Sails UK for sail design.

Fin and bulb dry fitted again to check draft etc, top plate about to be manufactured and then we can fill and fair the bulb. Also might have to paint the bulb but not the fin as it's aluminium and the paint will scrape off as the fit is very tight.

Paint colour chosen, this will be made public once it has been painted, loud, very loud, not gonna be missed on the water. Most is painted with high-build and ready for the DA sander to do it's thing.

We only cut about 50 mm off the foil that was 2 m long

Very tight fit, we needed the weight of the hull to get the fin into it's slot and the weight of the bulb to get the fin back out!! I guess a tight fit is good?

       

Bow sprit fitted for the sake of it, looks sweet!

 

High-build on most of the surfaces

Rigger sorted out the rigging sizes and then there was something that almost looks like a boat

Put to bed for the day among other boats

Boat like?

Some photos of hull faired on trailer during another move

Moving on . . . . . . . . again

Here we go again, been some time! The regular blogger is always busy (me too) so here goes:

Got the boat out of our 'shed' with some difficulty as I forgot to ask our neighbours to leave space for us to get the GT6 out, thank GOD I/we have a handful of friends! To the owners of the cars: sorry if there are any scratches on said vehicles. It took about an hour and a half but eventually got her out and on the trailer.

We used the old set of bunks/poppets that we had the GT6 sat on when we were doing all the work tied to the trailer with some gash line we had.

Then off to the 'other' boat shed. PJ is making the final poppets for the trailer and helping out with the glassing, filling and fairing of the hull in preparation for painting. There are a number of small jobs to do pre-painting, these hopefully won't take too long. I would like to fit all the hardware, step the mast (bond the mast collar in place, fit the mast step and get the rigging sized) before the painting gets done. It's easy, isn't it? As winter approaches these small tasks get more difficult.

More soon, the hull is glassed and almost finished with the fairing, poppets next

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

Sole bonded down

The cockpit sole has been bonded down, the cedar batten as per 'cockpit sides to deck corner' piece is going in place (see below) We've used lengths of pine to 'wedge' the cedar in place, ensuring the batten looks fair. Then to bond and glass the outboard side to the sole.

Again, below the 'wedge' can be seen. the same cut outs as top of the bulkheads

As the angle of cockpit sides changes towards the bow, we had to clamp the most forward section of the batten to maintain the changing angle (below almost visible). Once the batten is glassed in place we'll be filling and fairing the cockpit sole before glassing it. This should stiffen the floor quite considerably as the 6mm plywood is rather soft between the bulkheads. The cedar batten has stiffened the outboard section of the sole loads. Once we have our foot chocks in place this will/should be enough


Next: A long day of sanding the sole!!!

PLANS

Lots of emails over the last few weeks from people about plans..... must be the progress Gerry has been making with the build! I have started to collate the drawings and update the modifications we have made - I am giving myself a couple of weeks to sort out the plans by sneaking time between other projects; indeed I am typing the introduction to the plans as you read this! Watch this space....

Cockpit sole cut and dry-fitted

My Explanation

Mast base structure:

Mast base and fin top structure, straight edge same height as the cedar battens

At fin top structure: The cockpit sole will bond to the bottom e-plate making the sole height the same as the structure? It might need a little filler as the heights are not perfect.