No pictures – left camera at home and forgot to snap a pic with my cell phone (ok, actually it was just too hot to stay in the garage long enough to take a picture)… Temps have been in the low 100’s for the past 2 weeks, but we’ve (slowly) got a little done. Well, we’ve been working slowly except where epoxy is involved… Tried paint-rollers for the exterior of the main hull because of all the curves and found it a joy.

It started out simple enough… Do more rough-fairing and filling on the starboard side of the main hull… Untill we made another pass and thought… ya know… This is good enough to laminate… And so the tale of this weekend starts… 🙂 First had to carry the new roll of A-spec fabric from the living room where it’s been safely sitting into the garage. Not too difficult, only 100 lbs. Then we rolled out a length of fabric, starting at the keel over-lap, and put a few Raptor staples to hold it.

Just got an update from Ian saying that our beams shipped today. Spent the past two weeks watching my 5-year old nephew so didn’t do much boat-work (except start the rudder cassette) and am typing this from Montreal, Canada and not flying home until this weekend. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some work done Sunday/Monday (work holiday) so we can get the starboard side laminated and get ready for installing the beam mounts.

We set up the rudder a few weeks ago with the 3mm wax sheet, wood molds, fillets, etc – but I can’t seem to find a picture of it. This morning it was finally time to start construction. 3097 Here’s the cassette with all carbon layers specified on the first page of construction and peel-ply in place. 3093 Everything came out great, except there was a problem with the sheet wax.

I meant to add some of these pictures last week, but couldn’t find my USB cable after moving. Here’s the carbon fiber traveller finished, next to the selected Harken track. 3067 We also managed to finish the rudder (I think, hope…. will know more once some primer is on)… 3038 3070 I’m actually real impressed with how close we got to the profile sections since it was all done by hand.

Whew.. it’s been a busy few weeks with no time to work on the boat. Dad’s gone this weekend, so it’s just me doing some work. We all know how I love to sand, so no progress on the main hull until he gets back to help 😉 Decided to spend today starting to make the traveler. Two weeks ago we ordered some boat stuff and it’s been tricking in over the past week.

There are some pictures in here from last week as well because I left my camera at the work-shop and didn’t realize it until over half-way home. I’ll start with the main hull (which now has the deck completely laminated). We cut out the anchor well and the hole over the bow-web that serves as a location for the jib furler (the halyard runs through this hole). 2960 Part of me wishes we could have cut this out long ago because of how much nicer it is to access the bow interior.

Update – when dad got back home from band rehearsal he somehow managed to guilt me into working through the sick and laminating the port side of the deck. Did not take an updated picture, however.. Just use your imagination and pretend the pictures below have peel-ply over the port side now… 😉 We were going to try and fiberglass the port side of the hull this evening but allergies have me feeling sick all day.

Spent a few more hours with the longboard and decided the hull was fair enough to start fiberglassing. Did more before that since dad had to work today though. Last night I added the additional reinforcements specified by Ian in the update for the rudder web. Also finished the bobstay eye. 2903 This is the part where I’m going to plug Ian as a designer – he always answers questions promptly (even though they might be trivial) and is quick to send out updates.

With this post I think I am finally caught up. I’ll try and take more pictures again and post in a timely manner. The bow is closed in from the bow-web to the keel and we decided to add the extra 3/4″ foam to the exterior – this actually happened before laminating on the keel but I forgot to add it. Have the bow template set up with the position of the bobstay-eye but need to add the interior layers of foam to the bow before that can be positioned and laminated into place.