I’m going to back up a few weeks to say that due to a lack of thought when attaching the deck to the port float, the reference lines I needed for extra layers of fiberglass at the large access hatch were not transferred to the visible side. Some measurements were made and a few cuts with the hole saw made in order to feel for the stringers inside. When we glassed the deck in place, a big assumption was made that the access holes I drilled in the deck would be in the same area as the large access hatch… Was finally able to go to the storage unit with a tape measure to measure where the hatch ended up on the starboard float (yes – this should have been done before the hole was cut….

Got a good amount of work done today. We started out getting the port float outside face ready to laminate … and proceeded to laminate it You’ll notice some buckets of fairing compound under the keel in this shot, it’s keeping the shape of the foam for the port side of the daggerboard case – got this all cut and worked on it while the float was curing No pictures of the in-between, as it was rather time-consuming and a little on the messy side…

I built the mold for the daggerboard case at a friend’s house earlier in the week. Turned out good, if I say so myself. Marked all cut-lines and reference lines accordingly…. Even decided to properly color-code it in case I was half asleep while laminating. Dry-fit the foam with HD inserts in place And did my first vacuum bag (after a late-night run for some felt to use as breather)

Whew… I think things at work have finally dropped back off to normal – I actually had this past weekend off (except a few phone-calls), something that hasn’t happened in almost 2 months… hopefully now I can get back into the business of boat-building since dad’s been able to pick up some of my slack on this last float. Not too much to report other than a bow-cap that is shaped and glassed

As I’m sure many of you have noticed from the e-mails I’ve received, there hasn’t been much work on the boat lately. It’s the busiest time of the year at work right now so I’ve been working 7 days a week for almost the past month. Dad has done a lot of fairing and sanding of the foam in what little free time he’s had lately, and hopefully in the next 2 weeks I’ll be able to start putting in some hours on the boat again.

Shaped the keel this weekend and started filling screw holes and joins on the outside of the floats. Also bonded the deck to the port float and screwed down into place. Most of the screw holes from the deck bonding are filled and sanded down. Still need to rough-fair the exterior of the deck and float sides, radius the deck-edge join and glue/shape the bow cap before external laminating. Time spent: 5 hours

Was not able to get as much done this weekend as I wanted due to weather, but accomplished a good deal with some goals set for next weekend. I realize this is the same thing only on a different float, so bear with me until more interesting things happen. 🙂 Masked out the deck and made sure to mark all my reference lines dark Tried to use as much scrap off-cuts as possible for both the deck AND the fabric.

Have not had a chance to update in a while — been super busy, and not much time left for boat-work either. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much that was going to get done on the starboard float before going into storage… I’ll spare the boring pictures and put the semi-boring pictures up… 🙂 Loaded up and ready to head out – Tried to get a shot straight-on, but the camera wouldn’t go wide enough

Whew… I can’t say that it’s ready for storage yet, as the primer did reveal a few areas that need to be touched up (some pin holes that were too big to get filled and some areas around the chainplate that need to look better)… Lighting isn’t too good, so hopefully will get better pictures next time when the primer is cured and can be taken outside to look at and sand the few runs we ended up with.

Weekend went a little quicker than I thought it would, but not quite quick enough to get where I was hoping to… it does mean next weekend should be a short one though. First thing was to finish fairing the outside face near the bow – the only remaining portion from last weekend – and to clean up the keel lines, deck radii and smooth the bow over. We then lifted the float up to position right-side-up on different cradles to go to work on cutting the slot in the chainplate