Dilemma (text)

Dilemma
As far as boat building goes last 18 months have been poor in terms of turnover. Every time I make plans to give the boat a good leap towards completion I find myself tangled with all sorts of other presumably important and urgent things to do.
To start with I must build a shack ( 15x 3m) to breed rabbits, ducks, chickens and possibly a pig for domestic consumption. We have enough space and the prices of protein are getting off the budget, and then there’s nothing like home grown food. We already have home grown vegetables; now just have to add the animal protein.
Then I find myself facing another dilemma. Recovering or converting into stove wood an old corn dryer (espigueiro) clearly in intensive care. The boat may be delayed a month or two but this human artifact is at least 60 years old. Can’t say no!
Throwing in a glass greenhouse for the wife and some interior and exterior face lifts, oh boy , do I have plenty of work to deal with.
And then, of course, I have my professional activity in civilization where I get , although miserably, some source of income.
Can’t complain though. It’s keeping my blood pressure down. After being through a sort of high blood pressure gale ( waking up with over 100mmhg diastolic) and gone to the Cardio ( Holter, stress test, echocardiography, and the whole lot) it seems that I just need to keep working hard! By the way, the stress test was about to kill me. At 168 pulses/min on a brand new tread mill which the operator clearly looked like she didn’t know how to turn the thing down, gave me a glimpse of how one can shut down to death if caught running from some sort of an evil creature! The truth is that after the episode my diastolic pressure feel down as low as 65 mmhg! The heart was just a bit rusted I guess!
Been medicated allright ! But nothing like an off the shelf “maduro alentejano” ( Portuguese red wine). In acute situations it clearly beats all those fancy molecules like lisinopril and the benzodiazepines.

Dilemma

Not much new!

The boat is on back on its "feet" again!

All exterior lamination has been done. Now I can walk safely on the inside without the risk of cracking the putty bonds.

To brace the top and bottom laminates where layer overlaps were less extensive I applied an extra tape 0/90 280gsm between the arms mounting areas estending about 350 mm each side.

Unless you're a feather weight, walking on the unsupported cabin floor panels is a bit risky. To be able to work confortably on that section i built this simple jig out of some tube stock I had with some minor adaptations.

Here the jig can be seen in place and it works just fune. It's very easy to install from the inside without the need to get into the tight space.

Most recent work was to laminate the UD's across the cabin floor each side of the beam mounts.

Plans ask for 150mm wide 500gsm UD. I only have 100mm wide tape so I put two extra layer of 0/90 underneath one 200mm and the 2nd 150mm. That should give an equivalent 100 mm wide 780gsm plus some distributed reenforcement which I hope it will be an adequate compensation.

Next job is to complete the inside taping of the dagger board case,front bunker tops and bow inteior sealing and bonding.

Then, I'll be ready to open up the slots for the beams. Still a lot of work ahead!

On another register I've been tempted to go for a custom made carbon wing mast. Still waiting for cotations for the alluminum poles ( like Sparcraft F 185C). I'm pretty aware of the risks involved once you get into carbon mast building but I can´t resist the challenge!

I'm sure a boat such as an F22 can gain a lot of extra speed from a properly designed and built carbon wing mast with variable section.

Will see!

If anybody as any good inputs on this subject I would appreciate.

Largest laminate done! Yes!

Thursday morning didn't look very promising weatherwise. It was foggy and there wasn't a single pacth of blue in site. Still , plans went ahead and inside the shop temperatures were in the low 20's and humidity under 55%. I was just hoping it would hold during lamination and initial curing. I knew drier weather was coming on Friday and Saterday so, it would pay off. After all everything was arranged with my friends for that day.

Laminating 6x7 m of 280gms glass using hand lay-up was getting me a bit nervous. The first layer gave some fight but then all went very well. I used the dry on wet method with plenty of resin under the first layer and that helped move the cloth around. Following layers just soaked up the excess resin . At the end used a bit more than 12 litres which brought the resin to glass resin pretty close to 50:50 which is better that I could ever anticipate.

Having three mechanical engineers as extra hands , including a college professor , to boss around (lol) was something special!

At the end cooled down a bit with some beer.

In the photo I'm the one with decent working clothes .lol

My thanks to Tó, Esteves ( the Prof) and J.Carvalho. I wouln't have been able to complete this stage without there precious help.

Now I'm making a pause as far as boat building goes.

My shop is a mess! I'm running out of floor space. Next week I hope I have a new set of shelves

and a decent working table custom made for the next building stage.

Weather issue

The hull has been ready since nearly the end of July for final major lamination. There has been some good weather since then but it just doesn´t macth up with friends being available. Now that I had everything set up for next Thursday the weather forecast is a bit on the wet side. No good for amine blush. On the other hand I can use whatever peel-ply I have left to mitigate the situation.

In the meantime I built the porch and fixed a rocking garden chair. Working with wire isn't for everyone. I took a taste of the mean stuff (8 gauge?) on the porch. One the chair used a 10 gauge wire but still had to put on a fight.

Tomorrow will see how it works!

The porch looks ok. Put some solar lamps on the covering.

Have loads aof stuff to do around the house but right now just wanted to finish the hull and get on with boat building.

Whatever is left of this summer looks like it's going to be a bit on the wet side and that's no good!

Well...

One down one boat to go!

Well it all started with a few pilars and a great load of " god damn me if I don't pull this one out!".

Then... it was mostly pain!

But in the end it's there and for me it's more than satisfactory.

I think I'll spend some good moments swaying on that nett after a good working day on the boat.

The boat is ready for glassing and the message to my friends is: "Let's do it!"

Do I have other projects?

Oh boy! This is going to be a hell of a year. Throw in a shed for rabbits, ducks, chickens and a freak'n pig... I'll tell you later! lol

Other stuff

The boat has been belly up for time waiting for the right time to do the last large lamination.

I'm going to need some extra hands to do this in one go. Most of my friends are out on vaccation.

In the meantime I set my hands on another project long overdue, making the porch.

I'm using old wood from the original house and using whatever other material I have at hand. It's going to look a bit old fashion. So far (10 days working like a mule!) .

I hope to have it covered tomorrow!

I'm completely beat!

Belly up!

Finally got the deck surface ready for glassing. Here a rebate can be seen on the fore beam mount area. There's also a slot I routed through to serve as a guide for the position of the bulkhead. This area will be cut latter for the beam mounts.

Second cokpit floor in position and taped. Pre flanges worked very well. Amazing how stiff it become!

Belly up and ready for some sanding shaping and finally laminated.

Weather continues good with temperatures in the high 20's low 30's . Resin cures like crazy! Got to watch out for heat in the pot!

Comings days hope to continue on the inside ( plenty of stuff to do). Let's hope it doesn't get too hot!

The rudder and daggerboard have been restlessly staring at me since last December. I guess I´ll have to glass'm up and put them out of their waiting misery.

Little trick'n Tip!

Created an access to work decently on the rudder mount. Later will use it to reenforce the outboard mounting plate.

To do it, just routed 10 + mm down and left the bottom layer as a flange to support the cap.

It's going to be a life saver!

Here , rudder mount in place. It's official! If it's got a rudder ( well sort of!) , it's a boat!

Rudder mount

Getting ready to cut the gudgeon block in two. Cutting a thick glass/carbon fiber block can be a nightmare with all that terrible dust blasting off from the sawing disk. It can turn into a serious itching episode, so I'm not taking any chances. Despite the protection some dust still managed to get through my footware causing some very unpleasant skin irritation.

Finnaly the parts were cut and prefited on the web

A rebate was created to accomodate the UD

And first layer o C glass setting up.

Tomorrow will put final glass/carbon layers.

I don't know if it turned out to be easier or stronger than what was in the plans but I surely did my way.

Rudder gudgeons

This time I decided to breach plans and do something out of my own imagination.

I started with a HD blank with a half circular recess at one end. Then wraped it on a BD 400gsm.

A

Wraped 2 layers of C lenghtwise , clamped it and then clamped the tube over the laminated strip.This helped getting some tension on the glass tape.

Added de carbon fibre....

... and trimmed the part, in this case, enough for both gudgeons.

Slow but steady!

Wet weather has paid a visit in what seems to be a reminder that summer isn't a sure thing yet.

Anyway there's plenty of suff to do.

Right now I'm preparing the hull for lamination. At this point all rebates are done. Still need to place some HD inserts according to plans.

Before lamination I'll spread a thin coat of glass filled resin to create a better bonding surface. I've been doing this ever since I started the project and it has given excellent results.

My plan is to laminate in two stages . First the deck and then the hull. Still have to figure out glass layout and overlaps for best results.

I'll leave the bow for later. I find it very tricky to walk around the inside without the outer skin glass reenforcement. There would be glass overlaps in the bow area anyway so that shouldn't be a problem.

Finaly back on track!

Nearly 7 months after I last put some work on the project, it's time give it another push towards completion. Finaly wind turned East ( hot and dry, actually a heat wave in the making) and the structural foam should be dry enough to start some serious lamination work.

The boat ( yes! it's looking like a boat now!) is off the mold and hangs off the ceiling.

Mold has been dismantled and it's time for some cleaning up an sorting away stuff to prepare the shop for some work.

The idea is to finish major lamination work before the end of the summer and hopefully have it ready by next summer ( where did I hear this before?).

Last friday I had the chance to use some friends help so didn't have time to install the cockpit floor on the starboard half and just braced the parts across. This way I can still finish up some details and apply some interior paint while it's more easily accessible.

Generally the surface looks good and workable. A lot of shaping and sanding on the coming days.

The boat is hanging on just a pair of straps and it looks pretty light.

First job is to make a couple of births and should be ready to fire away.

Given the circumstances, were I do name the boat right now, I would probably call it "Crisis Buster" !