wingnet lashing rails

 The way I made the berth with metal tubing made it easier to anchor the straps to keep the PVC tube in place.

 Vacuum under way of 5 layers of 200gsm carbon tape. I used a T splitter to allow vacuuming on both molds. Given the temperature ( 10-16 ºC) I used a 50/50 ratio of slow and standard hardeners to decrease curing time and reduce vacuum pump consumption. It worked just fine.

 Carbon lamination done. It looks good.

Repeating the proccess on the port side. Here Fernando whose been giving me a precious hand lately is dealing with minor vacuum leaks. The port side was a lot easier and faster to make given the learning curve development. On the starbord side it took us an extra hour to deal with major leaks ( I guess some tack tape got some resin under it and just wouldn't seal. As a result we ended up having lunch way past 3 o'clock. Vacuum was a bit below optimum but enough to get a proper lamination. On the port side it was just a breeze and vacuum kicked in just a few seconds.

Progress is realy starting to show. The cabin floor and rudder mounting area is done and all of a sudden I feel I'm left with just the dagger board, rudder and rudder case ( and some other minor details) to put an end to composite production.

Things are looking good and beating the launching timeline seems more possible than ever. Will see!

Deck Hatch

 

Vaccuming the recess for the Lewmar Low Profile size 40 hatch.

 Vaccum close to maximum.

 Done.

Off-cut puzzle for the cockpit floor. Not bad. Used up much of the recoverable off-cuts, and still managed to save about 1 and 1/2 of full lenght airex foam for the settee back rests and some other details. However I feel I'm running out of epoxy and probably will have to order a few more kilos of it.

Anchor well

 

 

 

As I promised I will try to fill in the steps I completed since july 2014.

 

Anchor well .

 

The part was laminated and trimed probably in 2012. All I had to do was to glue and tape it in place. The pictures below show the process. 

 

 



Here found a simple way to hold the part in place.

 

Precut glass and ready to laminate.

And done!

Quick update

It has been a long time since my previous post but a lot has been going on regarding the project. In fact during the last 2 months many hours have been put in the building process.
I intend to post some stuff regarding that period.
At this stage the platform is nearly finished. Still ahead are the cockpit floor, cabin top, rudder case ( rudder and daggerboard are ready to laminate). Main hull lower end is faired and ready for epoxy skim coat ( top side still need tobe faired).
Now it's time to look for a trailer and source for mast and other rigging stuff.
Close but yet so far!
Timeline is still next summer. I hope I can make it.

Update



 

I have resumed the project on May as soon as the weather conditions improved although only managed to work three or four days before another long rainy period held on until mid June. I did atempt to push forward but it doesn't pay off working under limit humidity and temperature conditions. Curing takes forever and it's dificult to keep a steady rythm.

 

The boat inside is nearly ready waiting for the boat to be turned upside down to do some taping easier to do in this position.

 

In the meantime I tackled the aft beam rear coamings and cockpit seats.

My plan is to do as much as I can with the boat upright before I turn it over to do the underside taping on some hard to reach and work spots.

 

Have also spent a lot of time ( days !!) searching for gear and acessories to prepare some areas for the correct fit ( front hatch, safety hatch, engine mount, side windows,etc). Have been also inquiring about mast and sails. Although the platform is suitable for the R version I am considering both F 22 or F 22R. I would like a faster boat but I plan to do a lot of cruising too under much safer and confortable conditions. On the other hand there are significant savings between the two versions and I must keep the costs under a controled budget.

 

 

At this stage a lot seems to be done but then just as much is still left to do and I haven't even started fairing!

It's mid July and rain has set in again! ( Thursday through Sunday!). Althouh I try to keep up with my professional activity taking advantage of the rainy periods ( and heat waves too!) it's not always possible to acomplish that and I find myself often bogged in professional agendas in weather conditions ideal for boat building and vice versa.

Still the projects keeps going ahead and launching is estimated for the summer of 2015.

 

There a lot more photos of other jobs done this year but I'm having some trouble getting them off my new smartphone. These were taken with my old phone which I use now for camera purposes only.