Since the last post, a lot has happened. And I mean a lot. In the last post, we had one section of cockpit floor down, now it's all done. We also have a keelbox. Anyway, rewind. After my last post, Oaky & Timmy set to work, and fabricated the basic section of the keelbox. Using an excess off-cut from the keel, they wrapped it in marine carpet, and then piled on some Carbon Fiber, to achieve the shape, and then glued it into the hull. We also put the back section of the cockpit on, after giving the icebox a lovely coat of paint. After gluing and filleting that section in place, Oaky & myself worked some magic, and laid Carbon along the join between the top-sides and the cockpit sides. After a bit of fairing, it doesn't look too bad at all.

Last week, Timmy left to go on a cruise to Fiji & New Caledonia for 3 weeks, and so left Oaky and I with the job of getting the boat ready for Sports boat & Trailerable nationals in 6-7 weeks time. No mean feat.

However, we’re currently making brilliant progress. In the 4 days since Timmy left, the two of us have made the keelbox close enough to a nuclear bunker. After already having strips of hardwood shaped and glued in, we then resined the side of the keel shape, and put two big pieces of timber down either side, before filling any gaps with some bog, and then closing it off with some pieces of resined ply.

Next on the agenda was finishing the floor. We gradually cut down a piece to fit the width, and then cut out a slot above the keelbox, obviously, for the keel to go through. Then, today, we stuck it down, after running some final fillets down the side of the keelbox, and resining the entire thing. After gluing it down, bogging up all sorts of holes, and Oaky running some beautiful fillets, we took a break to wait for it to set, before getting serious.

We cut some 500mm wide Carbon in to strips approximately 165mm wide, and then resined down the sides of the cockpit, and the bottom of the cockpit sides, and then laid down the Carbon and smoothed it out. We smashed out the port side, but took a little bit longer on the Starboard side, needing to smooth a few kinks out, with help from one of our mates.

Now, our hope is to start laying down some glass tomorrow, mainly on the cockpit floor, and nationals are looking decently realistic at the moment! Final challenge is the rig, with only a bare section in the shed at the moment. Also, if anyone has any tips on which sort of glass cloth to use where, they would be greatly appreciated!

Anyway, stay tuned for more very soon!