It’s happened again, a little over two weeks just disappeared without a tap being done on the boat. I can look back and say it was unavoidable because we went down to Cornwall for a few days, I was busy working on my business etc. etc. and it’s all true but the reality is that it keeps happening and if it keeps happening then my launch date will keep getting pushed further and further away….. I’m not going to let that happen. To be honest this time management issue affected everything, I have 5 important areas of my life I need to keep making progress with and Gleda is just one of them. I’ve written more on my Dream To Sail blog and I’ll be expanding more in future blog posts but all I’ll say here is that I’ve made some serious changes and from now on I’ve scheduled at least 2 full days a week on Gleda with some extra flexible time available as well. This means I should be able to make some steady progress from here on in.

Decent dry fit at last!

Cabin Roof down safe

Today I spent some time getting reacquainted with the tumblehomes. I confess I’ll be very very glad to see the back of them, for me they’ve been the most frustrating part of the build so far. As I said before, when I dropped the cabin roof into place I could see that the second set of tumblehomes I’d cut months ago still didn’t fit so today I’ve re-cut two of them and made two new ones and I now have a full set of properly fitting tumblehomes on the starboard hull. After dry fitting them I manhandled the cabin roof back down onto the floor and turned it upside down so that I can sand and epoxy the inside before it’s fitted. It’s a big section to handle on your own and I was scared silly I’d drop it but with a bit of care and a lot of sweat I got it down OK.

First the bad news, I haven’t done any work on the boat this week but the good news is that I’ve been super productive working on my business and planning the way forward with the non boat building side of the Gleda project. I’ll be sharing more with you soon but for now I wanted to make you aware of a new website I’ve put up. It’s at www.dreamtosail.com and although there’s not much to see there yet I have published a post that outlines my aims for the site. I’ve never really been happy with my previous attempts to communicate my life outside the build but I am super confident that dreamtosail.com will be the perfect platform for me to show what I am doing to make my dream a reality and, hopefully help others do the same. I hope some of you will find it interesting and I’d appreciate it if you could perhaps link to the site or tell others about it.
Any thoughts or comments you have would also be gratefully received. Talk soon.

My last work session before our 10 day break to Portugal I’ve completed stage 3 and got the final sheet of ply glued into my first main cabin deck section so when I get back I’ll have a completed section ready to try. I’ll be using the down time over the next few weeks to get my head together a little and start some serious planning with time lines so that I stay on track for the May 2012 launch. I’ll post stuff when I can (internet access permitting). See you in a few weeks!

Starboard Side Tumblehome Glued

Another heavy session today but I wanted to keep up the momentum and get the four tumblehomes in place. Before I started on them though I took a bit of time to finish and clean up the deck section themselves. A little bit of planing was needed to get the forward and aft edges nice and flush with the beam troughs and there were a few blobs of stray epoxy to get rid of. After that it was simply a case of working methodically, one section at a time, prepping, gluing, temporarily screwing and then cleaning up each tumblehome until I had all four glued in place. Now I’ve done that I can have some fun rounding off edges and strengthening the edges with glass tape. I’m going to leave all the interior fillets and strengthening for now as I want to concentrate on the outside of the hull during the Summer. My aim is to get the hulls fully enclosed and hopefully sheathed before the Winter weather returns (I know, but you have to think about these things!). My reasoning is that I will then be able to work inside the hulls, with heating if necessary, and not be slowed by poor weather.

Another clearing and cleaning session today and I’m now happy that I’ve got the barn looking like someone owns it again and that I can work in comfortably. Next job was to take stock of my ply and timber and I was pleased to find that I’d actually got the 4mm ply needed for the cabin tops already in stock, I’d completely forgotten about it. I also spent a goodly amount of time with the plans and build instruction book refreshing my memory and clarifying what to do next and what materials I need. The next job is quite a big one – making the sandwich construction cabin roofs and decks. I want to get these made so that I can dry fit them and ensure that the cabin sides are right before gluing everything. I first need to finish making the mould and also need to decide on, and source the sandwich material. This can be Balsa, Styrofoam, Polystyrene etc, it just needs to be fairly dense, a good insulator and able to take the epoxy. I’ll get this sorted by the end of the week. It’s the big Beaulieu Boat Jumble this weekend so I’ll be heading down there to see what bargains I can pick up so that means it’ll be next week before I can start work proper…… Can’t wait!