The weather has been lousy today, very heavy cloud and regular heavy rain. The temperature was high though and very humid with it. I put in a seven hour session and I think I’m going to pay for it later! Seven hours of climbing up and down step ladders, clambering around, in and on the hulls, handling heavy power tools and general lifting definitely constitutes a good workout. I was dripping!
My hard labour has been worth it though as I have finished the two inboard edges of cabin roof/tumblehome joint. I deliberately chose the inboard edges as they will be virtually hidden when the decks are fitted so I was free to master the finishing techniques without stressing too much about final appearance. that said they’ve turned out OK.
The building plans show this edge made fair with an epoxy fillet on the underside of the overhanging cabin roof. I didn’t like that idea for two reasons. 1. I wasn’t confident I could achieve a really nice finish just using epoxy 2. My overhangs turned out a little small in places. What I decided to do instead was glue a small softwood half round section along the joint to even out the inconsistencies and give something to work to for the final epoxy finish. First job I had to do though was to cut out the cabin roof sections over the two mastbeam troughs. My Fein Multimaster made relatively easy work of that job. next it was out with the plane and the sander so that I could blend in the line of the cabin roof edges to those of the tumblehomes and then out with the router to round off the top edges of the cabin roof. All very satisfying. After sanding and preparing the joint edges I was able to glue on the half round strips, adjusting them to a fair curve by eye and then temporarily holding them in place with small screws.
Day of rest tomorrow, I need it!

Port Inboard Edge View 1

Port Inboard Edge View 2

Starboard Hull Edge Finished

Another three hour session, starboard cabin roof section all glued into position. Exactly the same routine as yesterday, exactly the same amount of time taken, pleasingly, exactly the same result. Now looking forward to planing, sanding and fairing them both in so that they really become part of the hulls.

Propped and Glued Up

Glued In Position

Other commitments kept me from the build over the weekend but I got a good session in today and finally got the tumblehomes glued in place on the port hull. Enough said about them! I also sanded and second coated the cabin roof section so that’ll be ready to lift into place next time. My session today bought the total hour count up to a nice round 1700 against the designers build estimate of 3000 and other builders estimates of 3500 +. This gives a sense of the scale of the project and whilst on the subject of scale Eric Dobson commented last week that it was difficult to gauge the size of  ‘Gleda’ from the photos I’d posted recently so here are a few that I hope will help Eric and others who are interested. (I’m about 5′ 6″)

Me In The Starboard Double Berth

Me In The Navigation Area (Starboard Hull)

Me & Starboard Hull (By Nav Area)

Me & Stern Cross Tube

By The Starboard Bow

A six hour session today and I cracked on with final fit and gluing of the tumblehomes on the starboard hull, all went relatively painlessly apart from one that got away from me as I was offering it up and in the process of trying to catch it I got epoxy mix on my arm, neck and forehead. I don’t recommend this as acetone isn’t the ideal thing to use to wash with! I also sanded, filled and first coated the underside of the cabin roof section. All in all a very satisfying session, not least because I’m that much closer to finishing these bloody tumblehomes!

Cabin Roof Filled & First Coated

Starboard Tumblehomes - Done!

I was in the mood for building today, things always go so much easier when you’re in the right frame of mind don’t they? Anyway the first job was to gently prise off the second large cabin roof section and then spend some time with the grinding disc knocking off excess blobs of epoxy and generally cleaning it up a bit, then I hoofed it up on top of the starboard hull to see how it sat. as before there was a pleasing glow of satisfaction to see that it will only need minor adjustment to get it sitting pretty.

Having had that little boost I motored on with constructing the last two narrow sections of roof that sit at the stern end of the cabins, with all the practice I’ve had with the previous four big sections these seemed easy. I utilised both ends of the mould so that I could do the two together and also combined two steps into one by also gluing in the polystyrene. They’re all weighted up now and need only the last layer of ply glued on. I plan to squeeze that in tomorrow.

Glued and Ready For Weighting

Both Sections Weighted

Lessons learned making the forward cabin decks are paying benefits now with the construction of the main cabin decks. I have the construction broken down into three stages.

1. Lay the first sheet of ply into the mould and glue the transverse strengtheners
2. Glue the longitudinal strengtheners and the polystyrene sandwich material – Apply Weights
3. Glue the final layer of ply – Apply Weights

I’ve completed stage 2 of the port hull main cabin deck today and hope to get stage 3 completed before we go away to Portugal .

Longitudinal strengtheners fitted & glue spread

Polystyrene In Place

Polythene, Ply & Weights Applied

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.

The weather has cooled off to something more comfortable which suited me today as things got a bit physical hoofing two fairly weighty decks up onto the hulls and into position. Before that though I marked up the positions of the bulkheads onto the undersides of the freshly epoxied sections and took my angle grinder to all the edges so as to ensure a good key for the adhesive. Then, after manhandling the decks into position, I used a couple of wooden props to hold the deck up away from the bulkheads so that I could pre-wet and then spread a good layer of adhesive. Then it was just a case of gently lowering the deck sections into position, putting in a few screws to hold it in place and tidying up the excess adhesive. Doesn’t sound much but with all the lifting, climbing up and down step ladders and clambering in and out of the hulls I don’t mind admitting I’m pretty knackered! Anyway I’m pleased to have got them on and can now move onto the tumblehomes and get the first cabins properly closed in.

Starboard Deck Propped & Ready To Glue

Same Deck Dropped & Glued