there's just a few more things

The engine mounts is done. Since the transom is angled, I made a rookie mistake and set the mount too low, then I had to fill the bolt holes and re-mount it higher. (Luckily I popped the engine into place with the mount dry fitted,  so at least I didn't have to clean up bedding compound.)

The Self Bailers are dry fitted. If you are ever mounting these, it's hard to drill holes square to the hull while lying on you back reaching under the trailer. So drill the holes from the side where they go through the bailer. (ie if it's an outside mount, drill from outside) otherwise it's hard to get things to line up.
It does take a moment to get up the courage to cut a big hole in the bottom of your boat. I did make up a test piece first with some scrap.

The bracket for the Jib was fun to mount. It is thru-bolted. Of course that means that you need to climb into the bow to put on and tighten the nuts. A 6'4" tall 200 lb man can fit in past the centerboard case, and under the deck. But for a few minutes, it was entirely unclear if the same man could climb back out again.

Thanks to Caroline for holding the screwdriver outside while I crawled inside.

(Yes, she is smaller, and would have fit easier into the bow, but there is a limit to how far I was prepared to push my luck.)

The weather got better, so I got some stuff done.

1 more coat of paint(1 evening)
*Flip her over and back onto the trailer(1 evening) Thanks Alan !
Bedding compound for the mast track & fittings (1 evening)  
Mount the rudder (1 evening)


Mount the Engine (1 evening)
Fit the drain plugs / self drainers (1 evening)
Mount the Hardware for the forstay and Jib (1 evening)



+ Repaint the deck, it looks pretty grubby.


This weekend is looking touch & go, but it's getting close....


* It's amazing what you can do with a ground anchor* (think gigantic corkscrew), a whole lot of rope, an A-Frame, and a figure of 8 descender, and a few double blocks. Oh yes, and a few packs of rubber kids play tiles to keep from scratching the paint to bits.


** Trees make good anchors too. Anything 10" in diameter or so is not going to budge under any loading I'm likely to apply.

The Lady Caroline in a Blue Dress

I finished painting, and had her covered about 3 minutes before a small shower. One more coat and she's going for a swim.

The todo list is down to

1 more coat of paint(1 evening)
Flip her over and back onto the trailer(1 evening)
Bedding compound for the mast track & fittings (1 evening)
Mount the Hardware for the forstay and Jib (1 evening)
Mount the rudder (1 evening)
Mount the Engine (1 evening)
Fit the drain plugs / self drainers (1 evening)

I also need to fit wooden trim/bumpers, but they can be added after her first sail.

Undercoat

A nice even mid grey.

I can almost feel the salt spray.

Work in progress

 

Hopefully she will look a lot better shortly...

And most of the high build primers ends up in the bin....

It's the weave of the fibreglass cloth.

You see you have to fill the weave.

So you paint on the high build. Then sand it off again. The hollows start to fill up with High build 2 part epoxy.

You could make up your own, but based on the smell (and after one whiff, I pulled out my organic respirator) you have epoxy, fine powder, and a whole lot of nasty solvent to keep it flowing. If you just mix up Epoxy and Filler, it's much harder to work with.

You can use a different colour each time. So it's easy to see when you have sanded enough. And the dark colours tend to have a very dark surface, and be less dark underneath when you sand them back. So you can tell when you have left some hollows.

I think I'm done with this last coat. I'll know after I sand it back.

Then I start painting proper.

I guess the 90% of the work in painting is prep is about right.

Right now the boat looks like a patchwork of white, grey and blue depending on the high and low spots. (Where high and low is measured in small fractions of a mm).

It could probably be made more fair at a larger scale, but hell, it's going to get scratched the first day it sees the water, so I'll go with the 10 feet rule.

If it looks good from 10 feet away, it's fine.

I want to go sailing THIS year.

The Mast Track

 

When Monday comes, I need to order some more high build primer and wait for it to arrive. In the mean time, I set to work on the mast. The last big job there was the Mast Track.

It's all screwed into place.

I was a little worried about the join (the track only comes in 3 meter lengths), but I used and adjustable spanner to hold the two tracks in line while I screwed them down. I also ran some sand paper back and forth on the inside of the ends of the track to make a tiny bevel so there would be nothing for the slides to catch on if the pieces were slightly out of line.

The sail go up and down nicely.

Buy cheap, buy twice....

My DIY Random Orbital Sander gave up the ghost. Sanding back the entire hull of 2 part high build epoxy was beyond it. So I went out and got the Makita one I should have gotten in the first place.

I have also found that the weave on the glass cloth is a lot harder to fill that I thought. I have 2 coats of high build epoxy primer sanded back, and there's a few spots that will need special attention. I see another tin or two of High build Primer applied with a brush to the affected areas.

I'm starting to tire of sanding.

D