Moving Day

Today the boat was moved near the water.

This was the first time I was able to properly see the boat, it takes some getting used to after all this time in the garage. The mast was temporarily raised to measure lengths and has since been lowered. Hopefully the boat will be launched within a week.
The day was a lot of hard work and this would not have been possible without the many helping hands giving up there time to help me. Thank you guys.

Tiller's

Here are some pictures of what I've been up to with the tiller's.

Here is the laser helping me line up the centre line.

Then based off the marked centre line I can work out the Ackerman angle for the tiller. The steel rule in the picture below shows the optimum angle for the boat.

Then I made the tillers to this angle. Much the same as how Hardy made the ones for his boat. These are PVC tubes wrapped in carbon uni at 0 degrees and then wrapped in carbon double bias. If I did it again I would probably use laminated wood as I would prefer the look of a constant curve to the tiller. I thought I could have a constant curve with the PVC but it was harder than I thought, hence the final resulting curve seen in the picture below.

I have been pushing myself a bit lately to get the boat ready hopefully for some sailing over summer holidays. As a result I haven't been taking as many photos for the blog as normal, but things are progressing for sure.

Looking back at the build so far, one thing that I wasn't quite expecting is that building the hulls was a much smaller part of the overall project than I initially thought.

Fitout rolls on

A few pics here of what has been happening with the fit out.

Here is one of the battery holders. These 7.2 Ah batteries are quite small but should be enough for what I need.

 

The picture below shows the finished depth transducer installation. It is mounted as an "in hull" transducer and hopefully will punch signals through the small section of solid GRP I made when constructing the hull. Also as you can see I have made a protective box to stop anything damaging or knocking the transducer off it's epoxy bed.

And here is where I have installed the display for the depth sounder. I chose this model for it's simplicity and low power consumption.

Obvious what is going on in this picture. The location for the porta poti is not as in the plans as this unit is a little to wide to be mounted at the forward location. But this spot is just as good. I made a raised removable floor for it to sit on. I had considered putting in a proper marine head, but recent changes to marine rules about discharge of waste made me think the extra cost and weight not worth it for my intended use, for now anyway.

I'm still enjoying working on the boat even after all this time. Though I've been putting in a few more hours lately as I hope to have it in the water for summer holidays :)

VHF

It is nice to be doing a few jobs that do not involve sanding or fibreglass. One of these jobs is installing a fixed VHF radio.

This picture shows where I have mounted it, in the starboard hull. I will be putting all electronics/switches for both hulls in this area so that they can be operated from outside by just leaning in to the cabin without having to go inside.

 

 

In this picture you can just see how I have made the hole for the cable. I drilled an oversize hole, then filled it with epoxy filler then drilled a smaller hole through the epoxy so hopefully this won't get water/rot problems later.

And here the aerial is fixed in position.

Hatches

I have finally installed two of the first pieces of hardware I bought for the boat. The bow hatches.

First check they fit ok and mask around the edge. The sealant can get very messy if you're not careful.

 

Then the sealant is added.

 

Here it is, screwed in place and job done.

It is funny, I have heard this stage of a build seems to take longer than you think it will. And sure enough it does! I think the main thing is that the number of jobs on the "to do" list becomes massive compared to earlier in the build. The list was something like 3 things, build hulls, fibreglass hulls, paint. Now the list has at least 30 things on it!

Just like Bernd said, I think I have done 90%, so now I just need to do the last 90%. :)

Interior Lighting

I'm starting to work on the electrical system for the boat. I will try to keep things minimal while still allowing for some items to make cruising easier.

This small LED strip light will give plenty of light in the cabin. I am also happy with the mounting as it is designed for corner installation so takes up very little of the small space in there.

It is a good thing now with LED lighting using so little power I should be able to get by with small batteries. The plan is to have separate batteries and circuits in each hull with solar panels to keep them topped up.

More on the Rudder Housings

Some more work here on preparing the rudder housings.

The process can be seen here for the mounting points to the gudgeon's, starting with plywood sandwiches shaped to fit the housing.

Then cut around the outside and glued in place.

 



 

Then wrapped up in a about 2 metres of 300 GSM carbon uni.



I have had to stop there for now on the housings as the boat will need to be moved forward to allow me to line up the gudgeon's on the housings. The transom of the port hull is hard up against a shelf in the garage so I'll continue with these once the boat is moved which I'll leave until later as once moved I have less space in the garage.