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Nicely done!

Rolled the hull in the rotisserie this evening to get ready for bottom paint and the final boot top coat and then realized that I'd made hardware installation easier. Just stand on the floor with head and shoulders in one of the big hatches in the cockpit sole and many of the nuts and backing plates for hardware machine screws will be in relatively easy reach. Still a two person job of course, but when is there a lunch that's really free?

Three coats of VC Performance Epoxy. It self-leveled surprisingly well but after wet sanding I guess it will be two or three more coats. And wet sand ,,,

Odds and Ends ...

I was painting the keel and using one of the hardware-bonded 1/4 - 20 machine screws that hold the 'cap' on to stop the keel from rotating when rolling paint on. I lowered the keel onto the cradle without untying the machine screw and it came out like a carrot. Oooops. So I drilled for 3/8 hex-head bolts and embedded nuts in West with high-density filler. No gifts for Davy Jones ...

Today we started putting hardware on. Yes, the picture is upside down, or rather, the boat is.

Grrrr.

I'd finished putting on the VC Performance Epoxy, and sanding it, but decided that lazy as I am I would anti-foul the boat and put it on a mooring when we are finally allowed to sail. Got a first coat of International CSC Shark White on the hull , but when transferring the keel from its trolley to my engine crane for painting I whacked the bulb on a bolt head. Gotta fix a divot.

Less haste, more speed.

What-cha been doin'? Odds and ends ....

that keel and bulb looks like you have spent quite some time on it and you must have been cursing the divot that's now in it.
That's a thin laminate for those blocks to sit on. How did you determine the laminate? experience?

Wild ass guess. It's 35 ounces of glass and carbon loaded in shear and bending, but with perimeter attachment the loads are mainly carried as membrane stresses. The biggest risk is pull-out of fastenings, but there are four bolts for the ratchet block and two for the cleat. The jib sheets will be two-to-one, and I doubt that my female crew (or me for that matter) can exert more than 50 lbs tension on the sheet. So the load on the block is 2 x sheet tension x tangent of half the angle between the exit and entry of the sheet at the block. Without doing any measurement or sums, let's say 90 lbs. I don't see an issue, but I've been wrong before.

Warren, 35 oz in sheer sounds more than adequate. I think my rudder sees more load than that (certainly does in dynamic loading cycles) and I think I gave it up at 48? Gotta go back in my build log, but yeah.

I reckon the fasteners have big-ass fender washers or some kind of backing plate?

Your boat looks fantastic and one day I hope to head north from Maine to either see it or better yet, tune or best case, race against it!

Thanks Warren, pull out of the blocks was more what I was worried about but as has been said a backing plate or big ass washers would def help with that

On (not) planning ahead. It would have been easy if I'd done it before the decks went on .... Look down the hole ....

Coulda and shoulda don't make for progress ....

I'm running out of things to do on the rotisserie so I Friday I bought a flotation foam kit for this weekend. Would a gallon be enough? Yes I thought, but I 'shoulda' bought two .... I'll get a second gallon kit of foam on Tuesday. Recall that my cockpit sole runs out to the hull sides so with the boat on edge in the rotisserie there is a nice trough for pouring the foam. Good thing that area isn't exposed the gawkers, because pretty it is not.

But there are trailer jobs to do because the boat goes onto the trailer after I insert the keel. Need to do the wiring and other little jobs.

Now that I've cut through my "air-tight" bunks, which I figured would provide some flotation should the vast yatchett experience down-flooding, I guess I better examine the concept of additional flotation, Warren. Especially as I've seen the boat lay down kinda far in last summer's crash jibe (described elsewhere).

Can you fill me in on the pour-able foam kit? Is it a pre-mix or do you have to add a catalyst?

My one worry is providing a poorly ventilated cavity or pocket below, where water can sit and begin the rotting process.

The 'gallon' kit is actually two 1 gallon (US) buckets, part A and part B. You mix it together one-to-one and pour it in place. It begins foaming within a minute or so of mixing, so don't hang about .... I mixed it by taking equal amounts of each (about 750 ml at a time) and mixing them in an ice cream tub, and then pouring the mix into the boat. I used the whole 'gallon' kit (actually two gallons, expanding to 7 cu ft more or less) along one side of the boat.

Part of the benefit of the rotisserie is that the foam will be above the bilges and routine water. Doesn't address condensation of course, but if the foam is in contact with the hull there can be no condensation there because there will be negligible temperature gradient at the interface. That's why spray-foamed insulation in houses doesn't require vapour barrier.

Getting ready for the second pour of buoyancy foam. It went well, although I got a little more volume out of this kit than the first one. Temperature difference maybe?

It's just about ready to insert the keel, roll it upright and put it on the trailer. The rest of the fittings will be installed with the boat right side up.

That rotisserie thingie is freakin' awesome! Man, that would've made my life easier way back then

Milestone: installing the keel. Rotisserie + engine hoist + wife's help = EASY

Wahoo!!! Lights on the trailer and they work even. And an RCMP officer dropped by to verify my VIN tag so I can start the trailer registration process. But need to get the safety check done before the trailer gets wet.

WOW, that is one hi-tec trailer. Looks REALLY good.

Light-of-day at last. Of course, now I can see all the imperfections in the finish, but they can wait 'til the next paint job. And the eagle-eyed will note that I screwed up the bow bunk height and need to raise it - but instead I may lower the middle one. The bulb is hanging clear above the keel bed and I wouldn't complain about having the boat even lower on the trailer for easy launch and recovery, even though lowering the middle bunk is a bigger job than simply raising the forward one.

I've stuck the boat in the garage so I can free up the shop for a clean-up, not to forget rigging the mast.

Duh ... of course, the bunks are like a lever and to close the 4 inch gap in the forward one I only needed to drop the centre one 2 1/8th inches. Wiggling the bunk out of there with the boat in place required some orchestration, but it worked in the end. And it brought the winch back into alignment with the bow eye.

I went back to my notes and found that I'd added a cushion (Edit: not literally a cushion but an extra bit of height so I would have reserve material for adjustment. How ironic) to the centre bunk height and forgot to add it to the others. Blush.

Got the mast down from the ceiling and started rigging: pin for tabernacle first and then the spreaders ... I really should tidy the shop!

First stepping of the mast ... a lot easier than on the Soling!

Only the fore stay and intermediates were terminated, and the intermediates need shortening another 4 inches, but it was an opportunity to measure the upper and lower shrouds and mark where the halyards will penetrate the deck.

We were going to fish the halyard messengers through but gave up when dinner called. After that frustrating experience (halyard messengers, not dinner) I think I may run an external spinnaker halyard.

I registered my trailer on Monday - with COVID 19 I had to schedule an appointment which was a challenge in itself, with REALLY busy phone lines. Today I took the trailer, with boat aboard, off for Nova Scotia's obligatory motor vehicle inspection. One question in my mind is answered by the drive: with a PDX you look over the boat in the rear view mirror when towing and standard side mirrors are adequate to see around it. And it tows very nicely ....

Indeed it does! And it's so light you hardly notice the load. I'd periodically look in the rear view and think, "why is this guy in the white boat tail-gating me so closely."