March 29th

I took the weekend off from boat building in order to build a fence at the beach house at Ocean Isle Beach. Was ready to get back to the boat shop, so after my normal work day, I put in another 6 hours of boat building Monday night (got a phone call a little after midnight from a not so happy wife who woke up in the middle of the night to find she was sleeping alone). Sanded glass and then glassed in the cockpit deck. We had a really cold spell last night (down to the low 30s), so I waited for what seemed like forever for the fillets to kick. They were only partially kicked when I laid glass, but it still worked out fine.

The boat is getting to the point where you can really tell how she will look when finished. I had Beau help me with crowning out the deck in order to speed up the process. It would have taken me a good amount of time to think through it, and crown out each station, and he can do it by eye at this point. While he was crowning the stations to accept the deck, Mr. Reginold glassed the back sides of the panels that run along the chine between the front and aft deck. He grinded them down once they cured, so they are set to go.  So, that was money well spent I think--probably saved me about a week's worth of build time.

Second Weekend in March

I can certainly feel the spring season on my heels, and it has given me even more motivation to get my rear end into the boat shop even more. Amazingly, my wife is still supportive at this point, but I know she has got to be looking forward to the completion date as much as I am.

I spent the better part of the weekend in the boat shop. Friday I put in three hours, Saturday 7 hours and Sunday 5 hours.

When I put on the spray rail, it raised the hull sides by about an inch and a half in the back of the boat, and three inches at the front. To compensate for this, I needed to raise the stations as well so that they'd be tall enough to accept the deck.

First I prepped all the surfaces by sanding it all down. Then I cut strips of 1/4 inch divinycell out of a sheet that I had already glassed on both sides. I screwed these strips in place on top of each of the stations. The I cut thicker blocks out of the glassed divinycell and used them to box the strips in place. Once everything was dry fitted I epoxied it in place, including the blocks, and I pulled fillets along the edges of all the blocks. Then I wet out some strips of glass that I had pre-cut for tabbing, and tabbed all the strips in place.

I also cut out the front and rear decks, and glassed one side of them with polyester resin.

The last vertical support is in place for the side decking that will run between the front and rear deck. I just glassed and tabbed it in one step.

Spray Rail

Last week I put on the spray rail. It was 5 inches in width, and yesterday it got planed down to be about 3 inches in the back. It made a huge difference in the profile of the boat, and should also make a huge difference in knocking down the spray the boat puts off while running. The rail raised the height of the hull sides from 16 to just over 18 inches at the transom, so the rails should also be high enough to where they will not cause noise against the water.

Really excited by the way that this turned out. I think it looks really sharp.

Grinding down the rails







Another angle - power planing

New Splash Rail






New Profile