James: building a boat is sheer insanity. But then so are a lot of things that give us pleasure. From my experience, as someone who was wondrously inept with tools and even now has huge problems with converting two dimensions into three, the main drawback of it, is that you have to devote your entire life to the project, if you ever want to complete the boat. If you are used to woodworking and competent, this would possibly be less of an issue. However, unless you are single, it’s probably not the most sensible thing to do. A spouse would either have to be equally enthusiastic about the project or extremely tolerant to be happy with the work, time and energy building a boat requires. I’m happy that I decided to do this, but would be less so if it were as a way to go sailing, rather than a culmination of many happy years afloat. Even so, I’m pretty much over it and would like to get my life back. Chafe shouldn’t be a problem with the rudders, because the rope doesn’t move.
David D: I have no work ethic, I can assure you. Indeed, I have successfully spent the majority of my adult life avoiding work. To me it is a means to an end: to earn money. Once I had enough money for my tastes I made the money do the work so that I could go and do more interesting things.
OK, Len. I get the idea. Our sockets have room for plugs and chargers. On the tiny screen of the tablet, I don’t think that there’s room for a keyboard and it’s certainly too small for even my hands to touch type. With the screen turned sideways, I can only see two or three lines of what I’ve written at one time, which I find very frustrating. I’ll buy a separate keyboard when we can finally go to the shops again. To be honest, it’s fairly low on my list of priorities.
Graeme: I have seen the lashings and still don’t really get how they work. But I can see that they do, which is the main thing. However, I hope I can get them as tight as they will need to be for the heavy rudders that they support.
The copper is one third of the volume, so 2/3 epoxy. The graphite about 10%. As Coppercoat reckons its product can be used over a primer with alloy or steel hulls, I can only assume that the copper that one exposes with the occasional brisk sand, is too little to cause a problem. It makes no difference to me, where the 1,200 kg of steel keel can fizz for a long time before being seriously affected. Shirley was advised to put carbon fibre and epoxy over alloy battens to strengthen them. The carbon has affected them and she has now dumped them for new, larger alloy ones. On the other hand, they were over 15 years old ... I don’t believe that there is any risk at all of galvanic action between the Coppercoat and the graphite, which is, anyway, out of the water. The graphite also makes the epoxy harder, which is a good thing for things that tend to get hit on occasion.
David T: yes, the HDPE is slightly recessed and when we tried the ‘dry run’, there seemed ample room for the boards to slide up and down. They were a bit tight fore and aft, but the circular saw dealt with that issue. The wedges are only held with epoxy. My boat has no fastenings left if I can possibly avoid it. When I made the indents for the rudder lashings, I cut off the glass. Anyway, they are sealed in with epoxy and don’t move, so it’s essentially irrelevant. Honestly David, the paint job as planned, has been on my ‘avatar’ for a couple of years now!
Eric: no the boards are not toed in. I guess I shall just have to develop my biceps. I have come across vacuum bagging, but never in such an ingenious way as the French have developed it. How does one hold the mating parts in place so that the pieces of wood don’t slip out of the way? I suppose a screw at each corner and then the vacuum. That would probably have been much better than my method – and I could have had an excuse to drink some wine! (And what a cute little plane!!)
David D (again): You can’t get to the other side of where the wedges go: it’s a Void (scary!), but, as noted above, all the screws come out again. Quite apart from the cost and the weight of a zillion screws, I prefer to take them out so that in case of the boat being damaged, I can just take a saw, router or whatever to the damage and cut it out, without having to worry about hitting fastenings. Not wanting screws to penetrate the hull has occasionally made life more difficult for me: on the other hand, it has allowed me to finish the interior as I go, whereas if I had put the screws in from inside, I should have had to (re)paint those areas later. I would probably have run out of patience by then and not done as careful a job as I did.