Almost there..

Dead lights & chine runners done. Skeg On the way and figuring out where the rubrails are going.

Preparing for glass by the end of April I guess  

All planked up. On to skeg, chine runners, stem cap, ports and rounding off edges. 

So far so good..

Yes it’s coming along nicely and most of all it’s great fun to build a boat. I decided very early in the build to go with the way Chris Morejohn builds his plywood boats and that includes his method of glassing the hull with polyester resin. 3 layers of matt plus 1 layer of cloth. The whole boat is glued and scewed together with 2:1 epoxy and stainless steel 5 mm screws. The screws stay in. His boat is in great shape after 20 odd years of heavy use. 

Now as for doing it alone, yes, most of it is no problem. The design is doable for a first-timer like me and when it gets to gluing the large sheets I call on friends that help me out. I also have a boatbuilder friend that has helped me out with the beveling of the bottom and some other stuff that I didn’t want to tackle by myself with my limited skills. Another great help is Chris himself who takes his time to  answer all my silly questions.

Its been great to be able to build at home in the temporary but  bulletproof shed. These cold winter days I can continue the work When glueing large areas I turn on an external heat canon and raise the temperature to what’s needed. 

So. The second layer of ply (first inside layer 10 mm sapele marine ply, second layer 12 mm fir) on and finished beveling the chine yesterday. 

On to the bottom..  

Great progress Frederik, I'm also watching very closely. Are you glueing the two layers of plywood together with (lots of) epoxy? I've wondered about using a PU (D4) glue for this, it's cheaper and gap filling and it's probably what the ply is made from but it may be impossible to work with big sheets of ply fast enough and it won't seal the ply as well as epoxy. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Also, I'm intrigued by Chris Morejohn successfully going against all advice I've ever seen (including his friend Reuel Parker) and using polyester resin over plywood. Any thoughts on this?

Hi Frederik,

Thank you for sharing the build photos. I have been intrigued by Chris Morejohn's designs for some years now. Seeing photos of your boat build in a temporary shelter helps keep my dreams of building a boat alive.

I would be interested in any details you care share, if you have time. I would like your opinion on how technically difficult it is to build this design. Have been able to do all the work 'single handed'?

While I was checking the spelling of Mr. Morejohn's last name I noticed that Hogfish Maximus is for sale.