Blog

Now that the first piece of the deck is glued on, I made the cut-outs for the deck hatch and the portlights (the small windows on the side).

The hatch and portlights have to be mounted on a flat surface. Because the deck is curved, I had to glue on frames to compensate for the curvature. This reveals an interesting property of plywood: you would expect plywood to bend in only one direction, similar to a sheet of paper. But the deck is actually curved in two directions.

Finally, I smoothed out the transition from the deck to the frame. This was not for aesthetic reasons, but because it makes it easier to laminate the entire deck with fibreglass.

Finally glued the first piece of the deck in place!
The first piece, the small triangle at the front, was quite easy.
The next piece was much more difficult. How do you get such a large piece into exactly the right place on the first attempt without smearing all the resin?
I screwed two hooks into the ceiling and lifted the piece into place using strings.

Then I started gluing: first, I coated all the gluing points with resin. Then I applied the thickened epoxy to the frames and stringers.

After that, I slowly lowered the panel using the strings. I fixed the position with two screws on the front edge before shaping the panel with weights.

Now all I had to do was screw everything together securely.

This is what it looks like inside the front compartment now. The unpainted section will be cut out later to install the hatch.

It was a great weekend!
Three other boat builders came to visit me so that we could cast the lead bulbs for our boats together.
First up was Fabian (#208), who built two beautiful moulds.

We were able to borrow the casting equipment from Thomas (#66), who has already finished his lead bomb. Many thanks to him, it worked perfectly!

We were fortunate in obtaining the lead: the company on whose premises my workshop is located had manufactured a batch of lead casings for X-ray machines and saved the milling chips for us.

It took us almost an hour to melt the lead and bring it to the right temperature.
We cast two bulbs one after the other and then waited four hours until they were cold enough to remove them from the mould.

At first, we were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to get the bulbs out of the mould. But the lead shrank as it cooled, and soon we could see a gap between the mould and the lead.

The result of the first two runs.

And these are the four of us boat builders: Oliver (#273), Fabian (#208), me (#165) and Dominique (#220).

I continued working on the front part of the boat. Since I accepted that I will never be a good painter, I am much more relaxed when painting.

Everything that is not white now will be painted blue later, after the deck has been glued on.

I have already prepared the front part of the deck for gluing. Except for the gluing areas, the underside of the deck has already been painted white.

I continued working on the deck beams. There is also another white piece in the forecastle (=finished).

The two square pieces are the frames for the two deck hatches.

I painted the bunks. Painted means finished!
I particularly like the contrast between the dark blue holes and the white side panels.

I am slowly learning how to proceed to achieve an acceptable result. As with many things, the magic word is patience.

Never try to do too much at once.

And it’s better to mix small amounts of paint several times than to mix a large amount once. This takes a lot of time (I use a two-component PU paint that has to rest for 15 minutes after mixing), but the paint always has the right consistency.

Apply thin layers. I applied four layers. After the first layer, it looks terrible, as if it will never work. After the second layer, it looks a little better and you start to hope that it will work after all. Only after the third layer does it look reasonably even.

Before gluing the frame for the lower hatch, I drilled holes for the screws (with a larger diameter than the screws). I filled these holes with epoxy. When I drill the holes for the screws at the end, once the bulkhead has been covered with fibreglass and painted, the wood in the holes will be protected by the epoxy.

Then I got to work in the fore cabin. After changing the partitioning, I had to repaint the individual compartments. The compartments are now finished and the floor between them has also been painted.

The foundation for the toilet is also there. I had to install it so that the toilet could be mounted horizontally.

Then back to the stern. There I finished the storage lockers. I’m still not a good painter, but I’m getting better with the practice.

My hatch has arrived! Originally I wanted to make the companionway as shown on the original plans. But that wouldn’t have been so clever because a watertight hatch is required for the Transat and the Globe Race.
Because I couldn’t find a hatch anywhere that met my requirements, I ordered a customised hatch from Cule-Marine in New Zealand (they even give a discount for Globe580 boats!). I really like the hatch!

Because the hatch is smaller than the originally planned entrance, I first had to install a frame so that the hatch could be bolted down properly.

This is what the companionway looks like when it’s finished.

The hatch fits perfectly for me. It will be more difficult for tall and big people, but my girlfriend and I are both quite small, so no problem!

It took a while, but now I’ve finally finished the skeg.
The skeg is glued on and secured with six steel bolts.
First I painted all the gluing surfaces with clear epoxy. I made sure that the holes in the bottom of the fuselage were also well saturated.
Before the clear epoxy hardened, I glued the skeg with thickened epoxy. I applied the epoxy to the centre of the glued surface.

When tightening the screws, the epoxy was pressed outwards over the entire surface. Excess epoxy leaks out along the entire length, which means that there are no areas without epoxy.

Epoxy was also pressed upwards through the holes in the base. The screws are firmly glued into the floor up to the top.

You can now see why the skeg was made so massive: the rudder will be attached to it.

I then painted the compartment under the cockpit floor. The only thing missing now is the cockpit floor.

That looks like real progress! I’ve painted the floor white. You need at least 3 coats to get good coverage (I did 4). I’m not 100% happy with the result, but the imperfections are purely aesthetic. I’ll leave it like this for now and do the beauty corrections at the end, when everything else is finished and I still have time left.

I actually wanted to paint the floorboards white too, but it looks much better like this!