I did not manage to get much meaningful work done during this week but it all helps. I sanded the bottoms of the hulls (keel panels) and then cleaned up inside the hulls ready for the next stage of laying down the floor webs and soles and keelsons. I was heading for a less than full day today with a later than anticipated start but I still managed to get all the work I set out to do. I have laid the 6 layers of uni down on each side of bulkhead 5, plus the layer of double bi and peel ply each side. And I did it in just under 6 hours, that’s only half an hour for each layer which I thought was pretty good going.

Recently (well for a while actually) I have noticed that the skin around my eyes feels like it is sunburnt a few days after applying resin all day, so I decided that I would get a full face mask to protect my eyes. I think the resin gives off fumes that burn any sensitive skin like that around the eyes so a way to reduce or stop this is to stop the fumes getting at that skin. A good investment. So with everything laid out ready I got to wetting out 14 layers of glass. The routine was the same as previous, wetting out the uni with a brush, one layer over the next, each one slightly shorter than the one below like a leaf spring and then, once all the layers were down one each side, I mixed up some filler and coved the bridgedeck to bulkhead. Then finally using the wombat I wet out the double bias for each side and laid it down and then peel ply to finish.

I have only bulkhead 7 (both sides) left to do and forward of bulkhead 4 which I am still contemplating doing by cutting hole saw holes and laying a pvc pipe through with the uni attached to it. Once all of the uni is done I will start on the floor webs and keelsons in each hull.

A friend warned me that the next 2 years of work will look painstakingly slow with each task taking much longer than the job appears, and if you were to be visited on the build by a non builder 6 months apart they would wonder what you had been doing for so long with little visible progress. I am starting to feel that way with 3 weeks taken up laying unis and the overall appearance of the boat changing little in that time. I guess this is a timely warning for readers not to expect too much physical change over the next few months as the more time consuming jobs eat up the time for little to show.

Both hulls on Nine Lives are now finished and the second hull is turned. The next task for James is to plumb and line up the hulls ready for joining. I imaging they will overtake me in about 2 weeks.