As I predicted I did not get any work done during the week as I recovered from my knee operation. I got to the shed on Friday but more just to take delivery from my new friend Terry (building an Easy 11 meter) who kindly offered me the stainless steel rods I need for inside the tramp conduit. I did a little planning and measuring so I am counting an hour on Friday night even though I was there 2 hours. All I managed to do was cut the stainless rods to length. I cant kneel on my right knee and bending it still hurts, so progress this weekend was slow. And after this weekend I am sore and exhausted but happy that I have finally got the foredeck glued down. I still need to glass it on but for all intents and purposes it is finally on.

With the foredeck in place (that was the last thing I achieved Monday night before my operation) I glued the conduit onto the deck with a curve in it that matches the curve in the forebeam. When I glued the hull side conduits on I had the choice of having them run level as I did and then curving this deck conduit or running them uphill as they went back so that the foredeck conduit would also go on straight and level. The catwalk is about 200mm higher than the hull sides. Either method is fine, in the end I liked the way the hull sheerline was mirrored by the conduit about 50mm above it rather than the unsymmetrical way that shape would be with the conduit 50mm higher than the sheerline at the front but 250mm higher at the deck. I like the symmetry of the matching curves. Once it was glued and held in place (and with the curve where it should be) by 4 screws I coved and glassed it. I put the screws in places where the scallops would be so I could glass it with the screws on and remove them and scallop over the holes.

Even though the glass was only just cured this morning, the first thing I did was to scallop the catwalk and the foredeck conduits. They had to be done before I could glue the foredeck on, the reason being that the stainless steel rods need to be inside the conduits before the deck can be glued on as they cannot be fitted later, and the scallops cant be cut with the stainless rods inside the conduit because I don’t want to score the stainless rods with the sander as it will then abrade the tramp lacing and cause it to break, it will be under tension and a sharp shard on the rod could break it. With the scallops cut and the rods inside the conduits I was all clear to glue the deck on.

I had the deck removed to fit the stainless rods so while it was off (lifted up from the deck on all but the front edge and propped up with a 2mt plank as a stay) I buttered up the D section bulkheads and the front edge of the deck with glue and pushed the deck down as carefully as I could trying to keep it just off the bulkheads so as not to smear all of the glue away. I then lifted the back up and buttered the sides where it meets the inside bow panels and the bulkhead top (bulkhead 4). I then started screwing it down and cleaning the excess glue that would squeeze out as I went. The bulkhead has a uni rope in the top so in order to pull the back down with screws, planks are screwed into the face of the bulkhead about 20mm lower than the top and then the foredeck is screwed to the edge of the plank, you cannot damage that uni rope in anyway, not even a screw hole as it is the ribs of the boat.

I had to make more glue up to squeeze into voids and gaps and I made coves with my finger tip (inside a glove) at all of the inside angles I could get to (Some of the joins are now sealed inside deck lockers until I cut the lids out to get inside to cove and glass them). I then finished the day (a long one for me even though it was only 7 hours!) by bogging the forebeam where the catwalk was joined bottom, top and sides. The beam is (well was) already fair so I just filled back with bog to just above the bog height already there and will now fair it all back out. I also put a thin layer of bog over the foredeck conduit to fair that in once the glassing in this area is completed and also bogged.

Next step is to glass the foredeck on inside where I can get to it and outside once I have coved the joins and trimmed the bridgedeck where it over hung the foredeck. Once trimmed and rounded smooth glass will go on to complete that part of the structure. I had called this month as building the saloon roof but it has taken me most of the month just getting the front third of the boat closed in so the roof will be next months project. I have set myself a goal of getting the boat locked up by January so that the next phase can start, fitting out the inside.