It is funny how fate works. Yesterday I wrote here that today I would start working on the inside of the planking. But I needed help to get the panel off the boat because it is too long for 1 person to get off on their own without risking damaging it, and I did not have anyone arranged to help me. So I went to the shed today intending to do other work and as soon as I got there, a visitor and his son were waiting to look at the boat, they had visited the old shed, did not know where the new shed was and saw us driving there and recognised our car and followed us to the shed and helped me once inside. The odds of that happening? Go figure.

So with the panel off, I gave it a quick sand then filled the gaps with glue. I learnt last time that it is easier to sand the glued sections because the glue helps make the surface smoother, and that it is much easier to wet out the glass without having to stop to back fill the gaps. I also decided after the problems I had with the panel shape movement that I would take a couple of the temps off the boat and place them on the panel to keep it the correct shape, and an added benefit was that I attached legs to the temps to act as a stabiliser while I work on the inside of the panel.

Once I had finished the inside back filling, I bogged the bows of the dingy. I am having the bows airbrushed by a friend and he needed them to be much smoother, in other words he needed them to be faired the way they should be. I wasn’t going to bother as it wasn’t a priority to have the dingy look professionally finished but then the idea of having the bows airbrushed sounded like fun so I am finishing the dingy a little better than I had intended. Tomorrow i will sand the bows and paint them with another coat of white primer ready for the spray job.

I have also done a little work on the hatches in the dingy. The hatches form part of the hull sides that people can sit on so to ensure there is enough support I have glued ply tabs into the hatches. One hatch is for the petrol tank so it will not be water (or air) tight as the petrol tank will need to be vented, but the other hatch is intended as a dry hatch so I intend to glue ply all around the hatch opening then glue a rubber gasket onto it that will seal when the lid is shut. I will still put a drain hole into all of the hatches, the anchor well, the petrol tank hatch and the watertight one, just in case water does get in you want it to get out again.

With all that, I did not get any work done on the forebeam. Tomorrow, I have to sand the inside of the starboard strip panel, sand the bows of the dingy and paint them white again, and perhaps get some work done on the forebeam.