My website has been down again recently, sorry about that. I am losing patience with the budget server. It seems to be down once a month! They always acknowledge the outage but it happens so often. I went a year with the last provider without a day down, 3 months at 1/4 the price and it is down 3 times, each time for a couple of days! You really do pay for what you get.

Warren spent about another 6 hours on the boat whilst I was on Melbourne. He has added a ply plate to the rear bulkhead. With the weight of the outboard pivoting at the top of the transom it is a good idea to spread that load out over a larger area. We also have a metal plate for the front so that the attaching bolts can’t wear through. He also has the rear buoyancy compartments covered in.

All there was left for me to do today was to glass the joins over. I did this. I also found a screw still in the hull side that was placed to hold the false compartment floors in place. As I unscrewed it air started hissing out of the hole. The air pressure would have increased inside the sealed compartment as it heated from the the resin and glass inside. Being sealed it was a good sign that the boat is sealed and wont leak. I filled the hole and glassed a small patch on.

All that is left is to sand the tapes that I put on today, attach the hardware including cutting hatches and hinging the lids back on as doors and painting (which probably includes a bit better fairing). We also have some really dense foam to make bump strips for the hulls and the bow. One of the reasons cruisers like inflatable’s is that you can bash into your boat and not do any damage, hopefully the foam strips will also work well.

I think we should take it out for another run first though. Not because it needs it, but because it is FUN!

(Still 0 Hours on the big boat this month. But I will be working on her soon.)