I am ready to roll the hull over on Saturday. I only have a few tasks for tomorrow. I have still to decide if I will give the copper coat a light sand, I will ring the Pure Seal distributor tomorrow to check if the surface preparation for applying Pure Seal needs me to sand, and if so better to do it now, but if not, I wont bother. I can also clean up a little more.

I have made the cradles. 3 of the 4 cradles parts were ok but the one that was out took me a while to adjust as I didn’t want to take too much off. In the end it took 5 trips up and down the ladder and to the saw to get the cradle to fit. I know why it doesn’t fit and it is related to the kit cut being out. I had to add a small section to bulkhead 7 which altered the way that the chamfer panel sat and this causes the hull to be a touch wider at that point so obviously the cradle is still in the kit the way the chamfer was before rather than the way it is now. No big deal.

After I had the rogue cradle side fitted, I measured the distance apart they should be by laying a level across them in place on the hull then when level, measuring the distance apart they were so I could make them that far apart on the cradle dollies. They both (front and back cradles) worked out to 320mm apart (it doesn’t tell you this in the plans so I assume it is something you work out for yourself, again no big deal and easily sorted). So I made 2 bases and 4 ends and screwed them together. I also attached castor wheels to each cradle so that I can easily move the hull around inside the warehouse. I will remove the wheels when I am ready to align the 2 hulls but for now this is the easiest way to work in a confined space and still be able to get to stock etc.

One weird thing I noticed whilst I was fitting the cradle to the hull is that although the copper epoxy looks brown, when you run your hands along it or anything else such as the cradles, the residue is blue. At least that is what it looks like to me but then I am color blind.

The castors are rated at 60kgs each so 4 per cradle is 240kgs per cradle and 2 cradles equals a load rating of 480kgs. That should be more than enough as I believe the hull would be around 300 kgs as it is now.

With the cradles made and the area cleared to roll the hull over, I only have to rig up the guy ropes to the hooks in the wall and I am ready to go. The hooks in the wall are there from the factory construction. With concrete slab walls, a crane is used to lift the whole wall which is prefabricated concrete with steel reinforcement to which the hooks are pre welded (and concreted) into place in order to lift them into place. I am going to use the hooks as anchor points for guy ropes to lower the hull over. I and my helpers will push the hull over using the bulkhead bridgedeck extensions as levers to push the hull over on the legs (I am not going to remove them until the hull is turned over). Then once the hull reaches the point where the weight shifts over the guy ropes will take the weight and we will gently lower it to the pallets. Once on the pallets we then roll it over the rest of the way. Then once it is sitting on its keel on the pallets we lift one end and push the cradle under it, then lift the other end and push the other cradle under and we should then be able to remove the pallets and roll the hull to where I want to leave it and chock the wheels.

I spoke to the importers of PureSeal (McIntyre Marine) and they told me I didn’t need to bother with sanding as the PureSeal goes onto the surface the way it is. That saves me another sand of the hull and no need to tell you how I feel about that.

That’s the plan. It seems easy as I go through it in my mind or on this page. I hope it goes as well in reality.