I really admire builders in the northern states of Australia that can build a boat in the heat and humidity that they must face. It has been a warm summer here in Gosford NSW and I am finding I can only stand about 4 hours before the heat gets to me and I find myself making mistakes or missing things. Fortunately I have caught them so far or they have been harmless such as forgetting to put the masking tape on a join and finding the filler running out on the other side. Like yesterday I mixed a batch of filler and couldn’t figure why it wasn’t getting thicker and heating up. I had forgotten to add hardener! So after about 4 hours of 35 degrees heat I have had enough and I go home for a swim.

Today was no different. It was so hot again that another batch of filler went off in the bag before I had even put a drop of it on the hull! I managed to get about a third of the bag out before I had a red hot solid ball of filler smoking in the bag! I would love to get a photo or a video of it one day.

I have managed to finish the inboard side of the hull and only have the bilge to keep join on the outboard side to go then I have the big gap in the keel panels to fill. This will be a bit trickier as it is so high off the ground and it will require an off-cut of Duflex glued down the middle. I could use filler but there are 2 problems with that, 1 it is a big hole and would use a lot of expensive filler when I have free off-cuts ready to use, they just have to be cut to fit, and 2 being such a big gap and using so much filler it would get very hot. So I will definitely use an off-cut to plug most of the gap before filling.

I have prepared the inside of the hull with masking tape and removed the peel ply ready to fill the final join and the keel gap. We have business in Sydney tomorrow morning so I may get a few hours in the afternoon and I may only get a limited time to work on the boat on Friday as we travel to Melbourne for the weekend on Friday evening for a family wedding so we wont get to do anything on the boat this weekend. And of course there is work work to be done all the way through.

I am hoping we can have the filling done by Monday and the keel filled by Tuesday and ALL the joins sanded ready to be glassed by the following Friday. We then go on a business trip for 2 weeks. I will then be ready to glass as soon as I return.