Six months to Go!

First post from the Pocketship Yard in 2015.  Happy new year!

The holidays have slowed the progress down a bit in the shipyard but progress has been made.  A quick list of the progress would include the sealing of the seat backs, fillets in the cockpit, painting of the interior of the cabin, fitting of the cabin roof, finishing of the transom skirt.

Today and yesterday have been really productive.  I started sheathing the topsides with epoxy and fiberglass.  In the last two days I have covered almost the entire cockpit with fiberglass cloth, including the footwell, seat backs and upper outboard sides.  While waiting for the epoxy to kick I did some more work to the anchor well at the bow and installed the cabin roof.

Installing the cabin roof requires a lot of getting in and out of the boat.  It seems no matter how many tools or supplies you take climbing in there is always that one item just out of reach that needs to be retrieved with another climb out of the boat.  The rear cabin wall during construction has a brace across the top of the companionway  to keep everything square and lined up.  This compounds the problem of getting in and out of the cabin.  There is a small hole to climb through every trip. the hole seems smaller every time I go through it.  Now that the epoxy on the roof is curing I will get to cut that temporary piece out very shortly!

On one of my trips today climbing out I slipped and fell.  Wow that hurt.  I limped around for about ten or fifteen minutes and noticed a pretty good mark on my leg.  I think I am going to feel that one for the next few days.  I suggest to all future pocketship builders to buy a nice 4 foot ladder early in the build.  A chair is not always stable enough when you stand on the armrest. Also on the injury report, the elbow that I have developed tendonitis feels a bit better but far from 100%.  My pediatrist friend suggested one of those wrap thingamujigs.  Foot, elbow, close enough, it seems to help a bit.

The tittle of this post is "Six Months to Go".  In six months the Texas 200 will start. http://www.texas200.com  I plan to sail the pocketship in the 2015 edition.  To do this I would really like to have been on the water for at least a month or so dialing in the setup.  I can do this!

Cockpit sheathing.  The bottom right side of the picture you can see the cabin roof just peering into the picture.  It s still oversized and will be neatly cutoff when the epoxy cures.

 In the picture you can see a lot of green faring compound around the fillets and a couple of large spots in the footwell sides.  This stuff is great.  It looks a bit messy but it makes the fillets perfect when it comes to applying the glass over them.  I found some fairing compound from Jamestown Distributors I really like.  It is their house brand.  It mixes 50/50.  One blue and one yellow portion.  Mix it up and when the stuff all turns green you are ready to use it.  Here is a link TotalBoat  .  Nice stuff!

Cabin roof temporally held in place with drywall screws and blocks.

Cockpit 'glass.  The two holes were so I could reach in and scrape off squeeze out when glueing the deck down.  After that they serve as a great place to lose tools and supplies.  More visible fairing compound for my less than perfect fillets. And that pesky temporary piece across the companionway.

The area on the cockpit in the picture above that has no fiberglass sheathing yet will receive two maybe 3 layers.  From reading blogs it seems to be a weak spot.  I have all ready beefed up of the cabin wall from the interior with a strip of 3/8" plywood about 2 1/2" wide.  Stepping on that front corner of the cockpit, things look a little weak.  I did glass the underside of these cockpit panels for additional strength.  Glad I did now.

Another view of the cockpit.

The tape works nice for leaving a really nice clean edge.

Before the wet out.

Interior paint after the first coat.  It is going to need a couple of more.

looking out of the companionway.  The 3/8" of plywood is across the bottom of the picture was epoxied across the bottom edge just above the centerboard for much needed additional strength.

Dry fit of the cabin roof.  The blue tape on the upper hull is to protect the wood from spills and dings.  I plan to leave this section bright (natural wood).  If it gets beat up and does not look good Ill just paint it.

Won't be long and I will have a "big flipping party" to turn the boat over to work on the hull.  It needs to come soon, the shop needs a good cleaning.