While waiting for the final drawings of the deck/cabin top of the mothership I worked on the dinghy.

I changed the mechanism to lock the two halves together (this is the third version), glued in 24 (!) stainless bolts for the hinges, put some carbon tape on the chines and started fairing the two “transoms”.

The boom still needed a gooseneck fitting (the connection between boom and mast) so I made one from carbon.

I will add some stainless steel hardware when the mast is ready.

I found another use for my balsa and made two relatively light seats for the dinghy:

Looking at the two halves of the dinghy made me think about using them separately as one person micro boats.

I could even add a tiny outboard motor! I stiffened the “transoms” (also with balsa/glass) to make this a future possibility.

I used a little of the recently acquired balsa wood to make a balsa/glass hatch:

Ventilation

Although I really like the functionality of the deck ventilators made earlier, I must admit they don’t look very nice ….

So I also made 8 or so ventilators with a more traditional and streamlined shape:

The type on the bottom still needs a couple of limber holes to get rid of the water that gets inside.

A disadvantage of these traditional ventilators is that it’s difficult to keep the area under the ventilator clean. You need to remove them if you feel that need. The first design does not have that problem.

Tiller attachment

At some point in the future (probably years …) I will have to connect a tiller to the rudder stock.

So I made a removable sleeve (actually two so I can experiment). The sleeve fits around the rectangular rudder stock and I will probably just glue the tiller to it. We will see.

In a previous post I declared the rudder stock ready.

Soon after that I put four more layers of carbon on the heavily loaded top half! Sometimes it’s hard to stop. Watching sailboats in heavy weather on YouTube doesn’t help.

Work on the foam rudder blade has started.

Recently I was offered the chance to buy more than 50m2 balsa core (four big boxes). The price was tempting and I just couldn’t resist.

At this moment I don’t know what I will do with it. The design of the boat only specifies foam for hull and deck ….. I am sure I will find a use for it though.

I finished laminating the rudder stock in the living room.

The foam/carbon blade is next. I don’t look forward to doing that at home but the temperature in the shed still isn’t high enough for epoxy work.

Current length: 3 metres.

Current weight: 17 kilograms.

It’s probably a good idea that I used a dust mask for sanding the carbon. See picture of the filter ….