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 ….

Thinking about ventilation …. This could work (or not).

Last week I received the final hull design.

I wanted a long and relatively narow hull.

I’m incredibly happy with this shape! The lenght is 13,2 metres. A little longer than the first version.

The deck design is next.

 

 

Months ago I made a wooden core for the carbon rudder stock. I haven’t touched it since then.

The shape is quite complicated because it tries to follow the rudder blade very precisely. That’s good: the idea is to really maximise the thickness (=stiffness) of the rudder stock.

But this strange shape could also complicate laminating the unidirectional carbon fibre. At least for someone like me …

So I decided to make a new core with a very simple shape that allows the UD fibre to run completely straight from top to bottom.

I also laminated three solid (6 mm) carbon spokes that will later be glued to the finished rudder stock.

And I put a fillet around one of the two tables I made last year. White on white, hard to see.

The work on the spokes and the table was done in the livingroom and was supervised by two cats. Too bad most of the work can not be done this way …

The Jeanneau has been winterized. Nothing special. The boat remains in the water, that makes life easier.

I flushed the (raw water cooled) engine with a few litres of coolant and also put some coolant in several though hull valves. I emtpied the water tank and did a bit of cleaning. It still looked good on the inside. I will leave this tank open.

After that I still had some energy so I sanded the carbon tape on the boom of the new project. It was cold in the shed so I soon called it a day.

Glueing in the false bottom and two GRP tubes. I have also added some inspection holes and carbon reinforcements for future mounting of hardware.

I started thinking about a gooseneck fitting and made a mock-up. Not sure if this will be the final design. See bottom two pictures.

Originally my plan was to use two 8 mm bolts + nuts (near the bottom) to hold the two halves of the dinghy together. I’ve already drilled the holes.

Bolts and nuts, however,  can only be connected/tightened if the two halves are perfectly in line. In the water that could be very difficult.

So I decided to use rope instead. The first tests are successful:

I will also run an extra line under the dinghy from bow to stern to pull the two halves together. This line will put quite a lot of stress on the bow so I put some carbon on it (the black stuff on the bow and at the waterline).

 

 

 

Made some progress on the boom. The outside has been faired. More or less. I will probably stop at this point because I hate putting even more filler (=weight) on the boom. But maybe I will change my mind again later …

The false bottom has been cut and I decided where and how to install the reefing points. The edges of all holes were reinforced by removing some foam and replacing it with carbon/epoxy.

It had to be done so I finally sawed my dinghy in half:

I was a bit worried about the alignment of the two halves when folded for storage but it worked out OK: