And Right Back to Work...

When last we left my particular hero, Mr. Linton was setting off on a sailing adventure among the alligators and what-not. Happily, he and his buddy Jahn were safe and successful on this latest Everglades Challenge, and have since returned to shore.

This never being a foregone conclusion, insert respectful pause here while I explore my gratitude. 

Because himself, after catching up on sleep, did not pause for longer than a moment.

​After returning home and washing and packing up the gear and the boat, TwoBeers waded right into the river of work that is boat-building.  

Having made the hull, he went right at the rest of the boat. 

In any mold-built operation, having a mold handy just in time is key to getting things done. This has meant Jeff stops by Home Depot for another load of plywood on his way to OH's place every few days. 

Space is always a challenge. It takes room and ventilation to build a boat; I think the equivalent of boat-building is making and decorating a big batch of fancy sugar-cookies, where every inch of counter space is covered with some potentially messy yet vital part of the process. 

Many cooks will not spoil the sloop.

To make this boat, you'd need molds for the 20-foot long hull, a cockpit sole (the sort of flooring inside the boat, at around 18 feet long), the deck (which keeps the splashes out of the front of the boat, and is around 10 feet long), and water-ballast tanks.

For those keeping track, know that the centerboard and rudders are a project for another season.

The cockpit sole vacuum-bagged and curing.

In the interest of conserving real-estate and effort, Jeff and OH built a single mold for both cockpit sole and deck.

These bulkheads, later combined with beams and stringers, will help keep the hull in shape.

They slipped that mold right into the project as it lays—a hull mold with fiberglass and carbon already done a few weeks back—and went to work on the cockpit sole. 

The sole will sit maybe 8 or 10 inches up from the hull, allowing for floatation, strength, and running space on the barky.  When finished it will rest on bulkheads and stringers.

The team settled bulkheads temporarily in place so everything fits as it ought, and then used the same program of sandwiching a piece of foam between layers of resin-soaked carbon fiber to lay up the cockpit sole.

Here's the deck, which will fit over the bow of the boat.

After it cured,  they pulled the sole away from the mold (muscles!), stacked it, and commenced making the deck.

Oddly, the next day, they discovered a square foot or so of deck where the sticky resin did not "kick." So instead of baking itself into tough, crispy goodness, one random section remained sticky and limp. The cure was to cut the spot out and patch it.  ​

Patched.

Why did it happen? Perhaps a bit of the resin didn't get thoroughly mixed with the accelerator—the tiny channel of liquid at the bottom edge of the can, perhaps.

Repairs were the  work of mere minutes.    

Imagine a layer-cake made of dreams, black carbon, and plywood: the hull mold is on the bottom, with a hull on it, with the decanted sole on top of that, with the sole-mold now holding the deck icing on the top. 

The whole cake o dreams has been, as I type, hoisted into the rafters to make room for the next thing.

Look! In the sky! Is it a bird? A plane?

Water-ballast tanks were next on the punch-list.

For this, Jeff used  1/4 inch masonry board, a slightly more flexible option than plywood, to make the mold. It's fought a noble fight, has the masonry board, but is beginning—after making forms for the stringers and a box-shaped water tank—to return to the dust from which it was made. ​

A water-ballast tank. One of a pair.

When construction is complete,  the water tanks will be integral to the hull.

​On Spawn, the water tanks are part of the praying-mantis aspect of the boat: when on the trailer, the water tanks fold up.

What is the point of water-ballast tanks? Keeping in mind that sailing is a dynamic balance between two fluids: air and water. Air flows over the sails, creating lift. Water flows over the centerboard or keel, also creating lift.  

To maximize the amount of flow, sailors work to keep the mast pointing up and the keel pointed down. We use our body weight for this, but as a solo sailor, my beloved skipper will not be able to have me scootch out a bit farther.

​Instead, he'll flip a switch and pump saltwater into a tank and multiply the power through the magic of leverage. Without the companionship, but still.

Vacuum ahoy!

A third water tank will appear in the middle of boat, and is designed, I am sure you're glad to know, to permit the skipper to tell the boat to simmer down when things get a little too—let's say—lively.  

​I picture Fred Flintstone putting one big foot down to slow his roll. 

Important construction note: wherever the boat "sees" sunlight, my favorite boat builder has applied a coat of traditional e-glass fiberglass. Carbon fiber, for all of its charms and beauties, does not like UV.

Carbon also hates a sudden impact, such as might occur in conjunction with an oyster bed or—heaven forfend!—should someone drop a bottled beverage onto it. 

Fiberglass, however, is fine with careless bottle treatment, scoffs at scuffs, and tries to resit the sun a bit better.

Thanks for the helping hands, gang!

Next steps: reinforcing the bulkheads and glassing them in, as well as inserting stringers so that the structural grid of the hull is complete.