No Canoes today

Well there is a nice picture of a typical Kanak Pirogue in our apartment room plus I saw some people out practicing in their OC6 and OC1’s.

With Cecile away Nico spent the week days at his grandmothers which meant that there was no time for building. Saturday we got off to an early start and headed out to the airport.

First Nico got to check out the cockpit (the power of a grandmother armed with a toddler):

Then it was off to Cecile’s parents for lunch of Vietnamese spring rolls, followed by a desert of Mango and coconut milk:

The summer has (so far) been the hottest they’ve had in 50 years. So we were all walking round stripped to a minimum of cloths. After lunch we went to our apartments and had a dip in the ocean. Nico couldn’t be held back:

I also got to test out my Canon D10 water proof point and shoot camera:

Best viewed at 480 rez

Best viewed at 480 rez

Sunday was another day spent on the beach, with lots of sun, snorkelling and general relaxation.

Do you Think This Rain’s

Ever going to stop?

The ama has been painted and theoretically we are ready to launch. However fate has again conspired against me. The weather has been rubbish the last five or so days; almost non-stop rain. Certainly not weather I’d want to take a boat out in. To compound matters there has been a crisis in Cecile’s family meaning that she and Eloise left for New Caledonia today, a week earlier than planned. So besides buying some hardware for the rudder my weekend was shot to do any boat building.

So at the end of week forty five the ama is painted and we are ready to launch as a paddling canoe. However holidays start next week and we’ll be in New Caledonia. So we’re going to have to wait till the new year.

Back with Photos!

In spite of late evenings and a bout of some nasty bug, I managed to get the outside of the hull varnished and grind out the shape of the tiller handle. Sunday I took the hull out of the garage so that I can paint the ama. At the same time I re-attached the forward & aft cleats and tried lashing the iakos:

The rope is 5mm and does a good job holding everything together. One lesson I did learn was to wear gloves! I managed to strip a layer or two of skin from one of my fingers. Time to develop some callouses.

The forward iako with the mast in place. I need to have the mast in place before I lash the iako down or it won’t fit. I’ll need to figure out a solution to that because with the sail and boom the rigging gets heavy.

The other job was tiller, it fit together nicely. This week I’ll give it a coat of varnish.

At the end of week forty four this is where we are at:

The hull is back on the deck and the ama is drying in the garage with it’s first coat of primer. Next weekend, time permitting I’m looking to launch her. She’s not ready yet for sailing as I need to build the bracket to mount the rudder on, but I’m thinking I might need to hold of on the sailing until I have more experience on how she’ll handle outside of the pool and see if Nico is ready for it. I’m also not certain yet for the best position for the leeboard so I’m planning to test sail her with the board at different points for the best position.

So things left to do:

• Finish painting the ama
• Build and paint bracket for rudder
• buy and attach rudder fittings
• Mount leeboard
• Varnish tiller

Sorry, no Photos Today

Still nothing to show, just an overturned hull in the garage. Last week I got all the coats of varnish done on the inside and painted the fore and aft deck. Over the weekend I turned her over and sanded the outside and got one coat of varnish on.

This was in between taking Nico and Eloise to Sinterklaas on Saturday and going sailing on Sunday. On that note I managed to sort out the leaking bung in the aft bulkhead. I brought an adjustable rubber one that is a good fit for the hole.

I also glued up the the tiller handle. I can’t repeat often enough how much I like the ability to create strong structures out of pieces of scrap wood and epoxy. In this instance I had three meters of ash left from the gunwales. I cut them up measured out a spacer and glued them all together. Next step is to draw on the final shape I want and take it to the belt sander.

Back to sailing, Nico joined us for the day on Viking and he was a real gem. Calm and patient, helping where he could and standing back when needed. He also adjusted to the heeling of the boat without freaking out and wore his life jacket the whole time. I was so proud of him!

Week forty three and I’m aiming to get another two coats of varnish on the hull. After that I will paint the ama. My next challenge will be to build the attachment to mount the rudder to the iako. Since I’m not planning on buying an outboard just yet I’m tempted to forego the outboard bracket Gary uses, for now.

Another Busy Weekend

With little progress to show for it.

Thursday and Friday I was back in Sydney, got home late Friday night. Saturday we went to the fair at Monte Cecilia school. The weather was perfect and we had a blast.  After that we went to Devonport and Mums exhibition opening Unfortunately that meant by the time we finally got home it was close to dark. I managed to squeeze in a hour of sanding on the leeboard, iakos, rudder and boom but that was it for the day.

Sunday was another family outing, with the Beca family Christmas party. It was a great event with a bouncy castle, face painting, petting animals and of course presents from Santa Clause! We finished the day at 2:00 and I decided that given the heat and how tired we all were it would be best to skip the Santa Parade in town.

Once home I put up the shade tent, filled the paddle pool and put the children in it and got to work on the canoe. I sanded the inside of the hull and removed the bow and stern cleats before giving it all a wash down. Because of the heat and a towel down the hull was dry in a very short time allowing me to apply the first coat of varnish.

Today I got the second coat done and hopefully tomorrow the last one. Then I’ll pain the top of the bulkheads in time to turn the hull over on the weekend. Well that’s the plan… and we know what happens to my plans!

So at the end of week forty two; no photo, its difficult to show the progress in photos.

Once Again I Under Estimated

The size of a job!

Here was I thinking that I’m a week or so from launching the canoe. But this weekend saw the beginning of painting and varnishing the hull. And this is going to be a job and a half given the demands on my time and number of free days I have!

To top matters off Saturday got off to a bad start with a down pour which ment that I was unable to get any sanding done. Luckily I got the her in the garage in time so instead I gave the gunwales a coat of epoxy to give it a bit more scratch resistance. The epoxy soaked into the wood nicely and brought out the rich colour of the ash.

I also got the boom jaws glued on and gave the boom a coat of epoxy. Cedar is lovely wood, but it is soft and damages easily!

The boom is made from two lengths of cedar while the jaws are oak.

Sunday I sanded the leeboard, iakos and rudder then gave them their first (of ten) coat of varnish.

I have them hanging in the garage so that I could do both sides at the same time.

One piece of bad news I discovered was that the thread on the bung in the aft bulkhead has been stripped. So I’m going to see if I can use an expanding rubber one instead. If not I’ll probably just glue it in place.

So at the end of week forty one I’ve started varnishing. Of course the elephant in the room is the ama, it’s easy to focus on the hull and forget that there’s another that needs to be done too.

When out on a Canoe…

Allow for the possibility of getting wet!

Saturday started off with another trip to Bunnings to get varnish and paint supplies, followed by a trip to the kayak and canoe shop on Sandringham Rd where I was hoping to get a roof rack for my car. Because I wanted a rack that used the existing anchor points on the car they didn’t know what was needed, they took my number with a promise to call back when they’d done some research.

Back home it was back to sanding, the boom followed by the leeboard and the rudder. I also improved the fit of the boom jaws.

Sunday I noticed that there was a voice message on my mobile. The shop had called back saying that they had found what I was after and that they were in stock. So after calling mum to tell her we’d be over for lunch, the family was bundled into the car and we set off. After fitting the roof rack it was back home to fit the bow and stern cleats and mount the canoe on to the roof.

Driving was interesting, it was a quite windy and the canoe had a noticeable affect driving over the bridge. At mum’s with the help of a neighbour I got the canoe off the car roof and next to Mum’s pool. Using cargo ties I quickly set her up and then into the pool she went:

She floats! (Not that there ever was any doubt… was there?)

So Nico and I got dressed up in our life jackets (good habits start early) and went for a paddle in the pool.

First impressions were of how stable it is and how light it was to paddle. Granted in the pool you’re not up against a tide or chop, but still it glided along smoothly.

As you can see in the photo, I should have gotten in from the stern and positioned Nico in front of me. With my confidence growing by the minute I decided that it would be a good idea to swap positions. And within a flash I was brought down to earth with a reminder of why you wear a life jacket. I’m not really sure what happened, but I lost my balance and felt the canoe start to go over. So rather than risking capsizing and giving Nico a un-welcome dunking, I let myself fall in the pool.

Lessons learned from that:

• The water was warm and it was a nice day for a swim.
• While the canoe is stable, it can still be capsized on starboard side.
• Getting back in was easy. Although I did deliberately tip out a couple more times, I didn’t allow a full capsize so I wasn’t able to practice righting it again.
• The ama has enough buoyancy to support me.
• A wet person drags a fair amount of water back into the boat with them.
• The plug in the aft bulk head isn’t sealing properly and water got in.

The plug isn’t a big surprise, I ran into a bit of trouble when fitting it. But it will need to be fixed before we go to sea because once there was water in the hull it quickly transferred to the bulkhead.

So at the end of week forty we have the roof rack installed and tested plus a boat that floats!

Treasure Chests & Tank Engines but…

No ulua.

Saturday was Nicolas’ birthday party, with lots of guests and a bouncy castle to keep the birthday boy and friends entertained. Thanks to Margo we had a fantastic treasure chest birthday cake that was quickly demolished by the kids. Even though the party only went on till four; we were pretty shattered afterwards so no time for boat building.

Sunday morning was a write off, everyone slept in; followed by a bit of a clean up (and playing with the new presents) before it was off to the Glenbrook Vintage Railway where they had a Thomas the Tank Engine day. All the vintage steam engines had faces on them identical to the Thomas series of books. There was even a train that was an almost identical model to Thomas.

We took the 50 minute train ride to the back of Waiuku and it was like going back in time, even the scenery was different from how you see it when driving. On the return journey there was a stop where you could get off to look at the workshop with more steam engines. First Nico and I got off then Cecile hopped off and forgot to hop back on before the train left! So she was stuck there for half an hour while she waited for the next one!

When we got home I managed to squeeze in a little bit of work, fitting the boom jaws and mocking the whole rig up to test for fit.

Also the matter of paint over varnish has been decided with good advice from Gary; if you don’t like the varnish you can always paint over it but you can’t varnish over paint. What I will do though is paint the decks and part of the gunwhales.

So at the end of week thirty nine we hit a small speed bump called “family takes precedence”.

So Close….

And I’m procrastinating again. Although to be fair it was Nicos’ birthday on Friday so  we had a family day on Saturday which started with present opening, followed by present playing and then Oma, Thys, Helen and Leo came to visit. We ended the day with a fantastic trip to Butterfly Creek.

Still I did find time to set the canoe up on the deck to check the fit of the ama and iakos.

I’m pretty happy with the fit. Nico loves the canoe; he and Leo jumped in with fishing rods for a dry run. Eloise got into the swing of it as well helping me with the paddling.

As for the procrastination; I still can’t decide between paint or varnish! Everyone says varnish, but I quite like the look of a painted hull.

Sunday it was back to making saw dust and those planks I showed you last week became this board:

and over the course of the day became the rudder and boom jaws with the help of my belt sander, jigsaw and drill press:

So at the end of week thirty eight the only big job left to do is the elephant in the room; I need to paint her up. However before I do that, I’m going to put her in the water to make sure there are no nasty surprises like leaks.

The Magic of Power Tools and Epoxy

Allows you to turn simple planks of wood like this:

into useful things like this leeboard:

Actually if the truth is to be told, those top boards are for the rudder. I forgot to take a photo of the before when making the leeboard. This is as much because I was in a rush to get the laminating done before heading off to Helens’ place, as it was because of my apprehension towards this part of the project. Also it doesn’t show well in the photo but I used two strips of cedar wood to make the board lighter, and quite handsome.

I originally saw making the leeboard and rudder as a difficult job but I quickly discovered that power tools like belt sanders and jigsaws do a great job of breaking the project down into more manageable chunks. So Sunday was spent creating lots of sawdust.

Monday (go Labour weekend!) I attacked the problem of how getting the right shape on the top of the iako mounting blocks. Because the ends of the iako dip down the tops can’t be flat. But first off Nico and I made a trip to Bunnings to get some 28mm dowel and tomato plants for the vegetable garden (well truth be told Nico just went for the slide). Back at home and the tomatoes planted, how do we solve the problem of the mounting blocks? Out with the trusted belt sander again, clamp it on its side to the bench and like magic we have a bench sander.

Completed blocks:

Then it was time to glue them to the ama. I used epoxy glue, followed by fillet along the edges of an epoxy and sawdust mix then the front and back glassed with a piece of 300gm fibreglass cloth:

Other jobs completed were gluing the planks together for the rudder & boom jaws and sanding down the boom. Out of interest I laid out the sail and boom to measure the curvature of the boom against the foot of the sail, a perfect fit! I have to hand it to Gary, because the when you set up the jig for laminating the boom, there is a certain amount of spring-back from that needs to be taken into consideration and his measurements were perfect!

So at the end of week thirty seven we are soooooo close. All that remains to be done is to shape the rudder, make the boom jaw, attach the fittings like blocks & cleats and to get painting!

Stay tuned for water trials…..

Slow Weekend but Pretty Pictures

Once again other priorities interrupt my plans for the weekend. First off I organise a BBQ for Saturday afternoon, thinking I’ll have the morning free to work on the canoe. Think again, turns out I did work on a boat, just not mine. Viking’s decks needed scrubbing after moss started growing over winter.

Nico joined me and while I originally had him below with Thomas and a puzzle, he quickly came above deck to help me splash water around. I should have figured that would keep him occupied and happy. Fortunately the weather helped as well. One thing I did get done for the canoe, was to buy Nico a lifejacket with the all important pictures of Nemo and Dory on the front.

Sunday I was at a bit of a loss on what to do next. I had hoped to get the blocks that will be used to connect the ama to the iako glued on, but I realised that I didn’t have a clue on where to place them. So I un-wrapped the canoe and laid it out on the deck:

Much to my surprise Nico couldn’t wait to get in, which was a great relief to me since the last time I tried he wouldn’t have a bar of it. Goes to show what a difference even a couple of m0nths can make.

I mounted a string along the centre-line of the hull to measure the correct distance between the hull and the ama. What I did discover was that my iakos’ are quite long and I can trim some off the ends. The plans call for a distance of 1.4m between the centre of the hull and the centre of the ama, which is a lot less than what you see in the pictures.

Once I’d measured the correct distance and marked off the all the placements I still wasn’t any wiser on how high the blocks needed to be. So after much dithering I got to thinking on how I could build the frame to make the boom on. That developed into making out the points and then building it. So that after Nico and Eloise were put to bed I laminated the boom on the frame.

So at the end of week thirty six, I’m not yet finished with the ama, but I do have the beginnings of a boom.

10/10/10

Must be a lucky day, we spent it at Ambury park open day. Things went superbly. We followed some boys out of the car park, who were super excited and Nico picked up their mood and was un-stoppable from there on in. We spent close to 5 hours there eating, bouncing on castles and petting Lamas.

Back to the canoe, Saturday I glassed the other side of the ama, and Sunday after we got back from the park I sanded back some of the epoxy runs.

So at the end of week thirty five the base ama is ready to have the iako attachment points made and glued on.

Spring is Here!

What a beautiful weather we had! Not even a bout of gastric flu could spoil it (thanks to a dose of imodium).

After two weeks of inactivity I’ve pulled finger and moved a little forward. During the week I called Martin and got the wood I needed for the boom (white cedar), rudder and tiller (ash). Which I collected on Thursday. My planned big push for the weekend was to get both sides of the ama glassed.

Saturday morning Nico and I laid out, then measured the fibreglass for cutting. Together we cut the sheet in half and rolled them up, Nico was a great help!

Then it was time to don the pink gloves and get dirty with epoxy again. This is similar to how surfboards are made and it got me thinking that I could use the spare foam I have to make a kicking board for Nico and later Eloise. glassing it may be a bit extreme but it will last!

Sunday morning with the epoxy dry enough to cut I trimmed off the excess cloth and quickly realised that I had been a bit optimistic in my thinking; the other side will have to wait till next weekend.

End of week thirty four (week thirty three was washed away) and one side of the ama has been glassed. Next week I will fair the edge of the fibreglass then glass over the other side. No photo of the progress to date; we went to Helen’s house at Muriwai beach Sunday afternoon and it was dark by the time we got home. However Nico likes his blackboard:

Move along….

Nothing to see here.

End of week thirty two and because of the weather the only thing I’ve managed to get done is finish the kids blackboard. Hopefully next weekend will be more productive.

Play Has Been Delayed by Rain

Continuing Auckland’s weather tradition the weather was on again, off again. I’m still shaping the ama which produces a lot of dust so it needs to be done outside.

Saturday morning it was raining and I had to visit a client so Nico and I set off to do the rounds which included taking Loki for a walk around the Onehunga basin. Incidentally there was a school age waka ama group practicing in two canoes. So we stopped to watch them for a bit. Both canoes were fibreglass probably 7-8m long and had a crew of 6. They went across the pond at a good pace. After that Nico got to test the slide and swing.

After we got home I pulled the ama onto the drive, put 60 grit paper on my sanding board and got stuck in for an hour before rain forced me inside.

The sandpaper did a good job and I was finding it easy to get a good rounded edge. I have to take care though to keep the strokes smooth so that the paper doesn’t jump along the surface and pull pieces of foam out.

Sunday morning the sun came out and the four of us went to Ambury farm for a French playgroup outing. After we got home and had lunch I took the ama out again, only to have it start to rain. Frustrated I pushed it back inside and decided to do something else.

Last week while collecting supplies from Bunnings I also got some blackboard and glow in the dark paint. So instead of working on the ulua I grabbed a scrap pieces' of plywood and timber and built a small blackboard (waiting for the topcoat):

So at the end of week thirty one, no pictures of the ama; even though I did manage to get some more sanding done on Sunday it’s hard to show the progress in photos so I didn’t bother to take one.

Fathers Day and Power Tools

The two just seem to go together!

After stocking up on more glue and epoxy on Monday, I managed to set some time aside during the week to glue & cut the second side and then glue them together. So by Saturday morning I had the basic shape ready for some POWER TOOLS:

First up I had to flatten the top and bottom so that the foam is flush with the plywood core.

Sunday morning started with Nicolas’ normal routine of jumping into bed with us. I’m not a big fan of the commercialization of Mothers and Fathers Day so I wasn’t expecting anything except maybe a bit of a sleep in. Cecile had gotten me a chocolate bar as a treat, that I put on on the bed stand. Wanting to catch a few extra minutes sleep I tucked back in.

With Nico wriggling in bed between Cecile and me I gave up after half an hour. Nico was in my face asking for Coco-puffs when I noticed a brown smudge on his face… I looked to the bed stand and noticed something was missing, sure enough a quick search of the bed uncovered the remnants of chocolate bar wrapping!

Oh well, as they say; you snooze, you loose.

Back to work, with Nicolas’ help I measure and draw up the outline for the ama’s shape on the top.

Nicolas trying Papas’ boots on for size:

With the basic shape draw up, I cut the excess off with a saw and then it was out with the belt sander for the next stage of shaping.

So at the end of week thirty the ama is taking shape. I think I’m finished with the belt sander, while it does a great job, quickly, it’s a little too fast and un-wieldy to get the shape nice and smooth. So the rest will be done by hand with sand paper.

Hurry up and Wait!

Spring is here, along with Auckland’s famous four seasons in one day weather. Beautiful and sunny one minute pouring down hail the next.

During the week I measured up the remaining sheets, so that come Saturday I was ready to take them outside and cut them to size.  Then I laid them out on the strong-back, mixed up a batch of epoxy glue and glued them together.  Since its best to let the epoxy cure over night, that was my work done for the day.

Sunday I took the first sheet out and cut it to shape. As you can see it’s a fair size already (4500mm x 100mm) and this is only the first half!

Granted I’ll be taking a fair amount off giving it a more streamlined shape but I think my concerns about buoyancy were unfounded.

With that done I laid out the second side and glued them together.

So at the end of week twenty nine, after a flurry of activity and blue dust I’m back to waiting for the epoxy to cure. Speaking of which, I’m getting low on it and glue powder again. Well I’m almost out of glue powder. Next week I will get more supplies and glue all the sides together with the plywood core. If I’m careful I’ll be able to do it all in one day so that Sunday I can start shaping the ama.

Also during the week I spoke to Gary about paint options and he suggested two brands; one which is a marine paint, that are both available at Bunnings, which hopefully will be cheaper than buying through a marine supplier.

Useful link of the week: Building a better Leeboard.

Back on Track - Kind of

The Styrofoam arrived on Thursday, so now I can get started on the ama. Except it’s my birthday this weekend and we’re having a

dinner party. I try and keep these simple by distributing the load a little (people bring salad, starters etc) but I still spent Saturday running around getting supplies and re-arranging the lounge to make space for the table.

Because of the kids, we kicked dinner off early and it was 9:00pm when people started to going home even though it felt like 11:00! A sure sign I’m getting older :D

Sunday we went to the pool followed by a trip to Mums’ to drop off the table and chairs we borrowed. After that Nico and I went to Bunnings to try and get some glue for the styrofoam. The sales rep recommended something called Styrobond, which he thought Bunnings might stock. He was correct, they have it in five litre jars! Forget about that I’ll try something else. So after a good ten minutes reading the labels on various pots of glue I settled on CRC Ados F22.

I also looked at sourcing timber for the boom, leeboard and rudder. However; while they have the right lengths for the boom, they only stock pine and rimu. The rimu I’ve decided is too heavy for the boom but the pine will make a reasonable back-up option if I can’t find something lighter.

Speaking of the rudder, during the week I went to Boat Bits to rummage through their second hand parts to see if there was a spare rudder or daggerboard I could modify for use as a leeboard or rudder. They had a lot of Laser rudders which are too short and too expensive. But there was one long enough that I ended up buying that I will try to modify.

Shopping done, Nico got his treat which was an extra long play session in the stores’ playground.

Back at home I marked out the outline for the ama on the plywood I joined up last week then cut out the shape. Gary sent me plans for an enlarged ama but it turns out that the sheets of styrofoam are only 600mm wide and I will need to cut them in half the get the full amount I need, fine for the ama that’s in the plans but not enough for the larger ama. I’d need to double the amount of styrofoam to build it. An expense I don’t want to pay right now. So I took the original plan and stretched the widest point by 900mm.

Next step is to glue the styrofoam together, I wasn’t prepared to risk a whole sheet, so I cut up some blocks from an off-cut and glued them together… Good thing I did!

The glue melted the foam, so its back to the drawing board.

End of week twenty eight and work on the ama has begun in earnest.. Kind of!

Nothing to see Here

Bit of a late update, but truth be told not much has changed. I ordered the styrofoam from Forman Building Systems and was told that there would be a five to ten day delay because the sheets were cut to order. So I tried to get hold of Martin of Shale Woodworking to get more wood for the leeboard, rudder and boom.

However it looks like Martin is on holiday as the phone isn’t being answered and goes to fax instead, no luck there.

So with not much I can do, I finished sanding the second iako, cut the butt joined the second sheet of plywood into a 5000 x 450mm sheet that I will be using as the template and centre for the ama.

Thinking on the ama, the original plans call for one that’s 3600mm long, Gary sent me plans for an ama stretched to 4800mm to get extra buoyancy so that I can use the space between the hull and ama for a trampoline.

So no photo at the end of week twenty seven, and no materials to work on. Hopefully next week the styrofoam will arrive so that I can get working on the ama.

Who Needs a Gym…

When you’re building a boat?

Bad weather for most of the weekend kept progress to a minimum. The first iako was covered in glue from the laminating and I anticipated that there would be a lot of sanding to get back to bare wood. And unfortunately sanding needs to be done outside, in the rain. Not a recommended activity with power tools!

But I did manage to laminate my second iako, which was a good thing because by Sunday afternoon it was dry enough to work on it.

Sunday morning we went to French bay out past Blockhouse bay, the weather had cleared up and it was promising to be a good day. That was until we loaded everyone into the car. With a few warning drops, we got a sudden down pour! Luckily I was able to shout a warning to Cecile and she got inside the car in time. There went my day.

French bay is one of these lovely forgotten bays that dot the Manukau Harbour, the tide was in and there were ducks and seagulls on the water. Nicolas was in heaven! Every month the French Bay Yacht Club hosts a French market which we had to check out. Alas the market was small with not much of a selection. That said, Cecile still managed to buy some sausage and mustard along with the obligatory pastries.

Back at home the weather was still hit and miss, so I thought I might as well see if I can use a plane to get this glue off. As you can see it worked well and it was a nice physical job to warm me up.

After I’d finished with the plane I risked the rain and took them outside with the orbital sander. I managed to get one finished before the rain started to threaten once more.

So at the end of week twenty six I have two nearly finished iakos. This week I’ll get the wood to make the boom, rudder % lee board. I’ll also order the styrofoam to make the ama. I’ll also need to make some time in the evenings to clear up my work space to cut the ama template.

Over all I’m happy with the way the iakos have turned out.

Wrapped up in a Blanket

Sanding and more sanding. Took her out on the drive again on Saturday and sanded the gunwales and decks to remove some of the rough edges. I was planing to glue the seats in that day but in a moment of clarity I realised that it will be much easier to paint the inside without them in the way.

So with that decision made I decided that my work on the main hull was done for now and it was time to move her out of the garage. Cecile was so excited at the prospect of the hull going outside that she even helped lift it off the strong back and carry her to her new location.

Nico helped me unfold and spread out the tarpaulin so that she remains protected from the rain and sun.

Once I have finished the iakos and the ama I will finish them and the hull off with a coat of paint and installing all the fittings.

Unfortunately for Cecile, the strong back will stay in the garage a little bit longer, I need it to laminate the iakos and hold the ama.

Sunday I got the first iako done, I had hoped to be able to do two in one day but low and behold I didn’t have enough clamps!

I’m glad I didn’t even try as doing one was a bigger job than I expected. Because the iakos take a lot of strain I wanted to be especially sure that the laminates were strong, so before applying a coat of glue, I first wet each side with epoxy before then laying on the glue mix.

Next week I’ll have the second one done and then I’ll order the styrofoam needed to build the ama. Then extra wood to make the boom, leeboard and rudder. A lick of paint and we’re done, the end is so close that we’re starting to enter a personal danger zone. In the past I start to get impatient to get the job done and get sloppy. We’ll see how we get on here.

 

 

End of week twenty five and here she is all wrapped up:

Improvisation

So last week I glued in the mast step and despite my best attempts to mark out the correct placing I didn’t quite get it right, close but no cigar. So I had to find a way to shape the hole so that the mast will fit. Only problem is how do you reach all the way down a 80cm hole?

Well finally my hording paid off, I had kept all the cores from making the mast step. I had figured on using them as wheels on a trolley… So I got them all together, threaded them on to a big nail and wrapped them all in a sheet of sand paper and presto the perfect sander for the job.

 

With a few seconds of sanding the mast was fitting nice and snug.

Then it was on to cutting the top section into shape, aligning it and marking that position.

Then it was onto more glue work. First up was gluing some support struts to the underside of the seats. I decided to use strips of the remaining ash from the gunwales, it’s nice strong and light timber. Four pieces evenly spaced apart make a nice strong and light seat. So after neatly aligning on sheets of oven paper, I donned my gloves and mixed up a batch of epoxy to coat the underside. Of course I had to pick each piece up so all my efforts were for naught. Oh well.

With the undersides coated I mixed in my glue powder and attached the upper section of the mast support, filleted the front of the splash guard and glued on the two parallel supports that the aft seat will rest on.

Sunday morning I took her outside to check the mast fit… Again it was tight, so using the rubbing on the wood as a guide I enlarged the hole until I had a tight fit. I suspect that I’ll need to make more room as I intend to coat all the timber in epoxy to make it waterproof and prevent warping or rot. I’m also thinking of lining it in leather to protect the mast. We’ll see.

Checking the aft seat for fit:

Then it was off to the park for some family time.

When we got back I had enough light to drill holes into the side of the hull for the iako lashings, sand them smooth and coat the insides with epoxy. I’m also worried about the strength of the upper mast fitting so I laid a strip of fibreglass over its’ forward edge to reinforce it. I also glued in the support struts for the forward seat. Next week I will sand the top of the seats, fillet the supports with a wood and epoxy blend and then glue the seats in.

So at the end of week twenty four a lot of small fiddly bits have been completed and we are slowly inching forwards. On a side note it is looking more and more likely that I will not follow through with my original plan to install a middle bulkhead for extra storage, I like the un-interrupted flow of the hull as it is and have developed quite an aversion to blocking it off and compartmentalizing it. It’s so un-canoe like!