Pink Gloves and Duct Tape

This was a week of little jobs. On Monday I went to NZ Fibreglass to get more glue powder. While I was there I also picked-up a couple of paint rollers for when I glass the ama and a couple of big (60ml) syringes Which I’ll use for mixing small batches of epoxy.

Well silly me, at bath time I showed Nico one of the syringes and how to use it. That was the end of that, think Nico would give it back? “No share Papa!”

As it turned out I had to go to Mt Wellington again on Wednesday so I stopped into NZ Fibreglass again and got a replacement syringe. On a whim I bought some more epoxy hardener.

“Do you want fast or normal setting”

“Fast setting as in for cold weather, so I don’t need to heat the garage?

“Yes”

Hmm let me think about that…

“Fast thanks”

Saturday, after a week of glorious weather turned out to be a typical Auckland winters day…. Cold grey and bouts of showers. I spent most of it visiting Oma with Nico, playing with the train set or cooking. Didn’t get much done on the canoe.

Sunday the weather did another back face and we were back to a beautiful day. So I got to work and cut and shaped the mast step, the base it rests on, the mast support for the wae and the splash guard.

By the evening of week twenty three I had the splash guard on:

 

 

And the mast step in place. As you can see it’s a deep one as recommended by Gary. The base is glued on with a fillet of sawdust and epoxy to fill the gaps then on top of that a strip of fibreglass which extends to the hull sides. The rest is then glued on with glue fillets and a strip of fibreglass wrapping around it and attaching to the ring frame.

Not Much Done

Saturday morning started off with the best of intentions. Nico and us hit the road early enough… Well tried to anyway; my car wouldn’t start. No surprise really it hasn’t been used for three days and the nights were cold, not a good combination for a diesel engine. So with a quick change of car we were off.

First stop Onehunga to the Powertool centre to see if they sold drill stands. No luck there, so on to Carbine Rd in Mt Wellington where there is a secondhand tool shop. “Let me see, I saw one recently on the floor, nope its gone”. Just my luck.

So on to NZ Fiberglass to get more glue powder. On the way there is another second hand tool shop so I quickly stop into that one. Still no drill stand but I did get a nice second hand Stanley plane.

On to NZ Fiberglass and my luck is holding; they are closed! Well that limits my options for the weekend. I went to Mums’ picked up her jumper leads, got my car started and with the whole family went to Spotlight in Manukau. After spotlight we went to Bunnings and I bit the bullet and purchased myself a drill press. I also got a round bastard file which I’ll use to shape the cut-outs for the storage hatches.

The rest of the day was spent planing the gunwales flat and sanding back the splotches of epoxy.

Sunday I assembled two saw horses I purchased a couple of weeks ago and swept out the garage. I fitted the rear bulkhead hatch cover and marked out where the calculated Center of Effort is.

What’s that you ask? Good question; the Center of Effort is the geometric center of the sail, its where the main driving force of the sail is concentrated. The push of the wind forces boat to turn into the wind. To prevent that sail boats have a keel or centerboard. On the Ulua the centerboard is mounted on the side of the hull and is called a leeboard. As a rule of thumb, the leeboard needs to be mounted 5% of the hulls water length behind the center of effort. With a canoe it is also important to make sure that this is at the widest point in the hull. To complicate matters, because the hull is long and narrow, crew position will have a big impact on the real waterline so in practice we’ll be able to balance the helm with our seating position.

At the end of week twenty two this is what she looks like: