26 June 2010

And then?

There's a movie where one of the characters just keeps saying "and then?" until chaos ensues. Just how I feel! Progress appears incredibly slow currently as we do a host of little jobs. Geoff the sparky has almost finished this phase, he will need to return once the painting is finished and we have laid the lining on the exposed parts of the hull. I am painting the aft cabin but the weather has been cold and damp lately so that has been slow. Today looks good so I'm into it in a moment!

Bill is rocking on with the forward cockpit coaming. It looks high until you put the instruments in place above the hatch, which then brings everything into perspective. Construction is quite simple but I am glad he is doing it, there are a few tricks of the trade he brings along which make it look easy.

The foam is glassed inside and out, he is doing that in the garage before the final attachment onto the boat. We will be making the hatch turtle strong enough to jump on, so there will be a bit of trial and error there. Elsewhere in the boat I have mounted the cabin lights, 12 V sockets, switches and some of the fans. Parts of the boat look finished - if you hold your head right and concentrate...

17 June 2010

And then?

Work on the electrical system continues and Geoff is making great progress. The main areas are finished - the main distribution area under the stairs, the main engine panel and the 12-switch panel etc. I have been pretty happy as all the work we have done during the build has paid off, with regards to adding wiring access and gluing in conduit. I think I have most of the switches, lights, fans and sockets that we need so hopefully I don't need to shop around as I have been doing. It has been hard to find attractive (to my eyes) and practical light fittings, in the end we just said "whatever" and went with our first choice.





Bill has started on the forward cockpit coaming. There has been quite a lot of standing round talking about it, working out some parameters and different ideas. It is a difficult thing to build with no drawings so hopefully our discussions are worthwhile. It looks quite high so far but I think that is because I am so used to nothing there - I keep needing to put the old teak boards in place so I can remember the scale. We decided to centralise the instrument panel and leave the hatch looking offset, time will tell if that is the best look.

I have had the backstay chainplates made and polished. They are pretty chunky as it is what Sam had lying around in his workshop, but I don't think they will disintegrate! The photo shows I have drilled the holes and they are sitting in place. I was on my friend Cedric's KP44 over the weekend and I ran a line to see how much room it created on the aft deck. I believe it will be really good, with a lot more headroom and space than the existing central backstay. I might not have guessed the angle correctly but we are able to bend them around a bit if they are not close enough.