Seeing red

This is very close to the way these colours look:

I love the blue colour of the tape.

The amas have a stripe on one side only (the port side of the port ama, starboard side of the starboard ama), so that I'll know which is which at a glance. The location of the inspection hatch covers indicate orientation, as they're off-centre fore-and-aft. (They'll always be aft of centre.) I originally thought it would be a good idea to make the amas so that they go on whichever way, but I don't trust my assembly process to have achieved that. If they can go on any way, I may paint a stripe on the other side as well.

I wanted to leave the skeg white, but the thought of the amount of effort it would take to tape it off was too daunting after I'd fussed with all the little tape joins on the hulls.

Sail & paint

The sail is almost done now. I need to put ties on the top for the yard, and reef points.

In the photo below I was determining how long the bamboo yard and boom need to be, and how much mast will be above the yard:

I wrapped the bamboo with some glass in epoxy between the ridges, to hopefully prevent cracking.

Painting is on-going. The hulls now have three coats of white. The decks and cockpit have three coats of sand tone.

 

On the main hull, the side and bottom planks will be red, and possibly the coaming and around the aft hatch. On the amas, I'll paint a red stripe under the sheer on the outside of each hull. A couple coats should do it for the red over the white, but we'll see.

A Sail!

Thanks to my marine artifacts collector friend Andrew, I now have a sail and a mast!

The sail is a jib from a sloop. The sailcloth is a medium-light weight with a nice hand, possibly from being around so long. In the photo above, the luff is at the bottom, the foot at the left. As you can see, it's not exactly per plan, but I like it enough to go ahead with it. (It's red!) I'll bring the yard up so that the mitre seam ends at the throat, and bring the leech in at the peak (i.e., leave the leech as-is). The yard will be a bit shorter than the plan. This might bring the area down to forty square feet from 42.

The mast is a hollow carbon fibre sailboard mast. I'm shortening it, and adding glass in epoxy to critical areas.

Seagull dreams on sunny rock amid gentle wavelets in Victoria Harbour.

Painting

This step has been long-awaited! This is a fairly simple project, but it seems like it's gone on for a very long time.

The bottoms got their first coat of white. The plan is to have the bilge planks white, the vertical sides red, and the decks either blue or sand—we'll see. I like to put down a coat or two of white under any colour, to make it more brilliant. The amas will be white with a red stripe under the gunnel. If I have enough red, I'll also put it on the bottom plank—there's not much left over from Firefly, so I might need to buy another quart. I'm using Pettit's "Easypoxy". It goes on beautifully with the little foam rollers.

Seagull dreams on sunny rock amid gentle wavelets.

Ama connections

I made a couple fibreglass sleeves using epoxy resin, and cut them to fit the decks of the amas.

Next they get filled, faired, and drilled for pins that will hold them in place.

So this is what she looks like all together, right-side up:

It looks like the amas will be just kissing the water when the boat is level. They are extremely light.

Leeboard slot

I made a board with a slot in it, which was supposed to be attached to the deck above the leeboard pivot bolt, but it seemed clunky and that it would protrude too much and get in the way of paddling.

So I asked John to look at it and see if there was another way of doing it. And there is:

A bent stainless rod with tabs welded on

The upper board guard was added previously, to make the inboard edge of a slot to capture the top of the board. The board guards, upper and lower, are straight and in the same plane, designed to keep the board aligned with the centreline of the boat.

Due to the forces of the water on the board, it's supposed to stay in the vertical position while underway without needing to be tied. If it turns out that it doesn't, a bungee cord will work, back from the hole in the handle to the aka just aft.

Before the tabs were fastened to the deck, oversize holes were drilled in the deck and filled back in with epoxy filled with chopped strand (glass). After the epoxy hardened, proper sized holes for the bolts were drilled through the epoxy-glass area and backing plates that had been previously installed.

Below shows the board fully up. It will be tied up in this position when putting into and pulling out of the water. I'll be taking the board off for car-topping. I can tighten it with a wing-nut on the inside of the boat.

Leeboard

I think John said this was a rudder blade from a 420 "or something".

I made a handle for it out of two pieces of quarter inch ply with an aluminum core, cut a slice out of the top of the blade, and inserted the metal of the handle into it. I had drilled holes in the aluminum, making epoxy "rivets" to better grab the aluminum.

I know, it looks backwards, but the leading edge, other side from the handle, is the fat part of the NACA foil.

Aft is to the left.

The little piece of quarter inch ply on the deck indicates where the slot board will be.