New ama weight

Fish scales don't lie, right? 14 lbs!

This is more than I wanted. I've already started to design the next iteration, which will be way, way lighter. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to seeing how these work, what the added buoyancy means, etc.

 

Tomorrow I start painting the sides red.

New amas - first paint!

Finally!

(Couldn't get far enough away for a full shot.)

Just top & sides for now. Planning two coats top & bottom, then at least one coat of red on the sides.

 

Paint is Petit EasyPoxy semi-gloss, left over from the kayak.

 The foam roller works fabulously. Tried someone's suggestion to use foil instead of having to clean the tray. Worked fine.

John's swim platform

That's John behind the ladder. Hi, John!

The thing with nuts sticking out is the rudder shaft log. The rudder will hang, the short tiller goes through the transom under the swim grid. John has made it so that he can undo the bolts from outside if he wants to access the rudder shaft. The bolt heads on the inside are welded to oversize washers that are held from turning by screws through them. John thinks of everything. 😎

The platform, which came with the boat, is fibreglass with a balsa core deck. John replaced the centre knee with two knees, one either side of the shaft log. Should hold a good sized elephant. I mean elephant seal.

Glass mat

This is what the glass mat skin on the amas looks like after it's been filled:

I still have some spots to re-fill, but aside from those, the hulls are quite smooth.

Amas meet akas

The day of reckoning has arrived. One of them. The amas got their aka attachment tubes positioned today:

 Ugly and quite possibly too massive, but we're going to try them out anyway and see if they fly. John wants me to have a smaller sail and go slower. I want a big sail to go fast and I want to be able to take on heavy winds if necessary. The more ama volume the better in both of those cases, I think.

John's project

John bought himself a 26' Tollycraft. For fishing, he says.

 

It was last powered by two inboard-outboards:

John bought a diesel engine for it and put in a shaft log:

Which meant adding that skeg as well:

And filling in the holes. John's good at that stuff!

Ama sanding

Ama sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and... 

Using mat was a mistake. Cloth would have saved a whole lot of work.

Curse you, John! ;-)