Funners multi coloured waffle....

I let the rear deck cure for 48hrs and also fixed it down with Marine Grade Stainless fixings
The next step was to rough out the shape of the rear half of the cockpit



this was the point during one of the test sittings that I decided the ply seat had to go...less than 5 mins and it was very uncomfortable, so a moulded plastic one was sourced and fitted....





the difference was marked and for the 1st time it actually felt like a proper boat, not just a load of ply stuck together !

Next stage is forming the foredeck....as per previous, this involves cutting shapes...sticking the sections together...
wiring the resulting shapes together and laying a bead of epoxy putty to bond them....then fitting the whole lot to the hull when it's semi cured....

a few test fits....

Fitting the deck is a lot of complex juggling and I didn't get many "During" photo's.... however a selection of the results follows....







As you can see I had already marked out and cut holes for the deck hatches... these provide access to the water proof compartments for storage, again, not a feature of the plans as such but I wanted the boat to be as usable as possible

Next I formed the front half of the cockpit shape, this is fairly complex as there are several criteria to be met, including me actually fitting in/out and more importantly...being able to use a spraydeck...
this was a subject I knew nothing about and I ended up doing lots of research to ensure that I didn't end up with a boat that I couldn't use a deck on...



Shaping the deck to the cockpit shape



The fore hatch...this is two fold....
1) it gives me yet more storage

2) it enables me to use a flotation bag if I ever take the boat out to sea...

The next week or so is spent in one of two ways.....

I'm either filling the external hull in prep for painting, a mix of Marine epoxy filler and Marine plastic padding are used to blend all the glass tape into the hull.





the boat looks particularly "scabby" at this point with a mish-mash of wood/filler/epoxy

the other time consuming job was forming the cockpit coaming....
this consists of plywood rings, cut to the shape of the cockpit, the glued/epoxied into place to form the lip around the cockpit



When cut these are clamped into position till cured....

I ended up making 4 main rings and 1 larger Top ring

More rings being fitted......

Curing in the sun.....



Sunny days vastly helped the curing times.... and so every opportunity was taken to give the boat as much sun as it could get....



Finally, with the last cockpit ring in place and cured, I could start shaping the rings to the required size

Well.....2 months after starting.the main build is finally finished....it still looks like a collection of wood due to the different ply's and fillers used but it feels solid....

Now to make it look pretty........

lots and lots of rubbing, sanding and more rubbing and sanding, I'm pretty lucky in that I already have a lot of power tools for the work I do, and as can be seen the space to do it....
If I built another I'd be a LOT tidier with the epoxy as it's a bastard to sand back down when it's cured.....

I painted the hull 1st of all.....

I had already spent some time getting a fine finish on the hull with filler and undercoat, the original idea had been to use normal exterior paint but I changed my mind at the last minute and went for some proper Yacht paint instead.

1st undercoat.....



2nd undercoat.......



3rd undercoat.....



I'm sure you get the idea...
4 coats in all.....

Finally 3 coats of top coat....this is polyurethene paint and very tough with it





not much to say about the painting really, all the work is in the preperation, the actual painting is easy and quick....

Applied by foam roller to give a high Gloss finish