Mark dropped around to help roll the boat yesterday. It is much quicker and easier if you have one person winding a winch in and one winding the other winch out so the boat just rolls.

It went off like clockwork as usual and the hull is now upside down with bricks and blocks under the beam landings.

Before going much further I wanted to see where the waterline is on the hull. However my laser level is on the blink so the hull has been set up so the W/L is parallel to the ceiling. (The ceiling was true 20yrs ago, when I built it. Pre stressed concrete flooring panels on 12 inch thick steel beams.) All I had to do was cut a stick to the required length, taped a couple of levels to it so I could keep it exactly vertical and mark off the hull. (BTW:- I have ordered another laser to double check before making it permanent. I will most likely resort to the fishing line method of permanently marking the W/L. Hold the line against the hull with tabs of tape and paint resin over it. When the resin has cured pull the line off and its indent showing the W/L remains for the life of the boat.)

My plan is to make the cradle now but I am tempted to put a coat of high build undercoat on it first.





Here is a pic showing the O/B motor mount and emergency hatch from below.

I ended up putting the epoxy high build undercoat on.
The undercoat weighs more than all the fairing.
I'll spray a duster coat of black on it and then wet and dry it back.
Looking at it in real life the wet and dry should take almost all of the minor blemishes out before top coating.
Any that remain will be identified by remnants of the duster coat.
Here is a pic.

Looking good Phill!

I just finished the last major lamination of the hull, so I'm way behind

regards
Nico

Nico,
And I'm way behind Clive who has just launched. We will all get there eventually.
I was invited out for a sail today. The sail today confirmed that I'm definitely building the right boat.

Here is a pic taken before we set off.

That must have been fun !

Nice looking boat Phill, how was the wind and how did it sail?

How deep is the dagger board, and what's it made of?

Tim,
It was very light and variable with the max no more than 7 or 8 knots. Top speed of the day was 14.5knots under main and jib.
I was very impressed at the speed upwind in particular, given the conditions.
Clive only launched the boat the previous day so it still has a load of potential to tap into.

My D/B is carbon and foam CNC cut and laminated under vacuum. It sticks out the case around 1700mm. There are a couple pics below showing the size of the D/B.

Wow, that is a nice looking board! I'll bet it's pretty light too? And I'm guessing that's also the rudder in the top picture, and the bow sprit?

I wonder how hard it would be to build a 'new' dagger for a F24MII that is both lighter and deeper than the original board, and thinner, like that dagger above. That sure looks sweet!

Tim,
There is a bit or work in it but it was made a lot easier by having a mate with a CNC machine to cut the foam blank. It weighs around 12kg because, with it being that long (nearly 9ft) and thin, you need quite a lot of carbon to make it strong enough. The mast is over 40ft tall so there is a lot of horsepower in the sail plan.

We also made a plug for the rudder. (Pic Below.) Mark cut it and I finished it. But I never made the mould. I decided I wanted a slightly longer rudder for the main hull. So Mark was good enough to cut the foam blank of the rudder in the pic above. Once launched I'll probably go ahead and make the mould and use that to make some float rudders. I'd like the redundancy of the 3 rudders when coastal sailing.

Black duster coat applied and wet sanded off. That black paint is a harsh critic.
However it looks worse than it is because most of the black spots remaining can be seen but not felt,
so another coat of hi build should fix them. Others I can just feel so these will be filled first.
Given the black exposes all the imperfections, this approach should ensure a near perfect surface for a top coat.
Now if I was even crazier I'd duster coat it again after next hi build. However given it took me 12 hours to wet sand that coat off
I think I'll pass on the second duster coat. I do want to get the boat finished.

Below are a couple of pics after the duster coat has been wet sanded.

The second coat of hi build has been applied.

So far all up I've sprayed 8.5 litres of hi build primer over 2 coats and spent 18 hours wet sanding.
Up close the hi build is now so thin it is almost translucent and the shop floor is covered in white powder.
It did screw with my head just a little, all that money and time to put the primer on
just to spend a lot more time to rub it off. However the hull is now nice and smooth and fair.
Next is to spend some time cleaning up the mess so I can apply the top coat.

That is incredible work, thank you for sharing.

But, seeing all the effort going in to this build, I feel better that I bought a factory boat... there is no way on earth I have the skills/time/space needed for this level of construction...

Jay,
Thank you for your comments.
Unless one really enjoys building and I mean really enjoy building boats, then buying a factory boat is a very smart move.

I really enjoy building but this is the last boat that I will build (due to my ever increasing sensitivity to resins) so I'm taking my time.

I have been waiting for the weather to clear up so I could spray the top coat on the main hull.
Finally after a week it all came together and it now has the top coat.








An interesting bit of trivia- To spray two pack polyurethane one should have a relative humidity of less than 85% and at least 3 deg C between the Ambient Temp of the surface one is spraying and the Dew Point Temp. This is because when the paint hits the surface the evaporation of the thinners cools the surface by around 3 deg C. If the surface temp goes below the Dew Point Temp moisture will settle on the surface and this moisture will affect the hardener in the paint. The drop in surface temp is the same as if you get acetone on your hands. It makes your hand cold because its evaporation is fueled by energy it takes from your hand thus making it colder. The same thing happens when you spray paint. I had to wait a week for a wet spell to pass and finally ended up with a relative humidity of 58% and Ambient Temp 8deg C above the Dew Point.

Ultimately I would like to qualify for Cat 2 coastal racing. From what I can make out to meet the safety regs I will need a bright colour with a min area of 1m2 that can be seen when the boat is upside down. The boat would be rather slow upside down for that and several other reasons I hope that I never find myself in that position. Given that I will be keeping the boat at home under cover rather than on a mooring I have decided that I will not anti foul the bottom so I thought this may do the job. It has an area of just over 1m2. I will also paint the lower section of the dagger board with this colour.

I think I happen to have enough surplus materials to make a cradle for the main hull so thought I'd just give it a go.

First I covered the hull with 3 layers of plastic and one layer of vacuum film. I don't want to damage the paint.
Then 2 layers of a fairly heavy triaxial glass. I was given a couple rolls of this stuff a few years back along with some really out of date epoxy.
But it is only a cradle- wouldn't use the ood epoxy in the boat itself.

I also happen to have several sheets of 3.5mm pacific maple marine ply. So here s a couple of pics of the work to date.







The ribs will be trimmed back by up to 6 inched each side and there is more timber to be glued in place length ways along the keel and sides to make more of a frame.
The timber will be acting as a high density core and it will all have at least 2 layers of the triaxial glass over it.
Frames will also go under the ribs and be bolted to gal angle that is then bolted to the trailer.

Hint for people looking to copy Phill's idea here. If you don't have Phill's experience be really careful. I've seen people get carried away building cradles throw too much glass on in one go and generate so much heat that they damage the boat's foam core. Like anything lamination wise, take your time a do just a few layers at a time.

Scarecrow, Interesting that you mention that, a very good point. I had this originally planned with some friends coming around to help. When I found out the forecast temp was going to be 37 deg C I became concerned re thermal runnaway and I put it off until I got a day in the low 20s. Then still used slow hardener and only 2 layers of glass. Once the frame is built around this skin I'll do a bit more possibly with a 5mm core cell as core, I have a heap of this 5mm M80 foam. I have no other immediate use for it, picked it up super cheap many years ago.

I haven't been able to touch the boat for the last week and it looks like it will be a few more weeks before I can get back to the boat. I did get to snap a couple of pics of where I'm up to earlier this arvo.



I got out my laser level to mark the frames so they can be trimmed and all support the boat evenly when on the trailer. I have a couple pics below. One time exposure showing the laser line. Held by hand so no super clear. But then photography was never my strong point.


The cradle will now be lifted off and all the excess timber and glass will be trimmed before all the bare timber is laminated with triax glass & epoxy.

Then the cradle will be lined with marine carpet, the hull set in it and work will commence on the cabin top and windows etc.

The cradle is off the hull and now trimmed.



Starting to look the part, but still needs the timber encased in the triax.