40 Februar y 2015practical: boat build
Another month on and our new baby is
starting to resemble a real yacht. That’s
good, because it is what we ordered!
Last month we had left the boat back
in the shed but now the right way up,
still with the temporary frames in place.
Prior to commencement of the internal
glassing, the hull was braced and most
of the temporary frames were removed.
A few were left in place to maintain the
rigidity of the structure and glassing
began in sections so that the remaining
frames could be removed, ready for the
last sections to be glassed.
As mentioned last month, the full
strength of the hull would not be realised
until this internal glass skin was in place.
Most of the interior glassing was done
within a week; not always an easy job,
especially in the bow area with one of the
guys resembling a circus act. See image
for proof.
They glass every second drop to make
access for laying and rolling the glass
easier, then they go back and glass in
between, otherwise it gets tricky and
ver y st ick y.
For the interior hull laminate, they
used peel-ply glassing cloth. This can be
seen where the white strips are shownin the photo, these are just the peel-ply
overlaps. The peel-ply is removed where
necessary to bond structure in, but
they leave much of it in place as long as
possible to keep the laminate clean.
Once the whole of the hull interior
had been glassed and with all frames
removed, the boat was levelled with
lasers, ready for the interior structure
to be started.
The boat was now beginning to look
great and really showing her interior
volume and powerful hull shape.
A further week's progress saw
the anchor locker and aft sail locker
bulkheads in place.
The aft sail locker/forward bulkhead in
the front cabin was then coved and made
ready for glass taping. They would leave
the anchor locker bulkhead dry-fitted,
so it could be removed for access to the
bow of the boat, until the anchor locker
fairing and under-deck furler shelf set-
up was complete.
We were really starting to see at this
stage just how much work goes in to
the construction of a boat like this and
could appreciate the number of hours
required, it was certainly different to
building a house.Two forward foam ring frames under
the front berth area had also been fitted,
shaped, coved and then glassed in to the
hull. While we are not fans of foam,
we could see these were appropriate to
use in this internal area ensuring real
strength and rigidity, but with minimal
weight in the ends of the boat. More
bulkheads were then fitted and glassed to
the hull including the bulkhead making
up the aft end of our forward berth.
This gave us an appreciation of the size
of this berth. We nervously checked the
measurements and compared it to the
plans and hey presto, it was spot on!
What is more, it was actually bigger
than our king sized bed at home. But it
needed to be, with two adults and two
dogs on there most nights.
It is also nice to have the space on a
hot night in the tropics.Choices to be made
The benefit of a custom build was
made clearly obvious during one of our
weekly visits as the front cabin area
began to take shape.
The plans showed a couple of storage
bins in the front cabin either side of the
area for the mattress, but we had notThird month into logging the build of their new yacht, Neil Bailey begins to feel the
excitement as the interior hull work takes shape and decisions have to be made.
Birth of a yacht part 3