Drill, fill, drill

Drill, fill, drill.

Ticking off the jobs list this past weekend.

Patric and I lifted the mast off the boat on Friday morning before I went to work. The mast is now on the front lawn so I can give it a once over. From a quick look, all seems well, but I will do a proper job later.

Nice sunny weather on Saturday enabled me to sort out the liferaft storage in the cockpit. The end of the raft slots in well under the traveller bulkhead. The other end is secured by two s/s saddles through bolted into the cockpit floor. A rope lashing will hold the raft in position.

Fitting the saddles requires "drill, fill, drill". Seeing that the boat is composite construction, with all holes drilled, the pvc foam around the hole must be dug out and the hole refilled with thickened epoxy. The epoxy must be left to cure and once cured the hole is re drilled, but now with an epoxy sleeve around it. The epoxy sleeve does two things, it creates a seal around the hole to prevent water seeping into the pvc core material and it also forms a hardspot to prevent the bolts holding the fittings down from crushing the foam core.

It makes installing fittings a real pain in the ass.

The quickest way to do it is to mark the fitting and the holes onto the hull.

Drill a small pilot hole for each bolt.

Go to the other side (inside the boat) and drill a 25 mm hole with a spoon bit through the inner laminate and the foam core.

As the bit touches the outer laminate, STOP.

You then fill the hole with thickened epoxy.

Once cured, drill the correct size hole.

An oversize backing plate (6 mm aluminium or 12 mm marine ply) is then placed over the hole on the inside.

This spreads the load well past the plug.

Bullet proof, just takes time.

Anyway, I also did the extra u bolts for safety harnesses in the cockpit and two attachment points for the aft safety nets.

Then I enlarged the one cockpit locker hatch so the outboard's fuel tank can go into it. That is a huge improvement. The enlarged opening must now have the raw foam core dug out and resealed with epoxy.

Today I made the hatch cover bigger to fit the bigger hole.

I also measured up all the lengths for s/steel cable to be ordered. That's for the bow pole braces, the bobstay and the aft safety nets.

Then the weather turned very nasty and all work stopped.

Tomorrow the epirb arrives.

Then it is some flares, lifejacket lights, an extra fire extinguisher and we can be surveyed for "going foreign" by the SAMSA inspector.

The picture was taken during construction, but the locker on the left is the one I enlarged to take the fuel tank. The raft goes onto the cockpit floor and slides under the lip at the forward end of the cockpit. I have prepared two thin mahogany 450 x 40 x 6 mm strips to keep the raft off the cockpit floor. Thes I will just glue on with PU adhesive.