Deck laminated

After sanding the deck surface and a thorough vacuum I made up a batch of epoxy/microballoons and filled in all the obvious lows like along the UD in the rebates. There is a rebate on each side where the fabric ends, no rebate in the mid line as there are several installations here. The overlaps are made staggered instead.


I made the front deck without bagging, simply because it was a pain to figure out where to attach the bag, and remembering the leaking bag on the aft deck also made it tempting to have a shot at hand lay up again. The result was very good, no signs of voids and a good resin/fiber ratio.
The bag attachment was even a bigger issue here so I had another go with the hand lay up. First I wet out the foam generously, using aproximately the same amount of resin as the fiber weight. A paint roller is used to work the resin down in the foam surface. When the fibres are then applied, it will wet out perfectly with only light rolling over and some time to soak.


Last coaming layer laid wet in the deck laminate. Making sure to overlap down the bulkhead with the deck laminate.


Then the starboard side was applied the same way with carbon before the final wear and crash resistant aramid/carbon hybrid was put on and worked down in the wet carbon. Some more resin had to be applied at this stage to fully wet out the fabric. Then it was all peel plied and worked with a rubber squeege. It still looked perfect with no voids/bubbles after 8 hours of curing.


I found the designed window shape to create a rather agressive look on the boat. As this is, like all Farrier designs, a comfortable, safe cruiser, and one that can also be fast, but the performance is only achieved by efficiency, not excessive power (I hope good craftmanship can be added as well), I'd like the boat to look like that and not like an agressive racer. I had help from a local artist to scetch up a few alternative window shapes, and have tried out several cardboard windows. This is very close to what I will end up with. The window will be in two parts.



One more note on the cruiser/racer thing: Although if I wanted a racer I would not build a Farrier design, this boat will mostly be used for racing and sport sailing, but it will also be suited for cruising as long as one use ones head and reefs as required for safety and comfort. Additionally, all the sails you can get are usually recuired during summer as the wind is very weak most of the time like 2-6 kt, where it is usually ~30 kt or more if it is not.

Edit as an answer to Dag's comment. The Farrier window design is very clear on some of the pictures of Kermit - the little green racing machine and here is a sketch of my design, although not exactly like this as the testing showed that some small adjustments were to be made. Yes, they are critical, that's why I want to change them... ;-)