Sailing. And some more building

Staale and I sailed Frimann from Levanger to Trondheim last Sunday. Reasonably nice weather, not freezing temperatures and we managed the whole trip on one port tack, starting with a double slotting reach in light air, ending double reefed and close hauled in 20+ knots on the nose and rough chop. Best possible medicine!!! No pictures due to technical problems with the bluetooth interface, I am sorry. This was the first time we rigged a sprit (klyverbom) on Frimann, and we flew the symmetrical spinnaker from the pole. Not optimal, but still very effective in the light conditions, sailing 8 - 10 knots in Beaufort 3-4.

Yesterday I managed to laminate parts of the deck-hull transition in the bow area, and today I flipped the hull to start preparing the underwing area of the hull. It is just these areas and the bow cap left now before the hull is laminated.


Quite a bit of fairing was needed to make this area fair. Rigid sanding board with 40 grit paper shown. I am not sure how big radius I want on the edge here, maybe a bit bigger than this.


An upside down 'portrait' of the main hull

Busy month not building a boat

It has been really difficult to find time for boat building lately, a total of 8 hours I guess in October so far. This does not allow for much progress. But last week end my friend Dag (happy birthday, Dag!) and his daughter came up from Oslo to visit, and we were able to get a couple of nights in the workshop as well. The first night we laminated the starboard side and bagged it. 3 hours work, and a perfect result.


The next day we rolled the hull, Dag took a picture of the proud boat builder, and we started the cabin sides.


Routing for flush mounted Lexan windows.


Then the side was faired and we wet laminated an 'A' equivalent carbon fabric from the gunwale to cabin top. As I started struggling with the vacuum bag Dag finished the port window routing:


Still problems with the bag. A leak trough the hull, we were able to locate it quite exactly, but not able to stop it. It was outside the laminated area so we just took the vacuum we had (10% or so) and drank a few beers in stead.


The bag pulling just enough to avoid bubble trouble.


This last week have been another 60 hour working feast despite my current 20% leave, and now they want to close down our hospital as well. I need to go sailing, and will do so tomorrow. Tonight I managed to drop by in the workshop and laminate the other cabin side. I didn't even bother to try get a vacuum for this side. Thorough wet out of the foam and steady temp will make it, I hope.