Sailing a schooner and visit from a good sailing friend

Last weekend I went to Haugesund to celebrate my friend Erik's 40th birthday.  Lots of old friends showed up from all over Europe, and Erik's girlfriend, who arranged the party without Erik's knowledge, had rented the 70 ft schooner Valentine for us to stay in.  We also got to take her out for a sail.





We had great day with sunny weather and 20 - 25 knots of breeze and this picture is from the end of the day, packing the headsails.  I'm on the "Klyver", the equivalent of which will be the screacher on the F-22.  It was great sailing a schooner again for the first time in more than 21 years!


This weekend Erik came to visit me and to take part in the building.  We almost finished the main hull exterior laminations, leaving only the front beam bulkhead reinforcements.  Here I'm working on the bag for the starboard underwing area.


Erik posing in front of the pulling bag.  We laminated the port side the day before, but didn't take any pictures of that.


After some hours high temp curing we rolled the hull and supported it temporarily.  Then spent a few hours discussing interior solutions, and we found out that the RM69 head will probably fit, but the holding tank will not.  I'll probably make a custom tank to fit just in front of the head.


Then we started making the pop top.  Erik prepared the the cabin deck cut out and fitted the required foam extensions to achieve the correct size while I put together a mould for the sides, and then I had to bring Erik to the airport for his return flight.  A very nice weekend indeed!


I sneak back in the workshop this evening to finish the inside lamination of the aft end and the sides.  The front end have complex curves and I chose to leave the adaptation of that mould part to a separate session when the rest of the hatch is rigid.