Daggerboard trunk done, and more

Four hours of work today. First of all we attached 4 plywood pads at the hull sides to provide glueing surface for the support of the transverse sole stiffeners. The picture below shows two of those pads. The daggerboard will be placed between those two vertical side stiffeners, of course along the hull centerline.

We then closed the daggerboard trunk, attaching the other side with epoxy and bronze ring nails. Here's Cinzia epoxy filleting the corner at the newly glued side.

We then glued the two reinforcement cleats at the top, which will be supporting the sole panel.

We then gave two coats of resin to the bottom side of the sole panels.

Total work time to date: 282 hours

Tids and bits

Four hours today, to work on things that are not specifically mentioned on the plans. We cut, glued and screwed 8 additional supports for the sole panels at the bulkheads corners. Two of those are visible in the photo below

We had prepared the daggerboard trunk for the glue up but the resin went off in a very short time so we had to throw away a fairly sized blob. Next time...

Total work time to date: 278 hours

Daggerboard trunk glassing

May 1st is a holiday over here so we could work (a bit) also on friday morning. We spent 4 hours between friday and saturday to glue the trunk spacers and to glass both faces.

Here's Cinzia cutting the fiberglass cloth (160 grams per square meter) to size with special fiberglass scissors.

Here's the first side glassed. There's one single piece of fg going all the way from the top of one spacer to the top of the other. That's why the upper corner is rounded, while we made a fillet on the other. Other then glued, the trunk sides are also nailed to the spacers with bronze ring nails.

And here's the other side glassed as well. We also glued the extension to the forward sole (which as you know came out short due to an error in the plans).

Total work time to date: 274 hours.

Daggerboard trunk (2)

Two more hours to cut and rip all pieces necessary to build the daggerboard trunk. As you can see in the pictures, the framing lumber is pretty thick so this is likely to be the strongest piece of the whole boat.

This view shows the bottom side, framed in 2x4s which will be glued and screwed to the bottom

while this shows the upper part which will be glued to the low side of the sole.

Total work time to date: 270 hours

Daggerboard trunk (1)

The construction and subsequent installation of the daggerboard trunk is described both on the plans and in the instructions. As already happened, though, there are several ambiguities: first of all, the plywood thickness is specified to be 1/4" (6 mm) on the plans and 1/2" (12 mm) in the instructions. We decided to use the 3/8" (10 mm) plywood. Also the installation sequence is pretty different in the two sources. So we spent quite some time studying the drawings and reading the instructions, and will probably develop our own sequence.

On saturday morning we spent a couple of hours studying the plans and cutting the pieces for the daggerboard trunk. Here are the two sides made of 10 mm plywood

and here the sides with the two spacers in between

Total work time to date: 268 hours

Back at it

Here we are again after one idle (boatwise) month. Just one hour yesterday to adapt the aft floor panel to the boat. The photo shows the cutting line: the original panel was drawn according to the dimensions shown on the plans but there was no way to force it into the hull both lenghtwise and widthwise.

Total work time to date: 266 hours

Update

Not much done lately. During the Easter period Cinzia went away for a sailing week, and the weather at home was so miserable and cold that the shop was very uncomfortable to work in.
Now we both are in Vienna for a conference and will be back in a week or so. But we do think about the boat all the time!