Vaka cockpit

6 hours of work in the last two weekends to make the cockpit the vaka. Our plywood sheets are 2.5 meters long, and the hull is 6 meters long, so using one sheet for the deck forward and another for the deck aft, a remaining space about 1 meter long must be filled.
The first picture shows all the four butt blocks (2 cm thick) already glued and screwed to the two esisting deck panels.

while the next one shows the two fillers glued and screwed as well. Those butt blocks needed quite some work since their shape is a bit tricky.

Next time we'll cut the whole cockpit and round the hull to deck joint.

Total work time to date: 411 hours

Vaka decks

It took five hours, but at last we did it. We glued both forward and rear deck on the vaka hull. We spent the morning preparing everything: we sanded and cleaned the surfaces to be glued and prebored the screw holes. After lunch we inserted and tightened the 8 bolts for the aka blocks, bedding each one in 3M4200.
Finally, we prepared about 800 grams of thickened resin and glued the two decks using the marks which we had previously scribed on the hull.

Total work time to date: 405 hours

Paint test; appendages

Five hours this weekend between friday and today. First, we coated the bow and stern lockers with a two part epoxy primer. Very smelly stuff... The color of this primer is also quite strange

Waiting for the primer to dry, we started to work on shaping the centerboard. I had already cut several "guide" grooves whose position and depth is given by a NACA profile

Today we painted the interior of the lockers with a two part polyurethane white paint. This is very smelly too, plus it is not that pleasant to apply. I'm not enthousiastic about this stuff. I hope it will set properly but most probably we'll use other kind of paints for the rest of the boat.

Total work time to date: 400 hours.

Fairing/finish rehearsing

We've decided to rehearse a fairing/finish schedule on the parts of the main hull wich will be completely decked (bow and stern lockers). So, the last two saturdays we worked 4 hours to sand down the tape edges and other asperities.
We also prepared and squeegeed some fairing putty to see how it works. We'll then prime bow and stern lockers with an epoxy primer and paint with poliurethane paint in order to verify the results before painting the visible parts of the boat.

Total work time to date: 395 hours

Bolting the aka support blocks

Three hours of work today to drill the holes to bolt the aka support blocks to the vaka hull. It takes some mumbling over the drawings but at the end we did it and drilled 8 holes through the blocks and the hull sides with a 10 mm bit. Those bolts are necessary because otherwise those blocks would only be glued to the hull sides, so the outer plywood skin would take all the stress.
One has to take care to bore perpendicularly to the hull sides so the two of us checked the perpendicularity from two sides. Here's a pic which shows the two rear blocks with the bolts.

We then removed the bolts and gave a double coat of resin to the blocks and to the holes. When the resin sets, we'll install the bolts caulking both ends with 3M5200.

Total work time to date: 391 hours

Aka support blocks

Five hours of work between saturday and today, in which we glued the aka (beams) support blocks to the vaka (main hull). The instructions are not very clear on the sequence. The plans recommed to glue those blocks to the hull with thickened epoxy AND to fix them using 2 10 mm bolts for each. We will drill the holes after the glue is set.
 Here's a view of the forward blocks clamped to the hull, taken on sunday afternoon

and here is a view of the rear blocks clamped, while the clamps have been removed from the forward ones.

We also checked the planarity of the deck stringers and double coated a few parts in the hull which had been left uncoated. We're now ready to finally glue the deck on the vaka.

Total work time to date: 388 hours

Decking the vaka (3)

We actually worked also last week's saturday (2 hours) as well as yesterday (2 hours). We're about to glue the decks on the vaka. So we took measurements, mumbled a lot and decided to buy two identical plastic hatches (460x510 mm) for the rear and forward deck. We then cut the two openings on the decks. Here we are at the beginning

Here is the forward hatch opening

and here's the rear hatch opening

We then gave a double coat on clear resin to the underside of both decks, which are now ready to be glued on the boat.

Total work time to date: 383 hours