Rudder blade installation (2)

After a lot of fiddling and measuring, last saturday we attached the rudder blade to the false transom by fixing the position of the gudgeons. 

Total work time to date: 752 hours

Rudder blade installation (1)

Two hours of work to attach the pintles of the false transom. The rudder lifting mechanism is not trivial and requires quite a bit of measuring.

The false transom is hinged on the (real) transom and is lifted, when approaching a beach, using a rope passing behind the false transom to the aft deck of the vaka.

The rudder blade is quite heavy though... Hope it will work!

Total work time to date: 751 hours

False transom installation (2)

Two hours of work today to attach the false transom to the hinges. It took quite some time to do the work with the required precision, but at the end we succeeded.

Next step will be attaching the pintles to the false transom and the gudgeons to the rudder blade.

Total work time to date: 749 hours

False transom installation (1)

We started the installation of the false transom. It is a 18 mm thick triangular piece of plywood hinged on the real transom, to allow for an (hopefull) easy lift of the rudder. Today we installed the s.s. hinges on the real transom, visible in the photo below. When everything will be properly aligned, we will coat the holes with epoxy and then silicon sealant.

Total work time to date:747 hours

Laminating the tiller

 A few days ago we went in a sawmill to look for the right piece of softwood to build the tiller. We bought one plank of the so called "abete netto" which translates in "clean fir". We preferred to laminate two layers because solid wood is subject to warping. This plank is 4 m x 20 cm x 25 mm. We first cut two pieces long 2 m each, we selected the cleanest and ripped it lenghtwise obtainig two planks of 2 m x 10 cm x 25mm, and then laminated those with epoxy resin charged with microfibers and silica. 

The tiller is 1.65 m long and almost 4 cm thick. Unfortunately, starting next monday, we will be in strict lockdown again...

Total work time to date: 746 hours

Cockpit porthole

One our of work (the shop is slowly getting warmer) today to cut the recommended porthole in the cockpit. Interestingly, when the drill finished going through the 12 mm plywood of the cockpit floor, there was a hiss for several seconds due to the different pressure between the sealed part of the boat and the exterior. For sure, this boat IS watertight!

Total work time to date: 745 hours

Vaka hull turned

After a long interruption due to miserable weather, we were finally able to turn the vaka hull rightside up for painting deck and cockpit.

 We then cleaned the shop and put the boat in again. 

Total work time to date: 744 hours