Diary on the construction of a Seaclipper 20, a plywood trimaran designed by Jim Brown and John Marples. Our boat's Sail No. is 50. The boat has been named GEODETICA and was launched on september 28th, 2024.
Three hours of work today to give the vaka deck and cockpit the first coat of primer. We first cleaned the dust with an anti-static cloth. We then used almost one liter of Boero Giano primer with 10% thinner (Boero 703) and we spread it with a short hair roller.
Total work time to date: 760 hours
Three hours bewteen saturday and monday to prepara the vaka deck and cockpit for painting. Last saturday we coated all the holes for the screws in the false transom and on the vaka deck with clear resin. We used pipe cleaners!
Then yesterday we scrubbed all surfaces to be painted (deck and cockpit) using sanders with 240 grit.
We then put a plastic curtain all around the vaka hull to prevent paint drops from falling over the painted hull sides.
Total work time to date: 757 hours
A couple of hours last saturday to bore the (many) bolt holes for attaching the hatches.
Vaka front deck
Vaka cockpit floor
Ama decks
After coating the holes with clear epoxy resin we will spread silicone sealant on each opening and then screw down the hatch frames with SS bolts and nuts.
Total work time to date: 754 hours
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
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
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
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
