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

Mounting blocks

Sorry for the delay, but the editing page has been unreachable in the last few days. Only one hour last saturday which we spent to fair the four laminated mounting blocks, grinding away epoxy drips and the like. We used 40 grit disks on my old trusty B&D rotoorbital sander.

Total work time to date: 379 hours

Here we are again

Happy New Year! More than one month of no activity (boatwise) due to a conference abroad, Christmas holidays and family committments... Cinzia worked just about one hour to smooth a few edges on the boat...
On Saturday we cut to size and laminated the aka supporting blocks. We used 3 layers cut from an okoume plank, 20 mm thick.
Here are the various pieces

and here are the 4 blocks, epoxy laminated

Total work time to date: 377 hours.

Decking the vaka (2)

Three more hours today to scribe and cut plywood. Here's a pic of the forward deck, roughly curt from 12 mm plywwod.

And here is the last plywood panel on the boat to scribe the rear deck. At this time we've used all available panels and can only use offcuts from now on (but we should be almost done by now...)

We then scribed and cut the two doublers

Here is a final view

Total work time to date:374 hours

Decking the vaka (1)

Four hours yesterday (saturday) in which we started to work to glue the deck on the main hull (vaka).
We first planed the deck stringers flat mostly with the power planer and sanding board, checking the planarity with a straightedge.

We then scribed the shape of the forward deck on a 12 mm plywood panel

This deck has a particular shape since it protrudes about 12 cm past the gunwale from the stem back to the forward aka. These two "wings" are then doubled in thickness for the whole length. Here we are intent to draw a fair curve. Luckily enough Cinzia's mom is a seamstress so she has all the equipment to draw fancy shapes...

Total work time to date: 371 hours