I had a lazy start to the day, to be honest, so it was was after lunch before I started any work on the boat. The first thing I needed to do was trim the skeg.
This involves running a utility knife carefully along the bottom of the skeg, cutting off the excess fibreglass and epoxy. The result is a clean edge to the timber and it is now ready to be glued to the boat.
The next task was to fibreglass the centerline. I used two pieces of 100mm wide fibreglass tape from the stern forward until the point where the keel reinforcement timbers narrow, something that is easy to see in the above photo. Then I used a single width of the tape.
Before I could get started on the epoxy work, however, had to sand the timber and the copper epoxy either side of the keel or the new epoxy would not adhere to the surface. I also precoated the area to be glassed as there was quite a gusty wind blowing and I had no other way to hold the tape down. Precoating the keel and hull gave me something sticky on which to place the tape and that held it down until I was able to roll on more epoxy to coat the cloth.
After an hour or so the epoxy was slightly tacky and I was able to put on the second coat. I did have to set up a way of sheltering the centerline of the boat from the rain which started just before I wanted to apply the second coat. I could see the forecast rain shower approaching, so put together something to keep the rain off.
With the majority of the hull now coated in epoxy I only needed to cover the centerline and thus I put together a few things from the workshop that would hold the tarp off the epoxy where I needed it covered.
It is not elegant but it does the trick. The shower came and went and I was then able to move the tarp to one side and apply the second coat of epoxy. The tarp came back into position before the next lot of rain descended. Not having to cover the entire boat is a bonus.
That was it for the day, hopefully, the skeg will be epoxied in place tomorrow and I’ll make a start on the transom preparation. There are several runs of epoxy that need to be removed which will also mean restaining several areas before fibreglass and epoxy is applied.
Time for a cup of tea.