Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Exciting Day at the Boatsmith Shop

Today we went from epoxy coated bulkheads, backbones and hull panels to two assembled lower hulls. Scott Williams came down from Mississippi last night to help in the shop for a few days and with all the parts ready to go the assembly happened fast. Having recently built his Tiki 26 hulls, Scott was familiar with the process.

In the photo above we are moving the first hull into the cradles after wiring and screwing it together at the keel, stem, and sternpost.

Here, the hull is set up and bulkheads are in place. Minor adjustments were needed to align the keel where the hull panels meet.

By mid-morning, the second hull is preassembled on the table and ready to move to the cradles. And at the end of the day, here is where we are: two hulls set up in the cradles with all bulkheads in and alignments made. The next step in the morning will be leveling the individual hulls and locking them in position with braces until epoxy fillets can be made. We will also fit and install the diagonal stiffeners, and hopefully begin the keel fillets before day's end.

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