19 th May

Big festival weekend here in the Azores.  Just home from testing fermented grape juice and watching live music.

Spent some time in the the last 2 days preparing bits to be fitted to the painted hull.

All the plasticine removed from the holes (didnt want paint spray going inside) and fitted stainless steel fittings to mask in preparation for sealing and bolting on.

 

.Windows pre fitted and masked all ready for sealing in.

Stainless steel straps for a sea anchor also masked (as well as shroud chainplates - no photo)  and ready for sealing and bolting into position.

Washboard window sealed and bolted into position.  Need more clear silicone for mounting cabin windows so they are on hold till shops open. Stainless steel fittings getting sealed with polyurethane sealant which I have but want to do the windows first as the chainplates are very close to the forward windows.

 17th May

Weather was damp with high humidity the last 2 days so Nuts just hid inside the workshop.  This afternoon it was sunny and dry so jumped into action.

Only two little runs that you wont find if I dont tell you where they are! 

After the second coat had a couple of hours to dry I ripped off all the masking.

Just need the name on the side and some eyes in the bow.  A boat cannot see where it is going without eyes!!

Rudder also got its "Go Fast" stripes.

 14th May

The weather was as good as expected with just under 60% humidity and the wind was blowing above my workshop so got my spray stuff out.

First coat going down.

First coat done before lunch and this final coat sprayed at 3pm (finished at 4.30pm).  Finish about a 7 out of 10 so very happy for an amateur spray painter.  Only one fly got stuck!!  Going to let the PU paint cure for a bit before taping up for the boot top stripe plus some other bits.  Wait a day or two and you will see the final color scheme and design.  Maybe a bit odd?

One interesting thing - Nuts got a lot smaller when pushed out the workshop.  It seemed a lot bigger than 5m when upside down building the hull then shrank a bit when turned over and got a bit smaller after the deck was put on.  Im sure it will shrink a lot when put in the water.  Hopefully the Orcas off Portugal will not be interested in a minnow. 

 13th May

Been busy doing house and garden maintenance the last few days.  Did prepare Nuts for painting - hopefully starting tomorrow.

All masked and ready for first spray session.  Forecast for 60% humidity (which is low for here) and hopefully wind not too strong for spraying.  Wind dropping later in the week but humidity supposed to be going up.

Routing some flats on round stock Delrin so I can cut some flat pieces on the table saw to try and make a deck organizer.  A bit of a waste but it is what I have.

 10th May

Been busy in the garden and doing spring chores on our property.  Decided not to spray Nuts in my workshop inside a plastic tent.  Too many fumes in a small volume.

Nuts went on a short voyage and machines had a shuffle.  Just got to mask the cockpit and all ready for spraying.  Weather should be good for outside spraying next week.  Easy to push Nuts out and back into workshop.

 8th May

In Horta today so popped into the marina to check my little fishing boat and admire Clarisse's IMOCA.

Chatted to a team member and hopefully her bulkhead will be fixed for a Friday restart. I take my hat of to these super human skippers.

Weather going dry for some time (hopefully) so my tractor ventured out from storage.  Rigged up scale and did some testing.

First pull was on 3mm Chineema with an eye splice on each end connected with  BIG shackles. 20mm pin diameter.  (not in this photo)

BIG bang over the limit of my scale.  1039kg!!

Then rigged up a 2 to 1 tackle system for the cable and 6mm Chineema tests. Hydraulics peaked at just over 1050kg on the scale and did nothing to the 5mm ss strop with a copper sleeve with thimble on one end and wire splice with copper sleeve over the tail without thimble on the other -  both ends connected with 10mm ss shackles.  6mm strop with copper sleeves on thimbles on each end also stalled out my hydraulics.  6mm Chineema with very short buried tapers and eye splice on each end and connected with 20mm shackle pins also stalled out hydraulics.  I estimate there was at least 2000kg force applied (doubling up the scale readings.)

What was interesting is the thimbles got squashed and I bent the pin in the 10mm shackle.  

These are all the bits I tested.  I am happy that the cheap hydraulic crimper seems to do the job very well with no slip or movement in the sleeves.  I did not do a pretty job of the crimping as it is a 3 handed job but will borrow Mrs Nuts for the final crimping.  I hit the 6mm Chineema with a hammer when under heavy tension and it was like hitting solid steel.  Very impressed. 

I might ask a friend with a monster tractor to break the strops without the scale (dont want to break it) just to see where they come apart.  Could probably lift up 3 of these boats with just 1 cable!

 6th May

Great day hiding in bed from the rain this morning surfing the net but  had to settle accounts so ventured out.  Got  to keep my accounts sweet by prompt payments.  Very wet day so not much happened.  Did remove rudder and drilled out bolt holes for filling.

Over drilled holes saturated with neat epoxy and then stuffed with fiber and silica filled epoxy.  Going to let that cure for a while and then refit the rudder and redrill the holes in the middle.  Bolts 10mm dia and epoxy holes drilled to 17mm so should have at least 3mm solid epoxy sleeve around the bolt.

Gave the tiller mounting straps a bit of a wizz on the polishing linen wheel.  A bit more shiny but Hey Ho five out of ten is good enough for me. (life is short)

Put the tape on the port side in the prep for spraying the hull.  A bunch of masking to do still but weather is still iffy till maybe Thursday.  

My buddy Jeff stirred up my brain so got to maybe order some goodies for sideways thinking.  He didnt build eleven thousand boats because he is stupid!  Retired now and busy finishing another world cruiser for himself.

My boat spraying experience is about 1 on a scale of 10 so should be fun. Never too old to learn though!!