August 14th

No interesting photos.

Keel bolted on again after final welding and grinding.  Used up about 70 3.2mm welding rods doing skip welds in different directions to try to reduce built in stress from weld shrinkage as well as clamping onto thick steel under mounting plate to try to hold it straight. ( my welding has improved with a bit of practice) Even with all my efforts there is still a deformation from flat which I will correct with epoxy before the final mount.  The steelwork was delivered to the sandblaster/zinc sprayer operation on the island today for collection on Wednesday. (tomorrow is a public holiday).  Took the opportunity while Nuts is upside down again to give the bottom a sand and 2nd coat of epoxy primer.  I plan to mount the keel on the hull again once zinc sprayed (not possible to get it hot dip galvanised) and fill the gap with epoxy once it is all aligned up properly. It might be possible to pull the steel flat onto the hull with the bolts but would require a lot of pressure.  I will put a plastic release tape on the hull and hope that the epoxy just sticks to the keel.  Once the keel is removed once again there should be a bead of epoxy all around the edge of the mounting plate where there were gaps which just need to be filled in for the perfect? fit.