Hull joined

Sometime in the middle of the week, I went ahead and glued my daggerboard case into the lower (port) hull half (my daggerboard is not ready yet and I decided not to wait). Yesterday I joined the hull halves. Everything went about as planned, however I was unable to get the fwd deck sections to come much closer than about 1/4"; I used Menno's technique and also tied straps over the upper hull half in an attempt to draw it down some more. In the end, I just cut some thin foam strips and bogged them into the gap.

Pictures of the hull joining are not too impressive, since there's not much to see. Here's the daggerboard case, keel-side view:

Forcing bog into the gap between the deck sections:

Bow section tied down:

Deck section joint with daggerboard case bogged into place:

After letting the hull joins cure overnight, I got started this morning sanding down all of the joints and getting things ready for taping. I forgot to put masking tape on the little wood blocks you see in the picture above; some of them were fun to remove (ie, grip the block with long pliers and twist it off). I got most of the joints ready for taping (everything except the lower bow section). I taped the outer transom areas, the outer cockpit join, the inside deck seam, and the inside keel section right behind the daggerboard case. Here's a picture from near the end of the day:

Climbing underneath the daggerboard case to get to the bow is lots of fun; on the other hand, it does make a nice work table inside the boat.

Oh yes, almost forgot: Stu from Bellevue came up and paid me a visit this morning; he's considering building a boat and we had a good time chatting about stuff. Thanks for coming by, Stu!

I've also been researching hatch choices. Lewmar's Low Profile series seems like it would be a good fit for the foredeck hatch. Their instructions say that the hull/deck thickness should be at least 5/8" (15mm) thick, which means it's not very suitable for the aftcabin fwd hatch (which is about 20"x20", mounted on 3/8" core). If anyone has a suggestion for the aftcabin fwd hatch, please email me.

Regarding Frontrunner fabric: I didn't try any Corsair dealers like Ian suggested. Instead, I called Lockfast (US distributor for Frontrunner) direct; I was able to buy some fabric however their minimum order is six yards. I went ahead and got it, but I'm hoping that some other builders might want to take some off my hands, cheap! :-) Let me know if you're interested - the color is "Koala", basically a light grey.

I'm gone on a business trip this week so I won't be able to do any boat work for awhile. Which is too bad, since I'm feeling very excited about being at this stage of the project (but it'll all be there when I get back).