Good Weather for Fairing

We finally had some fine weather here this past week, after a prolonged cold spell.  I took the opportunity to get back to the filling and fairing process on the cabin tops.  If you recall from my last post way back when, all fiberglass sheathing has been done on the cabin tops and sides, and except for making the companionway hatches, all that remains is to fair, prime and paint.

I use a combination of wide drywall blades to spread the epoxy fairing compound, working off of a piece of scrap plywood for a palette. 

Here, the big fillet fairing in the coamings for the Bomar ventilation hatches is touched up with another pass of the filleting tool. 

The joint between the laminated plywood companionway coamings and the surrounding cabin roof gets a small fillet.  The coamings will also be sheathed in fiberglass to prevent checking and water penetration. 

Here, you can see large areas of fresh fairing compound spread on the aft cabin bulkhead and aft part of the roof.

Work on the boat has been sporadic and at a minimum over the last three months.  The primary reason has not been the cold, but rather the huge amount of work I've had to do to complete my latest book in time for the contract deadline.  That writing has been completed.  The manuscript was finished by January 1st and as of last night I just finished the revisions and final additions.  My publisher is rushing to get this book into print by the scheduled publication date of May 1.

Readers who have been following this blog from the beginning will realize that it was exactly three years ago today that I first posted here with photos of the first load of plywood and first parts cut out for the boat.  Three years would have seemed like a long time if I had thought it would take that long or longer when I started building.  But looking back on it, the time has passed so quickly that I don't know where it went.  The bottom line is that it really doesn't matter.  A project like this takes both time and money, and life is full of other commitments and distractions.  The important thing it that I'm still enjoying every hour I get to work on the boat, and I'm closer than ever to sailing it.  I'm expecting to get the final push to completion into high gear soon.

Boatsmith Crew visits the Element II Project

Thursday evening I had the opportunity to show Element II to my good friend David Halladay, and his entire Boatsmith crew. This unlikely visit out in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi happened because David and his crew were en route back to their home base in Jupiter, Florida, after completing a large teak deck project in the SanFrancisco area. Needless to say, they were worn-out from days on the road, so the visit was short, but the guys got to see the boat project I've been telling them about for so long, back before they built the first Boatsmith Tiki 30.

In fact, it was my project and this blog that finally pushed David over the edge back at the beginning of this year, inspiring him to build a Wharram cat as he had long wanted to do. The result was his fine Tiki 30, Abaco, documented on Pro-Built Tiki 30 and launched this year at the Mystic Wooden Boat Show. This all led to David's meeting with James Wharram and becoming the only licensed professional Wharram builder in the U.S.

Below: David Halladay, at right, with his well-trained crew of boatbuilders crowd into my tiny shed between the hulls of Element II. I should have flattened the tires on their truck so they couldn't leave. If only I could afford to pay these guys to help me finish up, I could be sailing before the middle of October!

David and the crew hung around about an hour and a half, inspecting my work and looking over the Tiki 26 design with interest. He's hoping to get started building another Wharram in Florida soon, and thinks the Tiki 26 could be a good seller, appealing to a lot of customers.

Likely the next time they see Element II it will be somewhere on the water in south Florida, as that will be one of my first destinations for my shake down cruises.