I'm building a boat to a design by Paul Fisher of Selway Fisher Design in the UK. The design is called "Able" and her vital statistics are: overall length 4.88m (16ft), beam 2m (6ft 6in) and design weight is 360kg (790lbs). You can read more about this design at http://www.selway-fisher.com/OtherDB.htm#KANE.

I intend to procede more slowly with this boat than I did with either of my other boat building projects (see links below on the right). This is, after all, a hobby and there are other things to do. So, updates to this blog might happen once every week or two. Come back and see.

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Thursday 20 December 2012

First Coat of Paint

It doesn't feel like 6 weeks since the last entry on this blog but the calendar doesn't lie. I have actually been sailing for half that time; two weeks in the Great Sandy Strait, two 2 day outings with the WBAQ guys at Caloundra and a day out at Wivenhoe. Another week spent catching up on chores at home. That leaves two weeks spent working on the boat.

I haven't put anything on the blog because sanding and filling is such a tedious process and is not very photogenic! However today I gave the whole outside of the hull two coats of epoxy to seal it. I started early in an attempt to avoid the worst of the heat and that helped but the epoxy was going off pretty quickly so I had to mix quite small batches. I used Boat Craft Pacific epoxy with the standard hardener mixed 2:1 with no thinners. This is sticky stuff to paint on, it is more a case of spreading it out thinly! The first coat took about 4 hours followed by a short break for a snack by which time ir was ready for the second coat, just slightly tacky to the touch. The second coat went on more easily because the epoxy flowed a bit better over the first coat. Another 3.5 hours and it was done.

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