Today was a great big day. I shifted H2 further apart from H1 so that I would have enough room to glass the hatch side of both hulls without rubbing up against the hulls. This shifting of the hulls was also in anticipation of starting the mast tomorrow. I had been hopeful that I would be done with the basics of each hull by today but no such luck. I'll have to continue on the hulls while I build the mast. I am however done attaching hull panels. I glued the cabin tops on tonigh, in fact I just quit working minutes ago, 1030 pm PDT or so. I did a number of various tasks today including making doublers for where the beams and rigging go, ordering a furling unit and a gennaker, coming up with a material list for soft goods including the trampolines and finish coating the shelf edges clear. I learned a good trick the other day. Cut foam rollers first into a 1.2 to 2 " roll then divide the roll in three. These sections make way better foam brushes than the ones you can buy. Use them as they are of glue a handle onto the cardboard side of the roller.


H2 shifted about one foot south to make room for building the mast.


Cloth hung for glassing hatch/cockpit side of hulls.


Section of foam brush


Using the foam brush I made to tip air bubbles left from rolling epoxy onto the shelf edging.


My new exterior "office" - no good now as it decided to rain!

Another busy day. I fitted half round strips of oak on the underside of the cabin roof to stiffen the roof and to add a little wood on the inside of the cabin. I went with half rounds as they were the easiest to install now that the inside is painted. I made a cutting jig which I used to guide a 1" hole saw normally used in plumbing. These work great when run backwards. They don't chew up your work that way and make a very cleqan cut. Once the cut outs were made in the Doug Fir 1x2's at the tops of the bulkheads, I laid in the half rounds and dropped the cabin top on to them. Then I drilled and screwed them in place. This way I could remove them and have them in the right spot. I pulled the screws added glue, after scraping away the paint and refastened them. By this evening I was able to give them their final coat of epoxy to give them a bright finish. At the same time I coated the decks with a second coat of resin to fill in the cloth weave. I had light sanded this earier in the day so that any bumps were smooth off. It's looking pretty good. I can't wait to get the roof fastened in place.

I started fitting the hatch coaming and the hinge I will use to mount the main hatch. Here are a couple of photos.

A perfect place to hang out and play!!

This sequence is of glassing the bow of hull 2. The job turned out well with only one small area where the glass lifted from the plywood because of excess resin. This happens when the resin starts to kick and it floats the cloth.

Hull sanded and cleaned with isopropyl alcohol ready for cloth.


Cloth draped over hull.


Cloth smoothed out ready for resin.


Partially completed resin impregnation of cloth with only the edges to finish.


Cloth folded up ready for brushing on resin onto wood prior to wetting out the cloth.

Tips: 1. Cut the bristles on white chip brushes down to one half their length. They work better this way. 2. In between glassing stages, if you are using a brush to work resin into the cloth, store the brush in a plastic bag in your freezer. The resin won't cure and you can use the brush over multiple days.

I just had a nap in the boat. Something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It felt really good. It will be even better once she is afloat. I wasn't slacking; I've been glassing since 5am. Lying in the hull gave me ideas about how I want to fit storage pockets. I'm going to take it slow on outfitting the interior. I need to figure out what I need and what works before I start making stuff.

TIKI 26 - Tsunamichaser

TIKI 26 - Tsunamichaser

What I listen to while I work....... http://kexp-mp3-1.cac.washington.edu:8000/listen.pls

I found this article on The Shapers Tree. It's an interesting view of cats. I like the cockpit in the hull, especially the hatch design tucked in under. It reminds me of the hull cockpit that the Tiki 31 has and of how hatches are being done on Open 60's

http://theshaperstree.com/tales/coastal_cat.asp

I now have one deck glassed. To get to this point took some preparation. I had to clear the hulls of all the things I had stored on top of the decks. The first step was to remove masking from the inside of the hulls, vaccum out the holds and install the bunk hatches. I also had to go on a shopping trip to get enough materials to carry me through the weekend. While I was out buying stuff I got materials for building the 27 foot long table on which I will be building the mast. That starts next week. To get ready for glassing the decks I needed to do a fair amount of sanding. The shear strake fillet and screw hole plugs all needed to be sanded out. As did the decks. I detailed the edges and joints at the cabins and the hull ends. The fillets I'd made the night before turned out nicely. For the first time however I ran into some un-cured epoxy. It was pretty minor as it was just at one screw hole. The reason was that when I was plugging the holes I was running low on material and was scraping the very last material out of the mixing container from the joint at the bottom. Easily fixed but a lesson learned.

Detail view of the deck joint. I've held the rail down slightly to give the deck a more detailed look.


I left this sticker on the plywood from the manufacturer. I did'nt get the masking tape sealed perfectly so I will need to detail the edge.


Ready for glass!

I didn't post anything last night as I worked late having started a sequence of work I wanted to get finished. I don't like being ahead on one hull as it feels like it adds a day to the work. I have crossed a major threshold however. The inside of the boat is now all painted. My ability to operate a spray gun is still on a steep learning curve. It's hard not to get drips in corners where you might spray from several angles. I got a couple yesterday but I back brush them right away and once the coat is dry I mist the entire surface with a light coat to make it consistent.

The big job yesterday was getting the rub rail instalation completed. They are screwed on 1 foot centers and glued and will have bolts at beam and rigging points with the hardwood doublers. I am very happy with how this turned out though it wasn't the simplest way of doing things. With a drip on the underside of the strake and the deck glassed to the hull side panels I hope to avoid the rot issues some have experineced at this area. The reason I work so late yesterday was to not only get the inside paint and strake installation completed but to get a fillet laid down along the top of the strake and the screw holes plugged so I can start glassing the decks today. I still need to glue the cabin tops on, another task for today, but with some hard work over the next few days I'll have all the fiberglassing work on the hull completed by the end of the month. I need to start the mast ASAP.


I feel like this when I work in my tiny shed. I have to plan the sequence of every move so I have everything in the right place and know my methods will work when I try to do two person tasks alone. Note rail resting on clamps between boat and shed supports in a space about 4 inches wide at its narrowest.


The inside painted!

I am no professional painter! That is the challenge of DIY, (Do It Yourself). The skill set you need to aquire is enormous. Plan reader, material estimator, lofter, carpenter, epoxy and glassing EXPERT, painter, mast maker, electronics guy and on and on. But what fun it is!!! I'm not building a yacht afterall - all spit shined and polished. I'm building a Wharram for the love of adventure and I'm doing the best I can with the skill, tools and physical facilities I have. The learning curve is steep! Today I discovered painter's disaster. And I discovered that you can recover, if you think and act fast. I have two spray guns. The one I've been using for primer had been acting up so I thought I'd try the other one. Wrong decision. I created a mess. I was mopping up paint with a sponge brush. I didn't have runs, I had spring break-up! Quick thinking got all the paint squeegee'd up. I then smoothed out the catastrope with another sponge brush. I got it looking neat, no runs or sags. The System Three polyurethane paint I'm using cures fast, even at 65% humidity and temperatures in the mid-fifties. I finished all four hull ends with a brush. It looked inconsistent. I fired up my other spray gun. This one, which had baulked at doing a consistent job with the primer laid down the paint very consistently. I went over my brush work, misting the surface to get it to a consistent look. It worked! By day's end I had all four ends nicely painted and the foot wells and hatches done too. They weren't on my list! I had some extra time so I glued one of the rub rails on. I save all my sanding dust. This is what I use to make special pastes for gluing, when the premixed stuff from System Three isn't what I need. One rail glued and screwed, three to go!


H1 stern cabin compartment


Looking aft in H1. Only the furthest compartment is painted the rest have only been primed


Painted hatches stored on the front deck of H1. All flat surfaces become tables for something!


More and different stuff stored on a hull deck!


The shed is filling up to overflowing. How will I ever build my mast in this space?

LISTS! This project has come down to being about making lists and working my way through them. It's a lot of fun. I can almost smell launch day though there is so much to do. Working through the lists keeps me going.


The master list of all the things I know I need to get done to have a whole boat with all its components.


A list on the side of H2. All the things I need to do to get the hulls to the point where I can flip them upside down and finish the bottoms. Letters are interior, number exterior on the hulls.


Today's list. I got some of it done including tasks not on the list!


An abandoned done list with one lone item remaining not crosed off though it has been done.

I worked on a couple of things today though my day was interrupted by a visit from one of my brothers. He was flying through on his way to Europe. We had lunch together, caught up and continued on our way.

I masked and did a first coat of primer on the cabin top and the insides of the cabin sides. It was about 55 F and 70% humidity so I was glad I am using a water-based, epoxy modified primer/paint. It will take a couple of days to cure but warmer drier weather should help this along. I picked up more fasteners for the attaching of the shear strake and some acrylic discs I plan to use to mount my solar powered cabin light below. These are cool as they have both white and red LED lights and are not very expensive, $16 each from Solight.

I may be adding stiffeners under the deck in the forward raised cabin area.

Cabin top with first coat of primer.

Solight (http://www.sollight.com/products/lightship.cfm) in white mode. Blue disc is protected acrylic disc.

Solight (http://www.sollight.com/products/lightship.cfm) in red mode. Blue disc is protected acrylic disc.

The morning was spent with seven first graders on a wetlands field trip. The aquatic plants are just starting to emerge and life in the local wetlands emerging. It was great to get out on a sunny morning and muck around looking at plants, the signs of beaver chewing on trees, turtles sunning themselves on a floating log and a catfish stirring up the bottom as it was feeding in the shallows. I look forward to further exploration of this type from my Tiki. It's about the awesome experiences that this planet holds if you take a look around that motivate me.

I got back to work a little after noon. I had set myself a list of tasks and got after them right after having a bite of lunch. I sanded the back of the cabin tops cut out the hatch opening, routed the edge and coated the exposed wood. I drilled the remaining holes in the rub rails, removed them, cut them to length and routed a larger chamfer on the upper edge and coat these too. I sanded the remaining parts of the cabin interiors in preparation for priming and vaccumed the hulls in prepartation for priming. With any luck I may be able to start painting the interior of the hulls this week. That would be a milestone!

I got a good long day of work in today. After finishing glassing the edge of the second hull first thing in the morning, I switched to getting the shear strake ready for installation. I routed in a drip groove on the underside using the jig I made. It worked like a charm. Instead of pushing the wood over the router I ran the jig with the router attached along the wood with the wood held in two braces. I sanded everything, layed out the screw holes drilled everything and dryfitted it. The next piece is to figure out how to finish up the ends. It'll be simple, no fancy carvings. ...but then again I might carve some kinf of figure into the ends. Tomorrow I'll try to get the ends done so I can make sure everything fits before I glue it all up and fillet the deck seam, then I'll be ready to glass the decks and cabin

Test piece with groove routed into it.

Router jig

Another view if the jig

Jig sitting on actual piece

Shear/rub strake dry fitted

Here are additional photos from finishing the deck to hull edge. After the epoxy has had a chance to start to set up but before it is hard, I cut the edge of the cloth with a straight edge razor and then peel up the tape. I've also included one image of how I'm glassing the deck at the bow and stern handles. The edge tape overlaps and then I add an additional piece of cloth through the handle.

In preparation for the installation of the shear rail, I edge taped the deck and cabin to the hull. This took longer than expected. I still have one more hull to do in fact. First I sanded the deck (wood) and the hull (glass and fairing compound) then cleared all the sanding dust and did a wipe down with rubbing alcohol. As I wanted a clean consistent line, I taped the cloth in place just along its edge. I'm using 4" wide glass tape. As it was laying down over the curved edge very nicely without any modifications I began wetting it out starting from the blue tape edge and working towards the free edge with a 3" wide rubber squeegee and a 2" chip brush which I cut the bristles down to half lenght. This worked great. It was warm yesterday so I had to work with small batches of resin. In all it took a couple of hours to complete the one hull. My plan is to do the other one this morning.

The epoxy I used to fill screw holes in the decks and make shelf fillets with hadn't cured overnight to where I could sand it so I spent the morning on various catch up tasks. First thing was to make a list of things to do over the next week plus on the hulls. Next was to create templates for the seat box bracket that I will add to the inboard side of each hull. With a little ingenuity, some custom made jigs and a hot glue gun I pushed on. I made the templates out of scrap 6mm plywood but likely will use 9mm ply to make the actual brackets. Hot glue was a great way to temprarily attach the brackets. I've now cut all the hull components out so what remains of full sheets of plywood is 3 5x10 foot sheets of 9 mm and 2 4x8 sheets of 6 mm plus some full length partial width scraps. These will go into making, amongst other odds and ends, four seat boxes that can be bolted to the seat brackets I templated. Two boxes will be bolted together end to end and then bolted to the bracket. A flange will be attached to the inboard bottom edge of the boxes to which either a trampoline style floor or a hard floor can be attached. That's the plan anyway!

Low view of hull one with hull two in the background.

Here is this morning's activity. I removed all the screws holding the deck in place and took my router with a laminate trimmer blade in it to flush cut the deck

Balanced on my bath scale (on its second time around), Hull 2 approaches design weight of 430 pounds.

Scott Williams (Tiki 26 Element II) and I were emailing each other this morning about boat strength and overbuilding as in adding extra weight. It motivated me to pull out the bath scale and balance hull 2 on top of it to see where I've gotten too. I piled the loose cabin top on, lifted the bow up and got the whole mess balanced on the scale- it looks like 385 pounds to me as it went around once before settling on 85. Add a known 13 pounds for the rudder and I'm at 398 which leave me 32 pounds of hull to go if I'm going to make the design weight of 430 lbs . What's left? First the deductive weights; Trimmings and strong backs from the forward deck, half the main hatch coaming stock, plastic stool I forgot in the main cabin and some sanding dust - maybe a total of five pounds Now the adds - four plastic access hatches, main hatch, washboard, beam positioning blocks, shear stringer and doublers, deck and cabin glass cloth and epoxy, lexan windows and misc. All these things will likely be a little more than the 37 pounds I've got to go so it looks like I've over built by a bit per Wharram's stated hull weight of 430 pounds. Wharram states in his design book that the total weight (empty) of the completed boat is 1550 lbs. I wonder what he considers an empty boat? Batteries? Outboard? Or just the basic boat - two hulls, a cockpit, three beams, one mast and gaff with sails and rigging and two tillers and a connecting bar. If the hulls are each 430 for a total of 860 lbs what makes up the other 690 pounds, certainly not just the basic parts.

I did a number of smaller tasks today. I milled out main hatch coaming out of white oak, I finished the shelves, cut them to size and glued them in place and got one filleted. I tried the aft beam on for size and I trimmed the first deck I'd placed down to size. I use a laminate trimmer with a laminate trimming blade to cut the deck to the hull line. It works great. I also went shopping to get caulk for finishing joints for the interior paint and parts for the main hatch cover slide mechanism.
I like how things are coming together. The big task ahead of me is getting the decks and cabins glassed and of course I still need to flip hull 2 to finish the bottom. Hopefully it won't be too heavy to do this on my own!

Today was a great day! All the decks are now installed. They are screwed and strapped in place. I'll leave them for a few days until the epoxy is well set up. As the decks are curved they are pretty sprung and I'd hate for any of the joints to fail. I need to do as much filleting as I can on the inside but it seems that most of the strain will be taken on the outside by the glass cloth I'll add over the edge connecting the deck to the hull. It feels good to have made the decision to get the decks on. Before doing so I made sure I could still paint the interior with my spray gun. It will just be possible. I'll need to be sure my respirator seals well to my face and that I have a fan going and the shed tarp up! The cabin tops will be ready for sanding tomorrow so besides getting fillets done on the cabin to hull line, the cabin tops will be in the work mix. I need to do some fillet and joint clean up on the inside to prep for paint. I get to that soon but then I'll need to wait for consistent warm weather. One thing I still need to do is I need to flip Hull two to finish the keel, one more layer of glass cloth and then I need to fair it. Plenty to do but I look forward to getting going on the mast and the various other tasks including seat boxes and cockpit. Sooooooo much to do!!



Last deck ready to be installed.

I'm pushing on with decks and cabins. Here are some photos of the work.

I got a few hours in on the boat today. Mainly I cleaned up yesterday's work of gluing on the cabin sides. I also sanded what I got a first coat of epoxy on yesterday, cabin tops and some more shelves. Most of my time today was spent dry fitting cant strips on the cabin sides for landing the cabin top and making and installing the strips of wood at the washboard cut out.

The cabin sides are now glued to the hulls and the cabin tops have their first coat of epoxy on the inside. This coming week may be the week that I get the decks on. I'm still trying to finalize exactly the sequence of work for deck install and inside paint. I'd like to be able to spray the inside but don't want to do it if I have to be on my back spraying overhead - fumes!

Here's an interesting link sent to me by Bill Barker, who bought Scott Williams' Hitia 17.

http://www.marinerorico.com/

I now have the cabin sides and tops made in the rough. Today I hope to get the sides attached and glued in place and the undersides of the cabin tops epoxy coated. Everything fits well with some minor adjustments to the dimensions provided by Wharram so I must be fairly close to plan!

Not too much work today. I went kite flying with my daughter. For some reason everything turns into the game of tag so today it was soccer tag! Sounds like an excuse to run which is just fine with me as I love to run. So we ran up and down the hills in the park were we flew the kite with me being it and never not being it as apparently tag has shifting rules. I look forward to flying kites from the Tiki.
The work I did get to today was all about cabin sides. I now have three sides cut to fit. I am angling the bottom edge where the sides meet the hull. This I'm doing in place with my Porter Cable worm drive panel saw set at minimum depth to just cut through all the veneers.


Bow and stern views of the cabin sides. I have still to cut the windows and washboard slot.

Close up of the hull side cut to fit.


Sitting in the cabin to get a feel for life in a Tiki 26 - note plywood manufacture's sticker. I have epoxied over it and plan to leave it unpainted.

It's 12:20 am and I just got back from playing indoor soccer. I'm beat but ecstatic as we held our ground against the top team in our league and beat one of the better teams right after. Yes a double header starting at 10 pm. Today was a hang with my daughter day. We went to the park to climb trees, by soccer tag and general run around. I did get some work done - early and then late. This morning with a rising temperature I primed the underside of the decks where they cover the main cabin. I've rigged up lines to the tarp so I can raise it. This was a pain until I dug out a box of climbing gear and rigged up pulleys and self arrest cams. Now it's fast and easy.

The "paint shop" - plenty of ventilation here.


I've started fitting sides. Their shape is different enough from the plans that I'm making templates and then fitting them. I managed to save the one I cut awhile back by edge gluing a piece to the bottom. The fix is narrow, short in length and will all disappear in the fillet where it joins the lower hull side and the shelf inside the washboard so I'm confident it's not an issue for strength.

PLAYDATE day! My daughter went to a friends place. I had seven hours to myself to plow on with work. A little cold today with rain on the horizon so I started off with cleaning up yesterday's epoxy work in the end compartments and storage area. I trimmed various bits and pieces in anticipation of mounting the decks. After doing these tasks and with no sign of significant temperature climb, I warmed up the epoxy in a buckect of hot water so I could glue up the stringers to the deck. This went well but I need to wait until atleast tomorrow before I can sand and prime the deck undersides. Thinking of it, I'll move the decks inside right now. ---Done!





Hope I got everything in the right position!



I had been trying to figure out how I was going to mill 24 foot long mast sections in a thirty-five foot long backyard. While I was away this past weekend it came to me. I was at first going to move it out onto the sidewalk in front of my house or onto my driveway but both are sloped. Then the solution came to me. Remove a window pane from a basement window and run the mast sections right into the basement. It worked brilliantly. I jury-rigged up a couple of rollers, one either side of the planer and started feeding the rough stock through the planer. I milled the faces smooth on the larger stock - to be used for triangle sections inside the mast and milled the planks that will be the mast faces to 1/8" thicker than spec.



View from inside the basement.



A load od wood chips from the planer

This is an image of the bow of H2. The beams are rough glued in place in front of the cabin space. I'll sand as needed before the final deck placement. I'm using T-astragal in these locations to get strength without adding weight as there will be openings in these locations for the hatches I'm installing. The decks in these areas are very rigid. This is not the case where I've used the standard 1x2 stringers. The deck is quite flexible in these locations though they should stiffen up some once the stringers are glued to the deck and the beams and the deck is glassed. If this is not the case I will either add an intermediate beam (the stringers span 4 feet) or add a flange to the bottom of the stringers to increase their section.

Here are the decks viewed from the underside. The cabin stringers are temporarily screwed in place. Today I'll sand the undersides of the deck and the stringer tops then glue everything together. Before I install the decks I'll prime and paint the underside that way I won't be painting in the confined space end spaces except where the deck to hull fillets are.

I just realised that I have'nt marked the rough hull-deck line on the decks so I will need to mount the decks again to do this. An advantage of taking photos and getting a different perspective. Marking this line is important so I can figure out where to mask off for painting the deck undersides. I've oversized the decks so I can get a good final fit. My paint order is suppose to arrive today. I hope it does. It looks like the weather will stay good, not great like last week but warm enough to work with the rain mostly holding off.

It's school break - spring break for a week. I'm hanging with my daughter so I have to work around things. Things like story reading, kite flying, a trip to the library and a trip to get doughnuts and coffee. This is my main task this week hanging with her. It's fun but not productive on the Tiki. I'll work in the "off hours." In the end this turned out ok today. I got 1.5 hours in this morning and then about five this evening. It's 10:20 pm and I just stopped working. My mission this week is to prepare the hulls to receive the decks and with some luck actually install them. That means fitting them, sanding, attaching beams, priming, painting and then committing to gluing them down in place. I also hope to prepare the cabin area for sides and cabin top. Yes I know that's pretty ambitious but I'd rather fall short than not have a big appetite. Besides I managed a fair deal of work today. I trimmed the cabin bulkheads so that the roof line in fair. I fitted all four decks and screwed the cabin stringers to them. I finished fitting and gluing in place all the rest of the beams (for hatches) and stringers in the end compartments and the large hold forward of the cabins. Tomorrow I'll sand and then glue the stringers in place in preparation for primer and paint. That is if I can fit it in around spring break!

Yesterday, my daughter and I prepped Hull 2's interior for paint by vaccuming and wiping down with damp rags. That is after I gave the whole thing a final sand. This morning I masked it off ready to prime. I borrowed my neighbor's 5 gal compressor to try as my smaller compressor just couldn't keep up with the demand. The other thing I did was thin the paint more. That did the trick. It sprayed beautifully.

Here are the results of the spray job. No runs this time.

By the time I was done spraying, the shed was into the eighties!!!

I have been impossibly busy the last few days on both the boat and other things. Work on the boat is progressing very well though. I have been helped along by much warmer temperatures though yesterday things almost went sideways. As in epoxy kicking extremely quickly. It got up to 82 f in the shed. I may have to start cooling the resin down instead of warming it up.

Here is a picture of foaming an end component. I covered the top of the plywood lid and the sides of the hull so the two part foam wouldn't stick to these above the sealed part. This was way easier than scraping and sanding. I also came up with a better way of using a combination of rigid insulation and the liquid two part foam. By leaving more room around the rigid foam for the liquid foam to flow around I seem to have achieved a better result. Once again I am changing the ways I do things but I think this is ok. The learning curve is steep. Each time you come up against some new process you have something new to learn but then that is the joy of being an amateur. For instance I have now done scarf joints using about six different methods/techniques!

Here is a finished foamed compartment. I'll post pictures later but what I've done is completely glass this in with an edge fillet and a layer of glass cloth. As I am installing 8 inch round hatches above the bow compartments I want these areas to be watertight. I will use them for light storage - a cruising chute and line.


This is where I almost had my epoxy disaster. The photo is of the bow template done in clear plastic. As I was able to get 5X10 foot sheets of plywood I I cut out the bow decks in one piece. When I coated them with my squeegee, back rolling method the second one almost turned into a mess. I had to go really fast to beat the heat that was setting up the resin.

Today will be all about priming the cabin interior of H2. Then I'll let the whole thing sit over the weekend while I go visit my dad and family in the Gulf Islands. Speaking of adventure, my 87 year old father is off for a month long solo trek in Scotland, the outlying islands and beyond - that's adventuresome spirit!

I put the hammer to work today. That is my sledge hammer. I'm not a tool thrower - patience - so no fear of swinging that big boy in frustration and breaking something. I wasn't always mellow like that but other than getting some steam vented it never achieves anything except perhaps regret. I finished the ugly foam today, bow and stern on H1 and lay the intermediate decks down on the uncured foam once it stopped expanding. Once the stuff fully cures I'll clean up the edges and glass in the decks. The bow and stern will then be sealed and the space above useful for light storage.

After yesterday's successful spray priming of the hatches I masked off the cabin in H1 and rigged up my sprayer. I'm no pro at this but have painted a few houses. The learning curve is steep. I did an ok job but wish my compressor had a greater reserve tank volume. I had to wait at times for it to catch up but remember, patience!! I taped all the edges where I still need to do fillets to join the deck and cabin to the hull so those areas are primer free. The primer I'm using is a two part water based epoxy modified polyurethane. It lays down nicely but takes seven days to cure before you can sand it at the temperatures we're experiencing



The cabin is awfully white but I will add some natural wood trim and do the few shelves I add natural. I'm will probably do the interior in an off white or even a buff. We'll see.


Meanwhile back over on H2 other than working on the end compartments, I plugged any remaining gaps between the bulkheads and upper hull sides and coated all the remaining bare wood surfaces in preparation for a final sanding and priming. I also glued up two of the scarfed shear stringed. I'll try to get to the other two tomorrow.

Well apparently there is some ordinance against commercial cacti farming in my city so I 'm back to regular old build a boat and go sailing mode! Anyway I need to do some further research on the type of cacti around the world and what better way to get there than by Tiki.

I'm bummed out about the 'death' of my camera. Thanks to the reader who sent me the link to the self fix website. I've had the cover off the camera to see if I could blow out any foriegn material, like mexican sand, which I did but still it doesn't work. Also it's not exactly like the one they show being disassembled so I'm a little hesitant at going for it.

E18 Error code

I've been busy working on various interior aspects of the boat getting it ready to close up. As I am painting the interior and as I have a spray set up, I'd like to prior to putting the decks and cabin sides and roof on. My plan is to mask off the edges where I need to make fillets and then spray the rest. Yesterday I did the bunk hatches. They appear to have come out ok. I did them in white which is all very white and not as pretty as the wood but having had an all wood interior on my last boat and eventually getting frustrated with the amount of artificial lights it took to light up the boat I'm painting. I'll have wood accents and as a plan to use soft shelving and storage on the interior I'll make these out of cheerful colored cloth.

Hatches painted with SystemThree two part epoxy primer

I have also now foamed the bow and stern compartments. I used a two part expansion foam with rigid insulation filling the middle. This worked pretty well though is wasn't very pretty. I'll be adding a glassed in deck above this so I can use the end compartments for light storage. My basic goal was to build in collision bulkheads. Hopefully this all works. I'm not super excited about having fully sealed areas (rot) but hopefully everything was perfectly coated.


"Ugly Foam!"



Decks and mini decks coated for installation

Plastic covering the rear deck.

Inside view of cabin rear

Another view from outside.

Well this is kind of hard to admit to all of you following my blog but I have decided to give up on building this project. I've searched deep and wide in my soul and have come to the conclusion that I'm not a sailor. A hard discovery yes but what I really want to be is a specialty farmer growing minature cacti. Being stuck with the two hulls I've built, I'm trying to figure out how to put them to use. Here's the idea I've struck upon. I can turn the hulls into greenhouses. I've talked to my neighbors and they are ok with me parking the hulls in my front yard (better sunlight) filling them with dirt up to the bunk level and getting on with the business of farming. Thanks for your interest in my blog. If you'd like to buy some of my unique "Tiki grown minature cacti" keep in touch, I'll soon post a link to my new website, when I get it launched, www.tikicacti.com The first crop should be ready in fifteen years. As for the sails I ordered from Jeckells, they'll make wonderful new sheets for my bed with a little triming.