Donald & Daisy

As you can see Donald & Daisy (the air scoops) arrived and were installed. 

Every step the boat becomes more of a beauty. And with every new piece of deck fitting the boat "doubles" in worth... Well not acurate of course but if all the expenses were expressed in weight, the boat would capsize 😊

Also fitted some other new deck rigging in order to be able to establish the forms of the anti slip mat wich I orderd in the mean time.

In the pictures below you see those fittings and also a first porthole pane installed...

Coating & rub rails

When it comes to coating things are slowing down. Building a boat from aluminum has a big advantage over building with wood: curing time is about 10 seconds 😁 instead of 48 hours (with our temperatures). This changes with the coating of the boat. 

I used a high quality 2 component coating which needs a primer for aluminum. Apart from the curing time I have to say that this is fabulous material. It sticks, it smooths and it is tough!

As I am not a fan of the high glossy coating (it seems so plastic-ish) I choose the satin gloss variety. And I think this is even more than glossy enough. 

I immediately saw that the paint job would require a difficult decission from me: Coating the boat revealed several imperfections. And after cleaning - grinding - filling - coating again it revealed smaller imperfections and so on. And yes on a certain moment I had to decide when enough is enough For a perfectionist that is a big task 😨. So I tried some scenario's which all were helpfull in their own way:

1. Have a look at the boat from a bigger distance than 10 cm's
2. Call a friend: "... it is important to see that it is hand made ..."
3. Consult my wife: "Are professional built boats this perfect..." [?]

cockpit in the primer (hatches from China...)

 

Companion Way Hatch

And now for the rub rails. I had an idea for these right from the start. I saw a nice product that was made of PVC. It even came in a teak color that can be sanded to mimick wood veins. I only was not sure wether it would show to "gross". Well decide for yourself...

Here you can see the T-(mounting) rail (port, right side picture)

Trailer mod

Just an update with some progress.

First of all I modified my trailer. In the original configuration it has 3 keel rolls wich usually is perfect for most sports boats without a keel. For a boat with some keel like the Pocketship it works as well but with one nasty flaw: This trailer is tilting which is nice but the pocketship has a quite pronounced keel-front which hooks behind the second roll. It takes a lot of power to push up de boat and winching it in order to get the keel on the second roll. I actualy think it is allmost on the structural limits. 

CLC boats sells a trailer for the Pocketship that has skids instead of rolls which doesn't have tha problem. A disadvantage of the skid type trailer is however that you need to drive the trailer further down the ramp almost floating the boat off the trailer.

Skid type trailers doesn't seem to be available in the Netherlands so I decided to make the modifications myself. After all I can weld 😜. 

I made the skid from a hard wood terrace plank with 2 L-profiles on the sides welded together with 2 tubes. These tubes fitted the existing roller-struts. 

As you can see in the pictures I was able to fix the skid in the construction of the rolls. Now wait and see if i still can get the boat off the trailer 😳.