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Chapter 21 (Part)

Front Deck, Bow Beam and Netting

Bow beam Installation

One weekend when I had Dale & Liza helping out, I took advantage of the extra pair of hand to laminate the internal connection of the bow beam. That plus the trick I’d learned from John, a fellow boat builder, pre wetting the tape, helped making this potentially awkward job, uneventful. Having the sail locker hatch in the bow helped ventilation.

The Port bow does not have the hatch so Liza provided the ventilation by blowing fresh air past me with the shop vac.

I found in this type of work a stiff brush works the best, both applying the resin and for consolidation

Having done the internal part I could now get on with the external part of things and I started by marking out the area to be cleared of paint and fairing and preparing the foam fillet.

Here you can see the Port connection after preparation and initial taping around the perimeter of the beam.

Subsequently the foam fillet was glued in and faired

The connection, SB in this case, was then completed with 100 UD strips and fabric. I found that Double Bias (-45 / 45) works much better in these situations than Biax (0 / 90) as it moulds around corners and odd shapes much better.

Cleaning spilled resin as you go also minimises the subsequent cleaning up.

The central connection to the bow tube was done at the same time, as was the securing of the anchor bow roller. After lamination special aluminium angles were positioned to provide additional shear support for the bow beam.

The anchor roller was secured with 2 * 3# 50 mm wide carbon UD strips, in order to minimise the build up on the beam and avoid substantial fairing

The bow beam is solid and has no noticeable deflection, only very minor flexing in the braces when bouncing on the beam.

I have used the sequence shots of the inner connection of the bow tube to illustrate the advantages of pre wetting the tape laminate.

Front Deck

Finally the time had come I no longer needed the space in the shed and the room to set up the formframes was available, even then it required a good clean up and reorganisation to get a reasonable set up.

The frames had suffered no ill effects from the storage.

I’d made the frames as per the outline on the FSP’s so I ended up having to recess the stringers I chose to put in at 600 cts.

Once the foam was positioned I located the mast base and located the jib track, hatch template and the double hatch opening for the hold.

The foam was then completed by adding the stiffening beam and inserting the HD insert along the hatch opening (done in Nycel).

The foam was then hot-coated and the joints faired. I used a plank supported of the ends, for the coating and lamination as I did not trust myself to sit on the foam where supported by form frames.

I rolled the UD out in situ as this was much easier than trying to cut it to length on too short a table.

The deck was then laminated

Following lamination I installed the cross stiffeners along the top & bottom edge of the hold hatch and I used the front of the deck to shape the tabs on the deck front panel, top and bottom

This shows the deck front with the completed top tab (deck joint) and getting ready to laminate the bottom tabs (bridgedeck joint).

The sub-bulkheads were then installed, air receiving chamber formed, service pipes and air ducts installed and sealed. After a thorough clean the deck front was fixed in place.

It certainly changed the lines of the front of the boat

The cabin ceiling portion of the panel was the faired and sanded after which the panel was ready to be placed into position

Bow Netting Tube

Some of the previous photo’s already show the bow net tubing as the work had commenced ahead of the deck installation.

I utilised 25 mm dia pressure PVC tube and it was temporarily secured to the surface by drilling through and screw fixing. The curves were made by heating the PVC gently and bending it gradually as the tube heated. If not hurried nice curves can be achieved.

The deck front and u/s bridge deck junction having a square pocket was as a result of an incorrect measure but worked very well to recess the tube.

The gangplank was made up in the workshop prior to fitting in situ

When positioned I was able to decide how I’d do the sides and how I’d blend them into the aluminium tube.

I opted for the sloping sides and picked the bridge deck end to determine the slope. The constant width of the tube at the bottom then results in the tapering in of the sides towards the front.

While the gangplank was being laminated I faired the PVC tubes in with foam fillets sat in "bog".

At the bridgedeck I had my "mistake" to sit the tube in which required very little fairing.

After lamination, test fitting the gangplank was faired in the workshop as I figured this would be easier at this stage.

The plank was the fixed in place with glue in advance of lamination. The seating on the bow tube was done with caulking compound.

I opted to laminate the bow beam and hull tubes in advance of the deck as the weather was to cold to do the much larger deck.