Happy New Year!

Hey gang! Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

It was super busy around here getting ready for the holidays and trying to get a bit of work done on the boat. Before Traci and I left for vacation, I got the aft two compartments cleaned out and coated with two coats of epoxy. Looks pretty nice...



With spending a week in the Florida Keys over Christmas, I didn't manage to get much done on the boat, but I did manage to get engaged!



We are planning a September wedding and a May boat launch. Obviously there is a lot to do!!!

After returning from vacation I got back to work on the keel (and guest lists!). I had a decent foil shape in the laminated cedar and needed to reinforce it with carbon. I had ordered 3" carbon unidirectional cloth from Sollar Composites, which worked great. I first cut a ~3/16" x 3 1/4" trough in each side of the foil centered at 30% aft from the leading edge and laminated in a single layer of 6 oz. glass cloth as a tie layer.




While the glass layer was still wet, 4 layers of carbon uni got laminated in and covered with saran wrap. So far it looks really good; after the carbon cured I set the keel between two milk crates and stood on it and it only deflected 1/8". I imagine I can get rid of that little bit of that flex with the two layers of glass cloth I'll add next. The resulting glass/carbon laminate was a little "low" in the trough which allowed me to fill with epoxy and West Systems Microlight #410 so that I don't sand through the carbon during fairing. The filler is curing now, so stay tuned!