That's a Whole Lotta 'Glass - Cockpit Fiberglass

The last few days were industrious, to the say the least. On the sailing front, I got out on the water three days in a row, all with good boats and great people.  Alas, I have but one picture to share as I left my phone in the car twice and ran out of batteries the third time.  On Thursday, I tooled around on a 30 year old M class racer on White Bear Lake. My host, Bob, knows a ton about sailboats and is very (very) picky about whom he sails with. This is partly because one wrong move in the right conditions and we're swimming, and partly because Bob's a talkative fella and expects talking in return. I'm glad to oblige.

Friday, I got out with Sailor Beth on Lake Pepin.  What a spectacular fall day that was.  Her 30' sloop cut through the water like a champ; the fall colors along the Wisconsin and Minnesota bluffs were truly stunning.  You don't hear much about Chrysler TMI's, but you should.  They are fine vessels.

But my favorite sail of the weekend was with none other than Garage Sail, by way of California Sean. Sean moved here to follow his work and took PocketShip (and his wife) with him, with a little nudging from the two other builders here in the area.  We wound up on Lake Independence, an 844 acre lake about 30 minutes NW of the Twin Cities.  This was a much nicer lake than I expected, and Garage Sail took advantage of the open waters.  With the mainsail only, she tooled along at 3 knots in light winds and kicked up a little past four with a gentle, steady breeze.  I was a kid in a candy store peering under the floorboards and into the electronics.

As we were waiting on the dock for the truck, many folks stopped to appreciate PocketShip bobbing freely in the water as I held the line. Kudos to JCH at CLC for designing a classic, and to Sean for putting it all together in amazing fashion.

Lake Independence - picture perfect cruising grounds..

I knew, however, that I would pay for these exploits with housework, which includes my own shipbuilding exercise.  I've been working diligently, short of continuously, preparing for the flip.  My wife plans to host a party this weekend and now I have a deadline to meet.

I spent a full day preparing all of the fiberglass areas. This included a lot of filling, fairing, sanding, and "just so-ing".  To get in and around the boat, I worked with the garage door mostly open. Here's a shot of how close the bow is to the garage door.  There's about 2 feet behind the boat where I can skirt behind and get in.  For those of you working in big, heated barns, seriously...

Missed it by that much.

Finally satisfied, I laid out the green tape and started on the port seating area.  One thing I wanted to do, though, was ensure good overlap in stressed areas, as well as being economical with the fiberglass. I think I'm going to run out, and I'm not going without a fight to use every square inch first.  To that end, I cut the 'glass in half leaving about 25 inches across.  This gave just enough coverage a couple inches above the port fillet and a couple inches into the footwell.  I then mixed up some epoxy and let that cure overnight.  By the way, it is so nice just to mix epoxy and not thicken it.  The small things in life, I tell you.

Laying out the fiberglass tape pattern.

Dry fitting the 'glass.  This is a sheet cut exactly in half.

Wet down and curing.  It overlaps both the footwell and up the sides, too.

While that cured, I figured I'd work kitty corner and do the starboard cabin decking. I like setting up the 'glass first, getting it just right, and then adding the frog tape to fit the 'glass.  Works very well this way. It looked a bit like a ghost ship with the fiberglass. 

The ghost ship, Lollipop...

Wet down.  As I write this, it has 2 layers of epoxy.  I am still hoping to keep the side bright, so we'll see.

Once the port side cured, I then moved onto the starboard cockpit seating area.  I figured I'd need to sit in the boat to do this right, and I did, so glad I waited.  Using the other half of the sheet, I was pleased to see I cut it pretty much exactly in half, no small feat on a sheet of 'glass that large.  This got wetted down and allowed to cure.  Meanwhile, I mixed up some more unthickened and put a second coat on the port cockpit seats.

Starboard gets laid.  I'll have a patch in the middle that will complete the decking.

Working kitty corner again, I then did the port side cabin decking.

This also went on well.  I was able to get some down the front, too.

A note about the frogtape.  With a couple years of experience now, I've got a good handle on the frogtape plus fiberglass technique.  The key to it, at least for me, is to wait until it's cured.  If it hasn't set yet, it will be difficult to cut.  And when it's cured, it doesn't even need to be cut.  Gripping just under the frogtape and lifting it decidedly will snap the fiberglass right along the tape.

I started doing it this way because I didn't want to cut the boat with the razor.  Instead, I have a thin score just outside the tape in case the snap doesn't happen smoothly.  When done right, you will have a thin, jagged edge that can be quickly sanded down, unlike those long threads of 'glass that never go away.  Being decent at frogtape 'glassing allows me the freedom to assemble the fiberglass in parts and reduces waste.  It's a win for all (but perhaps none moreso than the Big Box Store because I use a lot of the stuff).

With the four areas cured, I turned my attention to the footwell. I had grand designs on how to tackle this, but in the end wimped out and used a pretty straightforward approach.  The sides stretch out about 8 inches, overlapping the 'glass that's already here.  For the most part, it came out OK.  The corners and whatnot caused typical issues which I'll address after it cures.

The reason for the issues is that this is a fairly large area requiring large darts and a good deal of finesse (to get the alignment right), balance (to not fall into the footwell), efficiency (to work quickly so things don't gum up), and artistry (to ensure it doesn't look like shYte when done).  It's such a highly visible area I really wanted this to be near perfect.  I'll settle for OK.

This wasn't easy.  Good luck out there.

Done, after a couple hours and a couple aspirins.

Looking down the trench.  The dark areas are low spots where I tried to sand away the fillet issues.  This will of course be heavily painted so won't show.

View aft.  Note the transom doesn't have much treatment yet. I'll run a wide strip side to side to finish that up.

When walking around, I noticed that the whole boat feels much stronger.  It no longer flexes when I walk on it and it's very clearly able to hold my weight.  This is a good thing!  Over the next couple days, I'll add a couple extra epoxy applications, do the sides (aft and forward) and clean up the transom.  Then it's adding the rubrails onward to the flip.