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There are no ropes on boats.

I have a friend just north on New Orleans that has any type/size wood you can imagine. Some of the OLD growth teak is absolutely amazing, like 4 inches thick, 30 inches wide and 25 feet long! I can personally recommend Geoff, he is a good guy and I have bought quite a lot from him. We live a few miles north so if anyone road trips you have an anchorage. https://www.woodsnorthshore.com/home Jay

An adult beverage would be in order right aboat now!

Thankyou for your help.

Granted the sub assemblies are not exciting, but doing the work is satisfying and a good warm up for the work to come. Please consider that I get excited about a new paint brush for epoxy work. I have a low bar when it comes to satisfaction. The next step is to coat the sub assemblies, then assemble the centerboard box.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kGtAXIKuSYyQsaLPVHl5Yb1wxD8LmQTE?usp=drive_link The start has been slow. Just making components. Two things that have helped. Weighing epoxy batches versus pump. Also I got away form acid brushes for spreading epoxy. I am using small paint brushes, ( bristles 0.4" long by 0.23" wide) for acrylic and water paints. They are $0.09 per unit from Amazon. They are supple enough to paint clear epoxy, strong enough for thickened epoxy, and they do not lose bristles. They are a pleasure to work with.

After several delays and other projects (we had to rebuild the cockpit floor on the big boat), on the long Easter weekend we could finally give the boat a proper spin. First of all, the deck mount a-frame setup works. No movement despite washing the decks in 30kt gusts The staysail clears the dinghy with no issues when tacking. Today we are rafted in an anchorage, and this gave the perfect excuse to take the Spindrift out for a spin. Quite light winds, but the dinghy sails very nicely! We'll need to still install the cam cleats for the sail controls, and find some battens.

I use 16 mil poly tarps to cover my boats. I weigh them down with gallon water jugs filled with water, and attached with S-hooks. The 16 mil tarps are heavy, but last longer than the thinner models. Even these are only good for about three years, before they start leaking. This is why I recommended Top Notch.

Except for the bell.

The akas are roughed out now. These are the support structure for the hatches.

These are the ones I bought. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GBY77WV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1&psc=1 They are pretty stiff. For the application, I was convinced I needed collapsible poles. Truth is that I roll up the tarp with the poles still in the sleeve and store it below in one long package along the starboard bunk.

I'm in the "don't use ripstop for a tent" camp. In an actual tent, you have the luxury of pitching to avoid the wind. Unfortunately, even on a lee shore, you can be in the wind, and that ripstop is going to drive you nuts. I've rigged many boats over the years, but all were different. Imagine what you want and then pattern it with a roll of paper. That's what I did in most cases. I then used the paper as a pattern when cutting the pieces. About the only thing I've done with my CS20 Mark III Skeena is to make this fly. the only reason I am showing this is that the poles across a ridge rope really do a great job of supporting the top.

Hey Richard, I think you need to change the permissions on the link to your album. It's asking me to request access.

This is how ripstop behaves in a 15mph breeze. IMG_6350.mov

After finishing the primer coats, I found some defects/pin holes that I wanted to address so I went back with fairing compound in a few places. I should have followed up with a primer coat in these areas, not so much for paint adhesion, but to reduce the number of paint coats I'd need to obscure the green fairing compound. But, I was out of primer, and my order for more primer and paint just got delayed a week. In any case, I moved on to painting with the 2-part Epifanes Polyurethane. I also only have one 750ml can of this as I'm waiting on the same delayed shipment. It seems like 1 can gets me about 2 - 2.5 coats. It's really unfortunate that the paint is delayed, as I was assuming I'd be able to apply the 3rd and maybe 4th final coats without having to sand -- since the recoat window is 48 hours. I'll try to see if I can obtain the paint locally, but it's not looking good. But hey, the boat is starting to really look professional now!