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Hello everyone, I last posted on here a few years ago. It's taken me sometime to convince my wife to give up the living room to an N11. My Spindrift N11 project is called South Queensferry Electron - in recognition of Donald Crowhurst's Teignmouth Electron - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst Following the usual 'messing-about' convention, here is my progress right up to when I found the courage to saw her in half - earlier today! Nidaplast is very flexible and I epoxied and peel plied each piece of the hull before assembly. Bulkheads are carbon fibre and Nidaplast, three layups of biaxial cloth. A diamond cutting wheel on a Dremmel made short work of trimming excess from the bulkheads and transom. The hull still needs finishing, as do the bulwarks. Knees still to fit as well, that's the next job. So I realise that 6mm ply would have been the best route to go down. However, prior to this build I had not worked with West Systems or carbon fibre before. The SQE is a 'learning by doing' project in preparation for the retirement boat. I will update with more photos as work progresses. I live in Scotland, the weather is getting colder and less conducive to epoxy use and, of course, I have to give the living room up for Christmas. Progress might be slow! However, with the hull complete I can cut out the rest of the Nidaplast components and get the sailing rig ready. Happy boat building to you all! Jim

For want of a decent local plywood supplier I will be building in 5mm nidacore honeycomb sandwich, carbon outside, vectran and glass inside. If I can get my hands on some affordable basalt fabric I am sure I will find a few panels for it to feature. It is certainly not going to be as enjoyable as building in wood but at least I will get to learn a few new skills along the way. A lighter boat is almost a guarantee, but that all depends on how many laminates will give me the impact toughness I require. I do have a partial sheet of nice 6mm ply and will cut the transom, mast partners and a few other small parts from that. The nidacore sheets are 7ft x 4ft, which, as fortune would have it, is just long enough to cut the main hull panels from 3 sheets, one being halved and butt-joined to the full sheets just like the plans for plywood.