Float port side inner half - the last one

A good start to this float half. Probably about 4 hours of effort with a little bit of extra time to wash off the sweat because of the heat.


You can see I am in no hurry to clean up the glue at the foam strip butt joints. When cured the glue is just cut off with a knife.
The deck side mold plate is off as the strips are just easier to fit constrained on the one side only, neat to the keel.

One float joined and into storage

Here I am with my first joined float. At this stage the float weighs ~60lbs.

And ready for storage under plastic and tarp. I am sure the epoxy resin is getting quite the heat treatment under the tarp.

Starboard float halves joined - looking fair

Everything was glued and taped except the forward bow bulkhead.

So to get better access to the bow bulkhead for gluing and taping I broke out the float hull from the form frame battens and removed the deck side mold plates.

With this final joining done and while the epoxy was curing I took literally 10 minutes to fair off the foam on the inner side hull with a flexible long board.


I am quite pleased how fair the foam actually looks with this small effort. The glue joints seem to be sitting slightly proud but it all seems to sand very easy. This must be an advantage of using the polyurethane glue to join the foam strips. I also roughly trimmed off the extra foam and laminate on stern inner side.

Looking forward to lifting this float hull out and getting on with the port side inner half. The last float half.

Half of what it is all about

With the better weather here, my boat build has competition from the demands and pleasures of my other sailboat.

Here are a few pictures taken from my NorthStar 26 while cruising on Georgian Bay.

Moored in the slip. Beacon Bay Marina, Penetang

Early evening in Go Home Bay.

What's the other half about? Well of course sailing, to get to these wonderful anchorages!

All clamps on the keel #1!

I started the float join today. As you can see it took every clamp I have, plus a purchase of 4 more to get sufficient clamping along the keel. I'll have to undertake this 2 more times, for the port side float and the main hull. Nothing like doing something for the first time.

You can see by the voids for the alignment dowel in the fore and aft bulkheads that it is looking pretty square.

Test fitting of starboard side float halves

I could hardly wait to test fit the two halves together. There was some odd twist in the half stored outside over the winter but I have found with a few clamps, the edges for joining line up pretty well. This weekend I will clean up these edges and join (first putty then tape) along the keel and bulkhead areas.

The outer side foam hull surfaces have not been sanded fair yet and I am eager to get to it.

However, it will not be too long before I am laminating the outer hulls. So, I have purchased a small quantity of Aeropoxy light for filling the screw holes and any low spots that sanding the foam will not remove.

I'm also thinking about the final float half and the deck laminations.

3rd float half, bow stringer in place and laminated

Getting very close to joining two float halves. Here is the very important foam bow stringer in place. It was bedded with a cabosil putty mixture.

Here is the end of the stringer with the unidirectional and b-spec bi-directional s-glass cloth laminated over the stringer.

So here it is, the starboard side outer float half. Next step is to join this half with the inner side with the chain plate mount.