Adding an inner forestay - Part 3

Preparing the bow for the bulkhead

As well as building the new bulkhead we had to shape a lip in the bow, positioned to fit the new board. This provides better sealing and, practically, something we can epoxy the finished bulkhead on to.

There was already a small lip to hold the original piece, which we used to position and cut a template from mdf. This was used to both shape the plywood bulkhead and also cut out to make a backing piece we could apply the new layer of fibreglass to.

Igor and Giulia - shaping the new template and plywood bulkhead

The new bulkhead has now been coated in fibreglass and holes drilled for hatches and bracket bolts (see part 2). The template was coated in plastic to make a non-stick surface ready for epoxy.

The template and bulkhead

The template was bolted to the remains of the original lip. Due to the curve of the old lip and the flexibility of the template we clamped it in several places to ensure a flat surface. If we accidentally made a curved lip it wouldn't fit the new, much much stiffer, bulkhead.

Template - clamped in place

We glassed around the back of the template. Due to the position of the G-clamps there were several gaps. There were also spaces where the epoxy didn't fill right into the corners, due to the potition of the board.

The new lip - layer 1

After the first layer dried we went back and filled the gaps, as well as adding a few more layers to the whole thing. I found the easiest way to get to the top section was to lie entirely in the locker. What I didn't consider was just how much epoxy would drip in my hair... I spent the next day finding and cutting out little dried clumps.

Matt in the anchor locker - filling the gaps

With the fiberglassing done the edge was tidied up to give the finished piece:

We are not quite ready to finally epoxy in the bulkhead yet, we still need to fit the naval pipe (the hole in the deck the chain comes out of). All the work is done, and the piece fits. The first warm dry opportunity we have we with seal it and bolt it in place.

The cleaned navel pipe, and surrounding deck resealed with epoxy.

 As the last few posts have hopefully shown, this job has been quite involved and taken a lot of hours. We are tantalisingly close to finally putting the whole thing together now, which will feel like a big step in the right direction!