Current Affairs

Another item on or wish list has been relocating the batteries and simplifying the cable routing. Previously, one battery was stored under the cockpit floor, while another battery (and the battery switch!) were in the starboard cockpit locker. Opening a locker lid at sea just to switch batteries seems less than ideal, and the inaccessible space under the cockpit looked ideal for the two batteries.

Putting the forepeak back together - the water tank

With any maintenance job, 90% of all efforts remain hardly noticeable until it all finally starts coming together with the last 10%. Our forepeak was long a pile of plywood and fiberglass, but now it is returning to its functional form.

Reinforced storage in the forepeak

Adding an inner forestay - Part 2

Making the bulkhead

(see Part 1) The new bulkhead is made from 12mm marine ply laminated with a layer of biaxial fiberglass cloth on each side. All structural boltholes are reinforced with solid fiberglass laminate to withstand both radial loads and axial compression. We added two watertight access hatches - you never know when the chain behind a permanent bulkhead will get tangled! Overall, making the balkhead took many tens of hours of work. Here's the "making of".

Marking, cutting holes, sanding

Getting to grips with epoxy

A big advantage of having a fiberglass boat is the ease of making structural repairs - epoxy will readily bond to a well-prepared surface. While more expensive than polyester resins, it's good for peace of mind.
While stripping out the forepeak, we found the bulkhead behind the water tank cracked - primarily because of the unnecessary large cut-out. Also, the batten running the width of the bulkhead was not attached to the bulkhead itself. Moreover, the chopped strand mat used to bond the bulkhead to the sides of the hull was not wetted with enough resin and came away easily in some areas - and the gap between the plywood edge and the hull was never filled. All reason enough to fix it properly while we have a chance. Here's what seemed to produce satisfactory results: