I have 192 individual packer to make to go between the keel floors and the 12 mm ply bottom. The grain of the packers runs across the hull and each floor has six segments that need packers each made up of four individual blocks. Each set of four packers needs to have a neat limber hole against the stringer. Fortunately each of the four blocks in each location are of similar size so the blocks can be mass produced and trimmed on site for the final fit.
Yesterday I made packers for two locations and hand fitted a few sets of four for proof of concept.
Today the rain and cold returned but I was able to continue working on the packers as they are in the middle of the awning. Along the way I got distracted from the mass production and started fitting the packers on the large floor that runs from the keel to the chainplate frames. These are approximately 560 mm radius so I marked up shapes with an appropriate radius and proceeded to cut the curves with the jigsaw. By afternoon tea I had cut only eight packers or the equivalent of two of the 12 spaces on this long frame. I got even more distracted and started cleaning up stringer connections to the bulkheads ready for epoxy fillets and plywood doublers where needed.
Realizing that time was getting away I set up the bench saw and went into full mass production mode.
With a disciplined approach to producing the packers I finished cutting two thirds of the required packers by knock off time.
I will have to be disciplined to keep up this production rate as i do have a lot of stringers to fillet to bulkheads and I am tempted to progress the water tanks by fitting the flanges for the tops and glassing the interior. It will have to be completed before the radius chine section is moulded in place so there is several weeks time on the critical path but it is a job that is staring at me and almost begging me to finish it first.
Today, Saturday 2nd July, the weather tuned rather wet and cold so the above photo shows the tarpaulins pulled back just enough for me to work on the spacers.
Did I mention that we won the race at RANSA on Wednesday? It was a fresh breeze with a fair bit of north in it so a single beat to the top mark and a broad reach home. We did particularly well to windward until Allegro worked out from under or rather a large header put us in their dirty air. We still made the mark in a single board and on the way home poled out the genoa to leeward with a short whisker pole. As we pulled away into Rose Bay we ran with the short pole and kept ahead of Cuckoo’s Nest and Allegro into Rose Bay.
On the work around the island we came unstuck when we tacked early and had to take three sterns. We got one back on the starboard board into the mark but Cuckoo’s Nest was away and Meridian and Agrovation pulled even further ahead. We tried to run down Allegro but she was too good off the stick. Nevertheless with our more favorable handicap we scored a first by a few seconds and a much needed confidence booster.