I have been quiet with posts and with facebook because the current state of play is that the thin layer of fibreglass cladding is taking a lot longer to apply and fair than I had anticipated. Also the photos of the partially faired glass are unflattering.
As of today the whole of the hull has been machine sanded and checked for fariness with a torture board pass. There are several spots where filler will have to be applied and these are mostly where the very thin layer of tissue on top of the 265 gsm double bias either missed or overlaped. When I say very thin I mean 22 grams per square metre or less than one tenth of the base layer.
I will spend the next two days spot filling and using the torture board to check for any more imperfections before applying the first coat of white epoxy primer. The first coat will be sanded back hard to identify any high or low spots that I miss with the torture board on the raw fibreglass.
On Passion X, after turning the hull, the primer around the gunwhale had to be sanded back to get a fair finish so I am paying particular attention to sanding the fibreglass around the gunwhale so that the primer will be fair.
Inside the hull I have been making little progress because the weather has generally been fine enough for sanding but I have cut out the settee backs and starter fitting cleats to the shelves.
There is a possibility that the epoxy priming of the hull will line up with the epoxy priming of the V berth locker fronts and the settee backs. Time will tell.
On the sailing front we hung on for a win in the Summer series due to our attendance record. Now we are back to the Spring and Autumn series where we are hanging on to the lead by the slimmest of margins. Last night did not help when we were slow out of Humbug. We overtook Ausreo at Cockatoo Island and Fireball just before Goat Island. On the run back to Cockatoo we briefly caught sight of Jackpot, U topia, Joli and Meridian and for a short while the breeze carried us closer to this quartet. Unfortunately we sailed into the hole that they escaped from and were run down in turn by Fireball.
Around Cockatoo we streatched our from Fireball and Ausreo and made good progress on the tight reach to Humbug. Ausreo had a better run home than most and managed to catch up on handicap but we did take out Jackpot and Fireball to just retain our lead from Meridian who is having a real charge at the lead.