-Week 39 Write Up- Lots of teak, plumbing, Dynel, and exterior trim

We came up a little short of our goal to finish the deck by Friday. But we are damn close. Oliver and I went at the deck all week and after we had put on the last of the full length planks, we were able to split off into different sections: Oliver taking the bow, and me at the stern. This way we could work at double the time. Although now that the planks are smaller, they need much more custom attention to fit them around the coach house, the hatches, cockpit, and lazarette. As I worked in the stern, I shaped all the planks that hung off the end of the boat to follow the shape of the stern. Then I made a mold out of plywood in order to make a solid teak plank in sections that wrapped around the stern. This was pretty tricky and took me most of a day to finish, but the result looks wonderful. Then we just plugged away at the teak planking, trying to get on as many as possible in a day.

Brendan, meanwhile, worked on installing some thru hulls for the engine exhaust and others to Alfie's specific specifications. Instead of using a bronze thru hull, we are using a very thick PVC type of thru hull, which wont rust, fade, or wear, and is just as strong. Brendan also installed the exterior mahogany trim around the coach house. He covered the coach house roof perimeter with 6 inches of fiberglass cloth and epoxied it down. After fairing that and applying a couple skim coats of fairing compound micro balloons, he was able to fair the raised edge of the cloth into the roof. The roof was also coated in epoxy to soak in before it was covered in Dynel cloth which will take the place of canvas as the surface of the coach house roof.

As you all may have realized by now, the project is taking longer then originally expected. I think this is usually something to expect with such a large custom project like this. We havent talked much about a launch date, and I dont want to let anyone down, so just stay tuned and as a date comes nearer, I will let you all know. Thanks for checking in and sorry for the late posts, I am living aboard IMPALA at the moment, without internet, so it is a little more challenging now to update on time.