Hey all, I have made some good progress in the last month. I hope to Keep things moving along and be able to enjoy sailing very soon. Here are some photos of my progress.
The last 2 photos are where I have made it to so far. I am waiting for some more epoxy to be delivered in the mail in the next day or so. Then I can finish my filleting and move on to installing the decks. I will also be starting to build the leeboard and rudder.
Very nice, I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Are you building from plans?
Also, I build a rudder similar in size to the one specified in the plans, and it wasn't nearly large enough. There is a ton of pressure on the rudder and it has to be quite large to get the kayak, which is designed to go straight, to turn. If I were to rebuild the rudder I would look at building a balanced rudder that would even out the pressure on it. I highly recommend you trying something like this. When I first finished my sail rig I had about 6 months of rudder problems, including cables breaking, rudder breaking, and the aft end of my kayak breaking off.
Also, if it is not too late, I would highly recommend making another set of those bulkheads and laminating them to the ones you have already installed. I read a lot how people that didn't do this had major problems with them cracking. I ended up with 10mm laminated bulkheads which were then fiberglassed on both sided. If you don't do this, take John Harris' advice and make extra large fillets supporting them.
Casey,
Thanks for the advice. I will be sure to follow your recomendations. I was thinking of making the bulkheads larger, I will need to make a modified version of them to laminate now since they are adhered to the hull. It shouldn't be too big of a problem, I will be sure to take pictures to see what everyone thinks. Hopefully, I will be able to add more progress picture soon.
I just added the additional pieces of 9mm Okume to the bulkheads. Now I will have a total of 18mm. I think this should work out well and double the strength where the akas attach. I cut these pieces to the right size so I could get them in around the eposy tabs I already put in. Once this is dry I will add a nice fillet to fill the gaps.
How’s your sailrig project coming along? Thanks for posting what you’ve done so far. I’m thinking about tackling this a couple seasons from now (gotta build the kayak 1st) so I’m very interested in how it works out for you. Good Luck with the build!