With the Nanoship back at the Wooden Boat School, I thought I would share something I learned in last year’s class that I applied to my NE Dory build. John showed us how to increase the ding resistance of the Nanoship’s centerboard by adding a ring of thickened epoxy around the outer edge. When I asked CLC about doing this to my NE Dory daggerboard and skeg, this was John’s reply:
“That would definitely be a useful enhancement. It's more work, but the daggerboard and skeg would be a lot more rugged if given that treatment.”
For the daggerboard I first used a router to cut a rabbet on the internal side of both daggerboard halves before I glued them together. I only cut the rabbet in the area that sticks out below the boat (the lower part that you need to shape). When I glued the halves together, the two rabbets created a slot in the outer edge of the daggerboard:
I then mixed up a batch of thickened epoxy (peanut butter thickness so it wouldn’t flow out of the slot). I worked the epoxy into the slot so there would not be any air bubbles. I then let it harden.
When I sanded the daggerboard edges into the desired shape, the result was a ring of hardened epoxy around the edge. If the daggerboard strikes a submerged object it will hit the hard epoxy first instead of the softer Okoume.
For the skeg, I just mounded up thickened epoxy around the outer edge of the skeg and let it harden. Afterwards I used a sander to shape it and give it a round over.
I did the same thing for the leading edge of my kick-up rudder.
