More shots of the hull

Here she is on the scale. Looks like the keel/bulb is about 6 grams too heavy. I hope sanding and polishing the paint will reduce the weight these 6 grams. According to class rules, the keel/bulb shall not exceed 2500 grams.

I think the boat in sailing condition will be a tad heavy, class rules specify a minimum weight of 4000 grams. I think she will weigh in at 4160 grams. I will eventually get lighter batteries and this should help get it down to minimum weight.

Stepping the mast and bending on the sails

WOW! Finally got the sails bent on the rig and attached to the servos. Tomorrow she will go on her maiden voyage!

Keel/bulb and rudder painted white

Here are a few shots of the rudder and keel/bulb painted white. I used an appliance type epoxy paint for these 2 items for the durability of this paint. I hope it will help protect this items from dings and dents. We will see

Miainsail Headboard Swivel

Here I had to fabricate the headboard swivel for the mainsail. Took a stainless rod and pushed through the hole in the mast head fitting and then put a series of bends in the rod to hold the sail. You will see this better when i take some photos of the sails bent on the rigs.

Cockpit

Here are a few shots of how the cockpit is rigged. You can see the pot in the cockpit, this si where the batteries and the reciever will go and they will remain dry, I hope!

Sail Servo and running rigging

Here are some shots of the Sail Servo showing how it is rigged.

More work completed

More work continued last night at the boat yard.

Battens – Some time ago Al had some epoxy missed up and some leftover pieces of carbon fiber so he made some small sheets of carbon that I cut a few strips to make the battens for the sails. Last night I cut a few of these strips and applied to the leach of the sails using the double sided tape. I capped the ends of the battens off with small pieces of pink sticky back.

I also put on some draft stripes while the sails are not mounted to the rig.

A small, final amount of filling and sanding on the keel/bulb and then we moved it and the rudder outside so I could spray some appliance paint on them. I chose this paint as it is pretty durable and it can be sanded and shined up pretty well. It also should offer some protection from any incidental bumps of these appendages.

Finally last night we temporarily installed Al’s receiver so we could set up the sheeting system and see how the running of these lines would work. Glad we did! The original plan was to run some of the bungee cord through a series of blocks but we found out that due to some of the angles, the bungee cord did not run smooth. We ended up doing some modifications and used a short piece of bungee cord that only runs through one block and we used string for the balance. I get 11 inches of travel from the sheeting system which should be more than sufficient.

We also found out that the sail servos need to be programmed to give me 180 degrees of travel. This was accomplished by using Al’s Hi-Tech Servo Programmer that he recently purchased.
Today I hope to get enough work done that she will be able to launch her on Sunday.

I will bring my radio and receiver down today to set the end points of the sail servo. I also need to make up at least the ‘A’ rig in order to sail Sunday. I will need to connect the sails to the rig, which seems simple, but i still need to cut the lower ends of the shrouds and backstays and put a thimble in and then crimp them. Then a fitting will need to be made that will hold the head of the main to the top of the mast, allowing it to swivel as the sails go in and out.

We did not properly wire the boat for the electronics, as I will need to get another type of battery for this boat and connections. Eventually I will get the new DX radio for this boat.

I am very excited about being this close to launching this boat and sailing her!

Photos will be taken today and posted later.