toxic substance

No, it’s not anthrax powder, it’s weaponised epoxy dust!

After another eternity of sanding the paint finally went on (more pics soon).

timber yard

It’s nigh impossible to get good timber in Tauranga, so while we were staying with friends in Whangarei last weekend we called into BBS timbers. Got a nice lot of Fijian Kauri for the top rubbing strakes, tiller and bowsprit, and some sapele for laminating into the tiller too. Had to wrap the lot in plastic with all wet and wild northern weather.

it's cold

We’ve been battling the cold the last few weeks, the epoxy has been taking ages to go off. The temperature was averaging 12 C last week.

Dad figured he’d rig up some lamps inside in a desperate attempt to warm the boat… a little.

We switched to fast hardener for our International Epiglass HT9000. Sanding and filling was finally completed and we coated the hull. The fast hardener made a big difference to the pot life, down to about 15 mins compared to about 45 mins with standard hardener at this temperature. We'll see how much difference it makes to the drying.