Building William Atkin's Perigee
Tuesday 19th March 2019 she slid off her jinker into water for the first time. So now she has been 'launched'. To my relief she floats, and floats as she should. More views of her first time afloat on the 'Launched and Named' page.
Time to leave the bush, an area of extreme risk in the event of a bush fire... phew, glad to have left. See the Perigee's Move page for more...
She looks better fully painted. Hope you like my amazingly imaginative colour scheme. Antifouling is usually best applied close to the launch date, but according to this product it can remain dry for up to 12 months. I guess that means she needs to be in the water by winter 2019.
Salty Sea Dog (who responds to Salt or Salty) closely inspects the acrylic polyurathane top coat to see how this automotive paint worked out when rolled and tipped on a boat. She made no bones about it, immediately giving the nod of approval, but the real test of this paint will be its durability over a few years of hard cruising.
William Atkin drew his Perigee design in 1934 and I began lofting in 2013.
Bolting the ballast permanently in place using the Gudgeon Brother's method was an exciting milestone. The picture shows lining everything up ready to receive lots and lots of expensive west system goop (much of which squeezed out, but better to be sure that there was plenty in there).
Fairing the hull took months of sanding by hand with a long board. The result was that very little 'bog' was needed. Hopefully all this work will result in a laminar flow of the ocean past her skin and the inability for crusty denizens of the deep to hang on to her bottom.
Fairing the inside was not nearly so critical. The belt sander knocked off the really nasty stuff. The long board tidied up. Then numerous sessions of bog on, sand off (with the long board), bog on, sand off, bog on... you get the idea right. Two weeks later she was ready to glass inside.
There are many approaches to turning a hull over. My approach was to build a lifting frame using 12mm dacron rope for slings and a 500kg come along winch to do the work. Winch up one end of the rope sling, then ease off the other side. Repeat this enough times and the hull rolls over in a very controlled manner. Having tried this approach I'd recommend it as simple and effective.