Its time for the cockpit coaming to be made. For this purpose a mould of foam needs to be made first. I have cut out pieces of a large block of hard foam and glued these to the deck around the hole.
The Pearl also needs a retractable skeg. I have started constructing a new type of skeg for the craft.
Retractable skeg
The hard foam is now profiled to the shape of the cockpit coaming. The blask lines is only to visualise the shape better.
The coaming is being layed up. It need at least 4-5 layers of glass. The black coulor is only caused by ink in the resin.
The coaming is now finalised. I ended up with 7 layers of fibre with in between grindings. All in all it took 3 weeks, partly due to the low temperature. I have to conclude that there is no easy way to do a coaming.
Deck with coaming now weight 4,4 kg and the kayak as a whole 11,5 kg.
February 2011
Bulkhead just rear of the cockpit is being glued. This bulkhead is installed skew for better emptying water out of the kayak.
March 2011
Both bulkheads are now in place and laminated.
March 2011
Mean while I have worked on a proto type of a new deck fitting. I have drilled two inclined dowels through fitting and deck and layed over one layer of glas fibre. The fitting is tested to a pulling force of more than 12 kg.
Here all the deck fittings are cut ti size after a single layer of fibre.
March 2011
I have carves gutters in the deck for more space for the lines, here for the stern carry handles.
April 2011 The fittings are glued, the dowels are drilled and finally
they are coated with an aditionally layer of fibre and epoxy.
May 2011
After having thought a lot about type of hatches to apply I have made up my mind for wood hatches. I cannot make myself fitting rubber hatches to the boat.
In stead of making flush counter sunk hatches as on my Petrel I will raise the hatches slightly with a high profiled edge list. The coaming shall also be raised and hopefully the they will be almost tight.
Maj 2011
Now time for cutting the holes for the hatches.
Maj 2011
Front hatch cut.
Maj 2011
Negative moulds for the coaming are glued.
Maj 2011
The moulds are shaped and waxed three times and ready for laying up the GRP. The deck is her upside down.
Maj 2011
Front hatch coaming laminated.