Team Seacats

I took a couple of days to tidy up some household things and we’re pretty much out of parts and/or waiting to get an opportunity to spray the gelcoat before reassembly of the boat can begin. I’ve flopped yet again on my paint-booth decision and have decided to use the paintbooth again. It will be nice to simply take out the weather variables and get the gelcoat overwith. Based on the test performed last weekend, we determined exactly what we need and an order was placed for 1 gallon of gelcoal (we wanted 1/2 gallon – but it was the same price as a gallon), 1 qt of styrene (to use as a thinner), and 1 qt of air dry (styrene and parafin wax mix – used to both thin the gelcoat and provide an air barrier for a full cure). These items are coming from the west coast so they won’t be here until next week. Then I will pre-mix as much as possible in multiple mason jars (without catalyst) and enlist the aid of several friends to help me get the hulls transported back and forth.
Once that’s complete, the hulls will be sanded again and polished with a buffer. Then they will be setup on flat ground, leveled, and squared. Then the beams will be waxed where they meet the beam sockets in the hulls and I’ll mate the two perfectly with an epoxy resin, milled glass fibers, and microballoon slurry. Once that sets up, the beams will be tightened in place and we can start putting the boat back together – that should go quickly and will only take a couple of evenings. Then we need to sort out the sail control rigging and mount some cleats and other hardware. Then we’ll probably make an order for additional control lines, high-tech chordage, and do some tapering and eye splicing. However, I’ll probably keep the splicing to a minimum since we aren’t going to have a whole lot of time to debug the boat. Knots aren’t very pretty but you can see when they’re approaching failure. A splice doesn’t let you know it’s failing until you’re staring at the bitter end in your hand.