#20: A Hull Lotta Work!

We’ve been working steadily on the hulls since the last blog post. And when I say hulls, I just mean what will become the lower third or so of the finished hulls. Those canoes are going to be massive!

One of the first orders of business at the end of January was laminating additional layers of fiberglass to the hulls. This does two things: it reinforces the bottom of the hull (the area most likely to hit obstacles), and it tapes over the joints of previously glued-together hull panels.

We laid out sheets of fiberglass and used lasers to identify where the water line would be, cutting the sheets to size based on the plans’ specifications.

We draped the pre-cut fiberglass sheets over the starboard hull, ready to lay them out and epoxy into place over the port hull on the next full day.

Let the BIG fun begin! It took all of four days to fiberglass both hulls. Luckily, on two of the major days, a few friends came by to help us. Huge thanks to our friends! All three of the guys happen to be windsurfers and/or sailors, and two of them already had some experience with fiberglass, so they helped ease any fears. Even though we had already fiberglassed the roof beams, two layers of fiberglass plus peel ply on a hull when time is of the essence was a bigger pill to swallow (times two hulls).

After allowing the first two layers of fiberglass + epoxy per hull to cure—but while still green—we pulled off the peel ply and then applied a third layer of fiberglass to what will be the bottom of the hulls.

February has been the month of filling the hulls with fairing compound and then sanding. Rinse and repeat indefinitely, it seems. Valentine’s Day was just another day for us, which means it was awesome.

We’ve been trying really hard to ensure no ripples in the hulls. We want smooth sailing.

In between fairing and sanding, Nick started working on the nose of each hull, adding inches to the amount of caution we need to have every time we walk around both hulls. Roughly cut and shaped pieces were first epoxied to the bow.

Nick finalized the proper shape to match the existing chines, and then fiberglassed the nose to the rest of the hull.

Lastly, we affixed bulkhead #9, which is the last vertical piece in the hull. If we were to give each of the bulkheads a personality trait, it would be the sternest of them all. But don’t worry, we’ll turn that frown upside down soon enough! Stay tuned . . . but first, we have to get back to sanding! (Rinse and repeat indefinitely, remember?)