Friday night, Dad and I installed the cabin roof hand rails which serve both to help support the roof and to hang onto when going forward to reef the main or set the anchor. We also installed a toe rail along the side of the cabin near the gunwale to prevent a foot from slipping off the side deck. We will also have non skid additive on the decks and cockpit floor.
Saturday, we got a coat of primer in the cockpit and got a final coat of epoxy on the railing pieces in the early morning. I worked on the rudder installation and Dad built some more hatch lid drain channels out of fiberglass.
Sunday we finished up the sanding and I left for school as Mom was putting the second coat of primer on the cabin and decks. The rudder is receiving its final coats of epoxy in the next couple of days. It will then get varnished. The center thwart and oars are also on the list to be varnished.
We are planning a boat moving "party" this weekend where we will attempt (with 15-20 friends who are readily volunteering to help) to move the boat from its land-locked basement prison into the wild out of doors. If you are not too far away and want to lend a hand, leave me your email in a message and I'll shoot you the details. We have been slowly conditioning the boat to get used to the outside by leaving the doors and windows open downstairs which also conveniently serves as good ventilation when working with the epoxy :) Here is the latest. It look like this just might work.
Also, this just in!!! Mike was visited again by our friendly flying squirrel just minutes before I got home and snapped this glamor shot. We are already thinking of ways to give it some propulsion (we are aerospace engineers) Maybe a little jet pack mounted on its back. If only we could hold it down and take some measurements and find its C.G. hmmm.
