Wow! I am sorry it has been so long! Work has been happening on the boat throughout August and we are really starting to get near the finishing touches. I will try to re-cap everything that's happened on the boat over the last month, starting with the end of July at the beginning of the post.

Over the last few weeks, we have been ripping off all of the fibreglass from the deck. It had started pulling up in some areas and some areas had been damaged underneath by water and rot... So pull it all up! This was the itchiest few weeks of my life.

Once all the fibreglass had been pulled up, all areas where there was rot had to be chiselled out and the whole surface needed to be sanded to prepare for the epoxy.

Once everything was sanded and heavily cleaned, I started layering on epoxy body fill, which is mix of epoxy, cabosil and 3M bubbles which are tiny shards of glass. This mixture creates a peanut butter like fill that holds well into divots & holes. The main goal of this process was to fill the low areas, and refill the chiselled out rot areas. Both on the deck and the hull below the water line.

After days of body fill, everything needed to be precision sanded down to be even and level, because all small bumps etc will show through the final layer of epoxy. I was very fortunate to have to great people Simon Rossiter and Shane work a full day sanding down the whole deck.  The filler then needs to be covered over with 3-6 coats of liquid epoxy to seal it. The deck is a slow process, as you can only do little areas so you still have room to walk.

A brief summary of things left to do:
- cock pit sanded and smoothed out, then layers of epoxy coated on
- final layers of epoxy on parts of the deck
- stern spinnaker winch mount rebuilt.
- hole in the starboard side filled
- some rotten wood on the port side taken out and replaced
- final coats of epoxy on the hull
- sanding down of the hull
- sanding down of the epoxy on the deck

..... THEN PAINT!!! We are so very close to done. The last week and half and the next few weeks ahead are all the finishing stages of the boat. (oh... and clean the teak...)

Evan and I are hoping to have the boat in the water this September to run a few trials on the boat for a month and see how it fairs!

I will try to update more regularly.

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Starting to pull off all the old fibreglass on the deck. 

The corn grows taller.

The majority of the fibreglass has been ripped off, which took around a week.

Sanding and cleaning up the deck.

The cockpit has half of it's fibreglass removed. 

There was a lot of fibreglass!

Cock pit is starting to look cleaner!

More fibreglass... I was sooo itchy. 

ALMOST THERE!

Roof of the cabin has some areas that need to be patched.

Starting the epoxy patches on the starboard hull. The epoxy is done is several layers, you first have to "wet it out" which is spreading liquid epoxy where you are going to do the body fill.

Laying down epoxy filler on the roof of the cabin.

Filling in areas of rot with epoxy filler on the fore deck.

Layers and layers of filler.

Epoxy patches on the side of the boat are done and ready for sanding. 

Helpful friend Charlie painstakingly sanding all the epoxy without creating flat areas. 

Roof of the cabin is starting to get smoothed out, working on rounding the edges into the cockpit. 

Large dip in the roof, building it up with epoxy to drain water better.

Epoxy fill areas being roughed up with electric sanders in preparation of the final layers of epoxy. 

The roof and fore deck all taped off to get final epoxy coating. 

Everywhere that is shinny is 3 layers of epoxy, leaving areas for walking around which will be completed later.