Starting The New Year with Foils!

Well so much for back in action after 6 weeks! I guess I was a little overly optimistic with regards to the recovery time involved with ACL replacement surgery. I can't say that it was fun (or still is for that matter) but what I can say is that I am happy to be back working on the boat!

My game plan is to take the foils (rudder & daggerboard) to completion prior to bringing the hull down from the roof of the garage. My thoughts are twofold on the subject: Firstly, both foils have been in various stages of completion for quite some time and it would be nice just to finish them and have something completed on the boat; Secondly, it will give me knee a little additional time prior to putting the strain on my knee of walking the boat down the step ladder!

First step was to grab both foils and do some touch up sanding with 100 grit to get their profiles as symmetrical as possible and then follow up with the 220 grit fine sanding.

Next step was to start the fiberglass process. This is something I have been mulling over for some time. I looked at a couple of different builders websites to see what they did and how it compared to Dudley's instruction. My biggest concern arises out of the fiberglassing issues I had when laying the tape on the forward transom of the boat. The main lesson I walked away from that particular fiasco was that fiberglass as a whole does not like to make sharp angles and will not lay down properly. Therefore the trick was to figure out how lay the fiberglass on both sides of the foils and on the top and bottom. The instructions have you taping the fiberglass sheet to the underside of the foil while stretching it good and tight, although I noticed that on the web site of a couple of other builders did not follow them. I also read on another web site to do the tops separately from the sides which is the course I ultimately decided to take (Although I did attempt the taping technique when I was fiberglassing the flip side of the rudder which I ultimately had to undo since I ran into my dreaded air pockets!).

Wetting down the Fiberglass on the Rudder

I decided to start on the rudder. I cut a sheet of fiberglass to size and proceeded to wet it down using a squeegee and brush. I let it set up overnight trimmed it, sanded the edges then repeated the process on the other side. Tonight when I got home from work I trimmed that side up flipped it back to the side I worked on first and gave it a good second coat of epoxy to fill in the weave of the fiberglass.

It's amazing how the fiberglass disappears once you fill in the weave. As you can tell, I also decided to start fiberglassing the top of the daggerboard at the same time. On the rudder I will do this step last. I guess between the two foils I will figure out which is the best order to do it in!

Tomorrow I will flip the rudder and put the second coat on the flip side, while trimming the fiberglass on top of the daggerboard, and fiberglassing the bottom.