Sail Track & Bow Sprit

Saturday morning started with a copious amount of sanding on the sail track area on both the top and bottom mast. I also spent some time making sure that the joining tube was flush with both sets of masts. This was followed by cutting the sail track to length and epoxying it onto the mast using zip ties to hold them in place. I took François advice and used a 45 degree scarf joint to join them together on the bottom mast. 

It actually turned out pretty good and I am pretty glad that I decided to go this route!

Sail Track Installed!

Joint between the top and bottom masts

I also took time to add the fiberglass wraps to both ends of the bowsprit. In order to get a nice straight line at the interface I added blue painters tape per the instructions. Once the fiberglass initially sets up I'll come back with a sharp knife and trim it up.

Blue tape assures a nice straight line at the fiberglass interface

While that was setting up I also decided to mix some extra laminating epoxy and drizzled it along the interface between the sail track and the mast to fill in some small voids. This is going to be a somewhat critical  connection and I want to make sure that there is a good solid interface between the two.

I drizzled in some laminating epoxy at the track/mast interface

After waiting a couple of hours I went back with an x-acto knife and cut the extra fiberglass off the bowsprit and peeled off the painters tape.

Bowsprit ready for sanding and finishing!

Next steps will be to sand everything and start applying epoxy!