Estrutura do Leme

This is the basic lay out for the rudder structure.

This is what I've cut and prepared today for gluing. Tomorrow I will still give that piece of solid wood some better shaping. And then I'll drench that thing in epoxi.

First cut were 2 pieces of 10mm plywood, to back up the hull bottom and strengthen the backbone (keel). This is still backed up with a second layer of 10mm ply.

Just a game... a good game

Brasil and USA met in the finals of the Confederation Cup, in South Africa. In a great game, Brasil beat the USA to a 3 x 2 score. Luiz Fabiano, Lúcio, Kaka, Robinho and the boys did a good job.

Tim Howard, the American goalkeeper, also did a great game, but had to admit defeat, like in the image above. The USA Team managed to get a lead of 0 x 2 in the first half, but had to then to give way, and couldn't avoid the ball hitting the net 3 times.

The Americans did a great game. Congratulations to them.

... Hey Joe; No hard feelings, I hope.

Rudder

I realized, that I need to concentrate on those tasks that I can not execute during the weekend. Like the rudder development with Mr. Palmas. He will give me the directions of where to buy the stainless parts, needed to build the rudder. After buying the material, he will help assembling it, with cutting and welding.

Beaming

The internal structure elements which will firmly attach the akas to the hull are now being built. I have laminated another piece of freijó wood (below) and cut the 10mm plywood which will make the arrangements to a bow beam across the boat (above). This structure will hold the forward aka and the shrouds.

I've had a good conversation with Mr. Palmas, about the rudder constrcution. He offered help to build the stainless steel rudder shaft and tube. I now need to make a drawing and buy the parts. Mr. Palma will help cutting and welding the parts. I will dedicate 2 days of the comming week to do this job.

On the router

The project is now going into a phase of interesting woodwork. First some structural elements need to be fitted in, and then the deck, cabin and akas... I was just about wondering what tools I would need to perform these tasks. A router would come in handy.

In a lucky providence, Jonas flew over to the USA, and kindly asked if he could bring a tool. That is a generous offer not to be rejected. And so Jonas brought a cool router which will be tremendously helpfull in the next few weeks.

... I need to learn how to work with it. Thanks Jonas. And by the way; yes it works. The Ryobi turns at 25'000 rpm. Which I found a lot. But, I know nothing about routers.

Aka attachments

The wheather is not good for epoxi work. It is cold and rainy. I will therefore concentrate on cutting and adjusting the wood for the internal reinforcements, for structurally significant elements.

Micheal Jackson

Yes, me too. Thriller was the first album I've bought.

Next steps comming up

The past few weeks have been tyring, work-wise. I'v had little time to think ahead and concentrate on what needs to be done on the boat construction. This has reflected on low productivity.

But now it is all different. I'm on vacation!!! I'll jump off the running train for two weeks. Yes, I will. I was not really believing that I could really leave my job for vacation. But I did. "Just do it". That is the key. My ambition it to achieve total chill out, and rest my head by tinking of something totally different.

Best next thing to think about, besides my wife, is the construction of Arpex. And the idea is to dedicate one week to the boat, and the next to the wife. Leave the best for last.

As for the construction, the target is to get all internal reinforcements installed, and all parts resined. Also to start building the deck stringers. This will take some thinking, development, and also interesting wood work. Everything should be ready for decking. Allthough, decking could be kept for the very end, since it is easily done. Not having the decks improves mobility inside the hull tremendously.

Visitors during the next week are welcome. Last Saturday I had the visit form Lucas. He came by when I was just getting tired from epoxi-ing...

White out

The bow section is now sealed in epoxi. This time it whitened out nicely. It still doesn't cover 100%, but it looks good enough.

If you click on the image above you can see Adriana.

Look carefully, and you'll notice the small drainholes at the bottom of the picture below. Just in case some water fins its way into there.

I' ve bought a kitchen mixer, and it is helping me the epoxi resin. And it really makes a good difference. The titanium dioxide pigment works much better when thoroughly mixed into the resin.

I've also bought new resin. I used Skuna 5100. It has a fairly short pot-life of around 15 minutes. That made me have to work quickly. The tight spaces, frequent-to-and-fro between hull-sections to mix resin, took a toll and made it hard, tiring work.

On the edge

Some people like living on the edge... These guys certainly have a fair dose of adrenalin pumping in their blood.

Check out the amazing sequence of pictures here: http://hawaiianwatershots.com/

Brasil vs. USA

This blog has recently welcomed its 28th-tausendst visitor. To be precise, it has received 28'o79 clicks. But, anyway... That is not the point. The point is, that I find it curious to check, every now and then, where all these people come from. And, I find it curious, that for a quite a while now, visitors from Brasil and from USA are fighting for the lead. Yesterday Brasil was leading. Today the United States scored 1'655 clicks against 1'631 from Brasil. This is regarding the 5,537 visits since February 2009 (respectively 29,9% and 29,5%). Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom follow with a significant gap around 5-3%.

This validates my decision to post in english language. People often ask me why do not post in portuguese. Of course I do like my own language, but this blog is also a tribute to all those other blogs and discussion groups where I have learned about outrigger sailing craft and boat construction in general - and they were all in english. So it was a logical decision.

I was afraid to exclude my own compatriots. I'm happy to see that this is not the case.

By the way; Today, during the Confederations Cup, Brasil won 3 x 0 against USA - no hard feelings, I hope... ;-)

Good Morning

The sun rising to this beautiful day of June.

And this is how the sun came um yesterday. I whish I were the guy rowing in the sunshine.

I wonder how it will rise tomorrow...

Turbina winns

The team skippered by Torben Grael, Ericsson 4, has won the Volvo Ocean Race. Congratulations to Torben and all his team mates! Torben is also known as "Turbina" here in his home waters.

Slow moving

I've not been productive, the last few days. Progress is scant, and I can feel tyires burning. My impatience has gotten the best of me, and my work has been huddling. I feel like I must

come back to adding value and quality time in the boatshed.

Maybe it this rainy and damp weather. Allthough we had some sun today, back in Ramos Yach Club. But it was to feeble to heat up the shed.

The less than satisfactory result of the first coat of epoxi has gotten me into irons, somehow. I need to figure out how to get over this bump. Probabely I need to apply a new coat of resin, then do some sanding. ... I need to buy a vacuum cleaner to get rid of the dust.

Today I've sanded the bow sections, and I've also cut a pice of nice, new piece of cedar plywood (NC - Cedro Naval ). It is really a nice quaility wood, bare of voids. It also costs R$ 160/ a sheet, which is USD 80. Not something I easily buy by the dozen.

I've cut the first piece for the floorboards. It is more difficult than antecipated to cut the floorboards to a tight fit. It is a format difficult to measure and plot correctly. But it felt nice to get a different room-feeling ot the cabin space. The installation of the floorboard creates a good impression of the inner space of the cabin.

Lucas came for a welcome visit, later in the afternoon. It was good, to sit down and chat a while. Getting a view from a different angle, with another experience and backround is a valuable input. Lucas has acquired a sound experience building boats with his father. A Wharram Tiki was among them. Lucas himself is now working on a PD-Racer, and a multihull . It is allways a good conversation. Today was the first socializing inside the boat.

Dia dos Namorados

Today is the Brazilian Valentine's Day - Dia dos Namorados!

Not a day to go boatbuilding. Thankfully it is raining, and I can confort myself thinking that no epoxi work is recommended. Tomorrow is another day.

Arara sailing

Remembering the good times on my canoe Arara... It was good a fun sailing. And it cost me much less effort to build it. But, well, it was too small for two, to sail on. Good reason to skale up ... from 14 to 30 feet!

My brother Andreas took these pictures with his cellphone. It was a windy day, and I had a good sail.

I also lost the hatch cover on the ama. Due to that mishap, the ama flooded. But as you see above, I could still sail safely home. Some 5 liters reserve buoyancy made of PET bottles made the trick.

Working ... slowly

In the end I did go to the boatshed. It was hard to find motivation, but I did it. I played around a little with a hair-drier to heat some spots. It worked somehow. And I put on another coat of epoxi on a few patches to see what happens.

Luckily only about 25% of the applied resin was still sticky. The rest is ok. Maybe tomorrow I'll go and see what happened with the new coat of epoxi.

Proa sailing

Here is a nice video of a proa sailing, and executing a couple of shunts. Proadude sails his proa in New Zealand.

Rio de Janeiro mornings

I never really get tired of those early morning pictures, do I? The view over the Enseada de Botafogo towards the Sugar Loaf and the rising sun, is the view I get every morning when I drive out to work.

Almost every morning I take out the camera and snap a shot. This one was taken yesterday.

Today is a holiday and I should be getting ready to work on Arpex. Unfortunately the wheather didn't hold. The clouds yesterday morning were anouncing it. We're having a overcast day, with a light rain... It is taking out every bit of energy from me. I should drive out and fix the mess with the sticky resin. But... well, it will do no good working with resin today, will it?

Toroa flies again

The beautiful Toroa flies again. Harmen has set up the rig and has done his first sea trials.

The image has been taken from Harmen's blog: Canoes of Oceania

Wooden Boats by Bruce Little

Somehow I stumbled over the site of Bruce Little. Bruce offers prints of beautifull images of wooden boats for sale. In his portfolio you can find photographs as well as paintings. Sometimes it is hard to just figure out which is which...

As I said before; there is just something about wooden boats... no matter how much hassle they give you, there is a reward.

Gaias Dream

Gaias Dream, the 70ft. pacific proa by Inigo Wijnen, is floating. The bright red boat, launched in Australia, looks good on the water. It still has to receive its wingmast and sails. But with the energy Inigo is putting into this project, I guess it won't take long for the boat to be sailing. And, I have to admit, I am curious to see just how it will sail.

Sticky resin

A couple of things can go wrong when working with resins. In order to avoid repetition of the mistake and to try to figure out how to fix things, we all pondered what might have happend last Saturday, which made the resin still be sticky after a week.

I will list the possible factors, in what I presume is an ascending probability:

White pigment: I have added white pigment into the resin, in order to save the time and effort for painting the interior white. I used titanium dioxide, like I have before. I never had negative results before. It looks awfull on the wood. But that is another story. A second coat should help fix that.

Mixture: I used a scale for the mixture, and I'm pretty sure I have the proportions right. I have also stirred it all extensively to make sure the catalysator got well into the resin.

Alcohol: I've added alcohol the the epoxi mixture to make the mix more fluid, so it could penetrate better into the wood. I did so after a recommendation of an experienced boatbuilder. The proportion was around 7-8%, like recommended.

Plastic cover: Jonas and I left the boatshed right after applying the epoxi. As I allways do, I've covered the boat under a plastic cover. It is basically to keep cats and dust out of the boat. Valmir, my neighbout boatbuilder, says that lack of ventilation might retard the curing process. He claims that leaving it ventilating will fix the problem. I'm not sure the lack of ventilation is a cause nor whether ventilating now will help. But I did leave the boat uncovered.

Shelf life: The batch of epoxi used was a different batch than the one I've been using before. This batch must be reaching the limits of its shelf life. I was aware that epoxi catalists might go bad when it gets old... Therefore, I've tested the resin on samples before use. They cured nicely. And I did use it on the hull the weekend before, without problems.

Temperature: Not all the applied resin was sticky. Some, maybe most places were cured and dry, allright. To me it seems that the places we applied last were stick, while others not. We worked until fairly late into the day, around 17:3ohs. It was dark when we left. These days it does get fresh and humid at dusk... Epoxi doesn't like that. It wasn't raining though, and temperature was still around 22Deg. C., I guess. But this together with a not so strong catalysator, might be enough to account for the mess.

So, what do I do now? After a week, I'm not sure much can be done to fix the issue. I had a feeling that the heat from the sun helped. I will therefore try to use more of this medicine - heat. I'll buy a heat gun and use that also. I'm aware that time is of the essence. I'll see if I can take one day off, in order not to wait one more week...

A bad day taken lightly...

Some days are better than others. Yesterday was one of the others. Luckily I was in good company, and therefore managed to get over my disapointment somewhat lightly.

What happened, is that the resin we applied to the inside of the hull on the last weekend, did not cure properly on some spots... Yes,... a major bummer. The resin was still sticky. What now??? First of all I had to resist the temptation to throw myself into the bay, with my toolbox tied to my neck! ... But, a quick glance into the absolutely putrefied water evidenced this to be a bad idea. So, for the while, I tried to just maintain composture in front of my friends, the best way I could, and try to develop a plan to get over this mess.

The plan for the day had been to sand the inside, and apply a second coat of epoxi. It would have been a quick job with so many helping hands. But that was out of question now. After a while of consultation to try to find the reasons for this minor calamity, we decided to try the "heat gun", to see if the resin would harden. Which means that we rolled the boat out into the sun for some sunbathing.

Rolling the boat out was a tricky thing to do. The cradles are not the sturdyest, and the ground has bumps and holes. Therefore we strengthened the support cradles first. At least this was a job I wanted to do anyway, so this was not lost time. Once this was done, it was a light job to roll out the boat.

As a matter of fact, the boat is surprisingly light. I can lift the bow right clear off the cradle all by myself, without much effort!

All there was left for us to do was chat the day away while we had a couple of beers. That helped me to get over this bad day. I was happy-lucky the sun collaborated, against all odds and forecasts.

The "heat gunning" helped to improved the condition of the resin. So, I hope that the situation will be better next week. I will have to develop a plan B, just in case it doesn't.

Twelve Months After ...

This is how Arpex looked a year ago. Sheeting had just begun.

Much has changed sice then. The project has moved on: Structure, colour, location, mindset... It has all changed to the better.

Hazel in Pink

I follow mostly boatbuilding blogs. These days, my time is limited, so I need to focus. And I focus on my currently most demanding project - boatbuilding. One of the few outliers is Hazel Dooney's blog: Self vs. Self

Hazel is a gifted and unconventional artist. The heads up came from Creed, the author of the former blog "A Tiki in Thailand". Creed, at that time, noticed a common interest in African divinties, like Iemanja, and established the link.

Self vs. Self, Hazel's blog, is amazingly successful. Not only due to the display of her interesting art work. But, I guess, mostly due to the open and frank exposure of her creative process and private thoughts. That's what blogging is all about. To expose thoughts and feelings beyond the matter, which is the main object of the blog.

Hazel exploits her self confidence and inner development in her work - which is beyond the exposure of sexuality, which appears in most of her works. To celebrate her 500th post, Hazel offered a signed print of one of her works, to the 500 first readers - In the Pink. I applied for Hazel's offer. And, I'm happy to say, that Hazel kept her word. Since yesterday I am a proud owner of an original work signed by Hazel.

The print of number 343 makes this virtual connection interestingly real.

Portrait of Hazel Dooney

Hazel Dooney - Lolita at Sixteen

Sunrise

There are rewards to waking up early every day...

Wave

Brazil is shocked by the tragic accident with the Air France flight.

Such occasions remind us of our own short time on this globe. All of a sudden we can find ourselves in a closing barrel. A good time to remember to go out, create things, make friendships, give joy and love and enjoy life.

The stunning pictures of these post are by Hawaiian photographer Clark Little