Laminating the blues away...

Tomorrow's back to work after a three weeks break mostly spent holidaying and sailing with the family... In order to kick the blues away I focused on a fun little project, laminating the stem for our future pathfinder.

The 4mm thick sipo mahogany strips were dry fitted and left there for a while (actually few weeks due to other commitments)  to take the shape ...

The glueing involved priming each surface with unthickened epoxy first and then applying a little quantity of slightly thickened epoxy for proper bonding.

I will leave the lamination to cure a few days for the epoxy to harden properly given the elastic load the strips are subject to.

A fun little project to end the holidays.

Holidays!

Building of Pathfiner Astrid has been put on hold during our annual summer holiday to Sardinia. Three weeks before leaving our Stornoway 12 Janas has had a varnish stripdown and recoating to allow her to look her best in the emerald blue sardinian waters.
I applied 5 or 6 coats of International Schooner traditional varnish that provided pleasure applying and a gleaming finish.

Holidays were packed with fun: sailing, beaching, picninc-ing and in general being out as much on the boat as possible given the young age of our crew...

Sailing encounteres: Almagores II a majestic Southern Wind 102' superyacht sails past giving thumbs up to Janas:

Sailing to the island of Tavolara:

Sailing home with wind and waves:

Having fun with the underwater camera:

Great 2014 summer! We look forward to the next trip down there in 2015.... perhaps onboard our Pathfinder? .... mmmh more likely to happen in 2016...!