DE25 Part 4

I really didn't take so many pictures of the sanding, the longboarding, the fairing. If you've ever done it yourself, then you don't need to be reminded of the wretched misery and woe. And if you haven't done it, then far better that you should walk the green fields of Earth, untroubled in your innocence.

Here we are, flipping the hull right side up so that we can commence work on the interior.





Right-side-up and empty, she looks really big. We next will repeat the process by filleting, taping and sheathing the entire inside of the hull with layers of biaxial fiberglass cloth and epoxy.



Now the stringers and the bulkheads go back in, trimming them to fit where needed to work with the newly added fillets and layers of glass and tapes.



The taller bulkheads that weren't used in the building jig are also ready to be fitted. This one will make up the back of the cabin.

DE25 Part 3

As long as you catch the epoxy while it is cured to the "green" stage, you can trim the excess cloth pretty cleanly with a sharp blade. I found my slick, a traditional shipwright's tool that looks like a giant chisel, to be useful here even on this very much non-traditional boat.



Speak softly and carry a big chisel! :-)



I added an outer stem to the design at the owner's request to jazz up the profile a bit. The purple color you see here is from a first skim of microballoon fairing compound as we get ready to longboard her fair.



While waiting for epoxy and fairing to set up hard enough to sand cleanly, I built a jig to lay up the cambered foam-core roof panel.

DE25 part 2

The panels were draped over the building jig and wired together to hold them in alignment.



Layers of 12 oz biaxial FG tape and epoxy are used to fasten the panel edges together at the bow. . .



Along the keel. . .



And at the transom. . .



The entire boat was then sheathed in fiberglass cloth and extra fiberglass tapes to reinforce and protect the joints at the chines.

The DE25

This is a Jacques Mertens design called the DownEast 25 that is being built on commission. We obtained a CNC package of cut parts to facilitate our construction.

We start by gluing up the full-length panels that will form the hull. The specified butt joints were made using two layer biaxial tape on either side of the seam.


Next, laying out the station molds along the leveled strongback frame. Some of these are temporary molds, and some are actual bulkheads that will eventually be incorporated into the boat.



And then they are erected and slotted into alignment in egg-crate fashion using the same stringers that will later be incorporated.