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2004 - building Pjoa

Page history last edited by Janusz Ostrowski 14 years, 9 months ago

When first model proved it’s value, then building 7 times bigger one, looked not so much a challange.

Well, it took :

- 7 working days before infrastructure could house first pieces of plywood,

- vaka was ready after 34 working days spread around 2 seasons

- ama took 12,5 working days,

- sail and rigg needed another 12 days to accomplish basic building phase.

 

 

The "shipyard" was a piece of polyethylene, spreaded among trees, with old garage as one side.

Squirrels were invited to inspect quality of my work if actually cats were not on duty  :).

 

I've started as soon as vaka sections where defined - in August 2003.

Stringers establishing basic structure defined the shape. They are fixed in cutoffs of temporary sections,

On top of sections, keel was glued from 2 layers of pine, integral with bows, then cut and glassed to a sharp V.

 

Ply sheets where scarfed and glued together to form wide ply belt.

The belt was carefully hold at the side to choose best way of persuading plywood towards compound curve defined by stringers.

 

In cold night hours, when temperature was well below 18 Celsius , stringers  where covered on one side with resin mixed with tixotropic silicagel.

Without any hurry, ply belt could be carefully located and fixed with wood-screws to stringers (screws with hemispheric heads, removed later).

When day came, resin cured in higher temperatures.

There were hours of just watching with a beer in one hand and thinking what to do next and how to proceed.

Don't laugh from these lazy hours, when I pleased eyes;).

They have saved me, more disappointments, like the one below.

As an example of how NOT to do, I present result of cutting ply too early -before glue has cured completely:

 

Normally things were going much more smoothly. 

Both sides sanded, where soon ready for covering with epoxy and 2 putting layers of glass clothes.

 

Plywood glued to stringers and covered with epoxy-glass laminate formed a shell stable enough to remove heavy sections to be replaced with lighter structure.

Open shell is very flexi for twist so attention must be paid to keep geometry as planned, and keel straight :)

 

 

Days where shorter and shorter, temperatures too low for work with epoxy and so, after adding floor,

which closed security displacement space and made vaka stiff , we fell to winter sleep:

 

 

Spring 2004 brings fresh spirit to vaka with "matured" curves:-D and asymmetry...

 

 

Foredeck structure, to support 4 mm ply:

 

Ama's structure grows at vaka side:

 

Ama structure covers with bottom and receives sticks:

...    

 

ama freshly decked and glossed:

  

 

 Curved boom and yard does not  make a big problem and their square sections are not an issue from aerodynamics point of view either :):

 

 

Crablclaws sail was cut and sewn just  before launch in 10 hours:

  

 

........

I've spent huge amount of time on travels to the shipyard and backwards, often just to spend two or three (after)hours.

It makes sense only when most of time you wait for resin to cure or sense the shape in front of you :).

Two seasons of working in spare time worth every minute.

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