At 10 am yesterday (Sat) around 20 people turned up to help us turn the hulls & bridge deck over. We were grateful that so many turned out to help us.  A mixture of interested locals, acquaintances, friends and relatives.

It was a three stage process. Firstly the bridgedeck, which was built upside down, was carried out and flipped over. Then the formwork that supported the bridge deck was lifted out to make space. We then had room to roll the hulls and manoeuvred them into position onto the concrete pads we had prepared a year ago. These pads are 2.4m x 300mm wide and were poured as accurately as possible to ensure the hulls were level with each other. They were incorporated into the strongback that supported the hulls during construction. This was necessary, in our instance, as we are building in an outdoor site on uneven ground. When building in a shed the keels can sit straight onto the concrete floor with packers to account for any unevenness of the floor.

Some have asked us about our decision to build outdoors. In an ideal world, we would have loved to be in a warm shed, but in the end, one has to grasp the opportunities that present themselves and just go for it. We have been very blessed to have the space that has been made available to us, with the kind generosity of Deb’s brother and sister-in-law for the building space, and Deb’s parents for somewhere to live. In many respects this is a family project for without the support of our family, we would not have been able to make it happen.

We braced the hulls with temporary supports, and then moved the formwork and bridgedeck back into position. This will then enable the two of us to jack the bridge deck up the remaining 300mm to secure to the cross beams.

The whole operation took a bit over an hour, slightly longer than we expected, but quite acceptable given the scale of things.

Refreshments were prepared and quite a number stayed around, enjoying the sunny day and company.

Pete and Deb spent the remainder of the afternoon, tidying up the site, weather proofing with tarps and generally acquainting ourselves to our new reality. It was a somewhat surreal experience for us as we considered our new surroundings. This is the wonder of boat building as once again we switch gears. More woodworking, and detailed carpentry. Less fiberglass, Qcell, sanding and painting …at least for now.