First Australian Swift Solo

Finally I lifted the deck off the jig today and put it on top off the hull. This is only a temporary measure as I have to turn it over to apply the carbon/kevlar to the bottom of the deck.

It was pretty exiting to finally see what the finished product will look like and it actually feels like this whole project is getting closer to completion. I’m looking forward to getting this thing out of the garage and out onto the water….

In between doing some sailing instruction and household chores I’m hoping to get the deck off the frames at the weekend. This means that the frame will be packed away to allow room for me to work on the underneath of the deck. If there is anyone in SE QLD that reads this blog (apart from me) that wishes to construct a Swift Solo let me know if you want to use the jig before it is taken down.

You will be saving yourself many hours of work. You would need to cough up the licence fee to the designer Bram Dally as well.

I’m back in Brisbane after a great holiday. I’m ready to get going on the project again and push through to completion. I’ll get back to it and post pictures and details as it occurs.

While I’ve been away the website for the Swift Solo class association has been published. You can find it on www.swiftsolo.com  The site is brand new so a fair bit of content needs to be added but keep looking as the site grows. I’ve also added this link on the sidebar of this blog.

As Arnie said “I’ll be back………………” 

The posts on this site will be stopping for a couple of weeks as our family is taking a break at Lindeman Island - Club Med. It is hard to believe this paradise is only just over an hour away by plane.

I know it is a tough thing to do but someone has to keep them going!! I’ve finished fibreglassing the deck and will start attaching bits of the boat when I return.

Here are some pictures of the deck with fibreglass applied. The rest of the boat is dusty as I’ve been sanding (again) the dribbles of resin that ran down there while I was doing the wings.

This shows the finish after removal of the peel ply. As you can see it is fairly flat and will require little sanding.

And another……………………… 

On this wing you can see how I didn’t get the peel ply flat across the whole area of the wing. The result is a some areas of resin that are a little higher than the surrounding area. Nothing a little light sanding won’t fix.  

The following is a little more technical than the rest of the information I’ve put out on this project before but if anyone is building or considering building a cedar boat it may be useful.

I’ve been applying the S - Glass to the wings of the boat this weekend. I varied the wet out procedure a little with great results. Some of this was due to some suggestions from Jordan Spencer the other Aussie builder. This is how I did it. 

• Wet out half the inside of the wing steps with a brush.
• Pre apply the mixed 207 resin to half the wood of the wing and gunwale with a roller.
• Lay the S-glass on top of the wet out cedar and the apply another layer of resin on top with the roller. This process gets rid of most large bubbles of air. Quickly squeegee the lay up to press glass tight against the wood and get rid of most bubbles.
• Repeat process for second half. Speed rolling out resin is required as the dry glass is sitting on the wetout layup of the other half at this stage.
• At this stage go over whole job with squeegee removing bubbles from layup.
• Wait for tack free drying of resin and reapply another layer of resin with roller. There will still be some glass weave visible after this application.
• Repeat above but this time apply a layer of peel ply after application of this layer of resin. When applying the peel ply work from the middle of the wing out removing air bubbles as you let it sink down onto your layup. This can mainly be achieved by pulling the material at the edges to pull out the bubbles.
• Once this has been achieved use a squeegee to remove the other small bubbles.
• At this point it becomes obvious which part of your layup still needs a touch more resin as the weave on the fibreglass can be seen through the peel ply. Simply add a little resin at these points with the squeegee and the weave is replaced with a smooth surface. This was mainly at the gunwales on my boat.

Advantages

Faster.

Less trouble with bubbles - but not perfect.

Uses less resin.

Finished surface is really flat and will require very little sanding.

Finished product will be lighter.

Disadvantages

You need to work at speed for some of the process.

Increased use of rollers - more cost

Make sure you are careful to apply the peel ply to the middle of your work and pull out creases and bubbles as you roll it out. I neglected to do this on the first wing and was left with a couple of areas where the peel ply wasn’t flush with the resin. After peeling it off these areas have ended up very slightly higher than the rest of the job - nothing a small amount of sanding won’t fix.

These are more thoughts on the process and I will be using it for the balance of my glassing work on the project. I think it is a significant amount better than simply squeegeeing but I do not profess to be really good at this boat building lark and am simply sharing this as an alternative for others to consider.

nb I’ll get some photos up with how it looks in the next couple of days.

I spent the weekend fiddling with the deck in the bow area. The Swift I’m building is going to use a receiving pole for the spinnaker pole to retract into so I need to do things slightly differently from the US boats in this area. I have the spin pole and receiving tube from CST Composites so I have been using them to get the sizing correct.

All I have to do to the deck now is to fill some of the holes near the front with epoxy and do a final sand. It will then be time to apply the S-glass to the top of the deck. I’m hoping to do that next weekend.

The deck with the receiving pole and forestay fitting roughly fitted in.

This is what the deck looks like with the bow done. Very dusty at the moment but it will look good when it is all cleaned up.

The other day I posted some extra photos of Swift Solos in action. Look down the side of this page to check them out.

I’ll take some more photos and do another post about my progress in the next few days. 

This weekend I finished sanding the wings of the deck. It is really starting to look good. I just need to finish the bow where the spinnaker pole will launch from and then it will be time to apply fibreglass again.

I colour matched the strips on each side of the wings.

I’ve done it!! Last night I fitted the last three gunwale strips to the deck. This concludes the large scale woodworking that I have to do on this project.

My next job is to trim the bow area up so the spinnaker pole can fit correctly. I will then get the sander out - again, to finish sanding the deck prior to application of epoxy and fibreglass.    

Here are some pictures as it looks today. This really shows the shape of the deck for the first time. I’ll post some more when it is looking pretty again.

This shows the final three gunwale strips still secured with clamps. They are also secured with staples and screws until the glue dries.

This shows what the final product will look like.

The middle section is sanded and ready for fibreglass - I just have to tidy up the wings.