I have to go back school

We have come to my last post.  Winter work was over in a blink of eye.  We made a lot of progress on the boat in the last two months, but there still is a long way to go to get her ready for the spring season.  Leo and Vlad (and maybe me on occasion)  have a hard two months of work ahead to finish the boat.

New Bulkheads

The big project this week was the fabrication and installation of two new bulkheads.  The new bulkhead will make the boat much stronger.  It was really interesting to see the process of creating a composite part from start to finish.

First we fabricated a MDF base and a quarter inch foam blank of the bulkhead

 

Holes were drilled in the foam to allow the resin to be properly draw out by the vacuum

One layer of Biax is laid up onto the MDF base

A strip of Biax is laid up to form the base of the flange

The foam core is then laid on top of the MDF base

Six layers of unis are added to the inside round and then covered in another layer of biax

Mid set break

The foam core is then covered by a final layer of Biax

Vacuum bag it

Bake it

Finished part

As Vlad would say, Smuck it in

Ready to be tabbed

I got to do my first vacuum bagging all by myself.  I installed a small patch of Biax to reinforce a filled in hole.

It was a simple job

 

All done

We removed all the stickers from the stern of the boat to prepare the stern for sanding.

Before

After

We also have been preparing the front longitudinal for repair.

I spent this weekend up in Newport, Rhode Island.  There were a total of nine webbies in Newport this weekend with me.

We had a fun Superbowl party

Spackle on, Spackle off

The sanding of Peacemaker continues.  We have one side done and ready for primer and have started on the other side.  We are spackling the low spots and then long board sanding again.  This process is then repeated until the boat is perfectly fair.

The areas circled in marker are low spots

The low spots filled in

Spackle Paste

A really deep low spot

It was really cool to watch the puzzle piece disappear as we sand.

We have finally got the first keel fin back from the machine shop.  It will be installed on the leading edge of the blade of the keel.  The original material was removed to save weight.

On Monday I traveled to North Shore Composites in Bristol, Rhode Island.  North Shore Composites is building the new rudder for Desperado.  I dropped off the bearing sleeves, picked up some pre-preg carbon, and checked out the molds for the new rudder (sorry, no pictures).  North Shore Composites has a lot of cool equipment that we do not have access to.  They have a 5 axis CNC machine and mostly importantly, an autoclave big enough to fit our new rudder.  Desperado is the last boat Leo and Vlad modified and Webb's current offshore sailing boat.  Unfortunately, Desperado's rudder broke off this fall, so a new rudder is needed.  I want to thanks my fellow Webbies living in Newport for putting me up for night.

North Shore Composites

Desperado, rudder still attached

Who let six college rent their house?

Finally, we finished laminating the rear stanchion.

Leo is very excited to be done climbing around of Peacemaker

On the weekend, I traveled to Philadelphia to visit another Webbie, Muriel Weathers '19, who is working at Philly Shipyard.  We went to the Philadelphia car show and visited to the Liberty Bell.

Star Wars Car