Finally, the beam work arrived at the satisfying step of laying down large tracks of carbon fiber! Listened to the 49er’s game on the radio while rolling out an entire football field’s worth of laminates this afternoon. After a busy weekend, all beams now have six layers of carbon on both their top and bottom sides. That’s it for the bottoms. Next weekend it’s 14 more layers for each of the forward beams, and a lesser amount for the aft beams. Watching the $500 rolls of carbon whirl away is a bit like the depressing feeling at the gas pump when fueling up a Suburban. Gulp. The beams are getting quite heavy, but still possible, for single handing. The fitting into the floats will certainly take two people and some jacks. But that’s still a ways off.

Trying to decide the sizing of the aft cabin – to – cockpit hatch. 24″ square is too big. A 20″ unit seems just big enough for shoulders access, but will mean cutting away more cabin roof than already done. Glad I experimented with various sizes in cardboard this weekend. Now it’s keeping an eye on the clearance page at Defender – seems to be the best place for good deals.