… Mostly because I got Mom pretty worried about the vacuum pump! The guys at Fiberglass Supply in WA diagnosed over the phone, and it sounds like it’s all about not drawing the full vacuum, so the pump was overworked and passed oil as vapor. Lesson is to stop the pump rather than limp along with a partial bagging, and we’re pretty sure the pump is fine. We’ll use it hopefully tomorrow eve to affix the handles to the hatch sliders; an easy job that’ll test the system.

Chris Harvey’s going to do a shop day soon so we can build the chainplates – he’s curious about that for his F25Carbon project. In trade, I get a ride on that hot rod – way better than a day in the epoxy barn!

Work plotting out the windshield led to an old floor lamp standing in for the fancy mast, and some cardboard for the boom. Oops, the gooseneck on our beautiful Canadian mast is WAY too high! Spoke with Cole at U-spar who will now lower it to get the boom top 32″ above the deck. This means a whole new Tides Marine track because they are single-piece extrusions. Ouch. But ours will get sold to another U-Spar mast, so it’s not too bad. I took our cues from Yellowfish and the F39 plans. 8 batten pockets and 10 slides. And after hearing the price of battens, Holy Crap we need to try and make those. Let’s see how much carbon is left after the rudder and dagger.

Christmas came again today, as the foam core and bi-directional carbon showed up on a semi truck. Very excited to get the rudder started. Because it’s so tall and skinny, I needed the full 4×8′ sheets of foam core (about $400 for 1″ and 1.25″ to make the 2.25″ base). There’s room for two rudders on there, so I bought most of the extra carbon fiber needed to make a second one. This is one ‘spare’ that makes a LOT of sense at sea. Dad, we should pick a day very soon when you can come up and start tracing out the rudder from those big plan sheets (I know you like the old carbon paper!)

Lots of good comments are coming in re: windshield and dodger. While we sort thru all that, i simply turned around and went back to work on the aft cabin sliding hatch; could have installed a $500 glass deck hatch, but the simplicity of a slider and hatch boards system will also give much easier access based on our cockpit shape. So I’m being careful to match the style between the aft and main hatch areas. More photos will come once it’s not all full of boring looking clamps.

Photo of the day is the award for the Summer Splash “dinghy race”. Kind of an inside joke, but we touch the mug each day as a talisman for getting the boat launched this summer and making it to Catalina by September. Keep working, Carter!