The aft cabin is now lined and insulated and the half bulkheads fitted. If I did it again I could improve the way the lining was put in, but overall its not to bad.
I’ve stopped working here now so that I can bring the rest of the boat up to the stage it has reached.
Half bulkheads and lining installed in the aft cabin
Looking towards the aft cabin
We are using a closed cell foam insulation lined on each side with reflective foil. It is being fitted against the stringers with 3mm ply fixed over the top of that. This gives a 30mm air gap between the foil side of the insulation and the inside of the hull. This should make the insulation work correctly.
The insulation - 10mm closed cell foam foil on both sides
Work is also ongoing on fitting the engine back in. The original design has the propellor shaft running though a hole bored through the keel and supported by a bearing pressed into the aft end of the hole.
It also had been set up so that the propellor shaft could only be removed from the boat by sliding it forward. It could not be taken out backwards because the rudder skeg was in the way. This in turn meant that the motor would have to be removed to get the prop shaft out. NOT GOOD.
To get around this problem we have decided to make the prop skeg detachable. We have also decided to use a stern tube with a bearing at each end and a mechanical seal at the inboard end. This makes getting the shaft alignment easier, and makes the engineering of the shaft much more robust.
Stern tube fitted into the hull
Stern tube and the cut off propellor skeg
The detachable propellor shaft bearing ready to weld back to the skeg
Work in the very forward section has now started. Cleaning, painting and setting up the floor.
Painting and setting up for the floor