BYYB Forums

Hey all,

I am once again attempting to finish my boat.  I lost about a year due to health issues but am better now so back to making sawdust and epoxy globs.  My little boat, the Triad, is about 90% done... heck maybe even 95%.  I only have a few pieces of trim and then painting that prevents launching.  I will try and update the website, www.gonzos.com, where I post info and pictures of the build for anyone interested.  I hope everyone has been well and is still building or sailing!

The only photo that displays on your website is of the keel.  What kind of boat have you built?  Can you post a picture?

Dave

I am sorry you are having trouble viewing my website.  Perhaps your browser settings prohibited it or something?

I am building a Stevenson's Triad.  Here are some links to pictures of the build so far.  I only have some trim and then paint to finish the boat so these pictures don't show the boats current state but they do give an idea of her look.  I am hoping for an August launch date.

http://www.gonzos.com/mediac/400_0/media/Img_0819.jpg

A topside view.  The paint shows where I will add nonskidd paint.

http://www.gonzos.com/mediac/400_0/media/Img_0844.jpg

A shot inside the nose of the boat before I attached the sides.  The boat will be yellow topside, seattle gray on the sides below the rubrails and bottom with lite pink trim and rubrails.

http://www.gonzos.com/mediac/400_0/media/Img_0851.jpg
http://www.gonzos.com/mediac/400_0/media/Img_0837b.jpg

The hull bottom before the last epoxy coat and after.  The hull bottom was given a coat of clear epoxy, then a layer of 6% fiberglass followed by 2 coats of clear epoxy.  The keel was left uncoated and will only be painted.

http://www.gonzos.com/mediac/400_0/media/Img_0836b.jpg

Another shot of the hull bottom with my daughter in the picture to give you and idea of the size of the boat.  My daughter was 8 at the time.

Very nice boat.  You'r going to leave the bulk of the deck bright?

Dave

If you look at the picture with the tape on it you can get an idea of how the top of the deck will look.  The tape will be the same yellow as the inside, cockpit floor and the sides above the lower rub rail.  The areas inside the tape will be a light grey nonskid paint.  I don't know that anyone will ever sit on the nose area of the deck but it looked good colored light grey, in a pencil drawing, and I think I definitely need nonskid areas on the deck on each side of the cockpit.  I will do a couple more pencil/color sketches before I actually paint just to try a few different looks but my current opinion is no bright work anywhere on the boat.  The dagger board, rudder and rudder assembly will be left natural wood looking but will be oiled annually.  The rudder assembly does have some small areas of epoxy that my suffer in sunlight so I may varnish that piece but I would use a satin looking varnish to get a closer match to the oiled look of the rudder board.

If I had used a better finish grade of marine ply I would have considered going bright but the hydrotech marine ply I got had far to many blemishes in the top layers.  They filled them with pink bondo.  I cleaned each of the bondo'd areas out and patched them but those patches would show with a bright finish.  I don't think the bondo would have shown up under paint on flat areas but when I bent the ply around the curve of the sides some of the bondo fills popped out.  If I had it to do over again I would have spent an extra $10 a sheet for a higher grade marine ply.  The hydrotech is a bit heavier then Okoume and has surface blemishes but is structurally very solid.  I found no voids in any of the cuts I made, the edges sand well without delaminating and I can stand in the center of a 4x4 sheet of 3/8 inch without it sagging like half in fir does.