Hey all,

I don't know if I've ever posted the boatbuilding blog site to
rec.boats.building. But here it is for those interested:

www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com (Maia is our daughter).

more photos at:
http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/ceilydh/

It's the ongoing tale of a 40' Woods catamaran that we bought a few
years ago. Sailed it for 1-1/2 summers. Last July we hauled her out
for ONE month and:


- lowered the mast
- removed the mast support beam and stainlee steel brackets for it
- removed the cockpit with a chainsaw
- removed most of the inboard bunk "wings" with a chainsaw...
- removed the steering doghouse with a chainsaw
- installed a new carbon fiber / foam / glass mast beam
- installed a new cockpit and bridgedeck sole
- installed a new propeller, shaft, diesel, tank, all aux services
- put together the new fiberglass foam sandwich big brigedeck cabin
(mostly with 2x4 temporary cleats until it was all glassed togther)
- re-stepped the mast on a post about 3' higher so the boom would
clear the new cabin

Statistics for that one month from the blog:

Evan has been off work for 32 days to work on the boat. Before that he
worked 10-30+ hrs a week in the three months leading up to our haul
out. I decided to compile a list of random stats so you can see how
our month looked.

* Evan took 3 of the 32 days off.
* We averaged 3.5 people at the boat each day
* The largest one day work party was 6 people
* Except for the day we hauled, Evan never worked alone
* 12 different people came to the boat to help us out - most
worked more than 4 days
* Leighton was at the work site the most frequently, working
around 20 days
* We removed approximately 500 lbs when we took off the old structure
* We added back about 1200 lbs including the diesel
* We went through a 55 gallon drum of epoxy
* We used up 250 yards of fibreglass and 16 sheets of 4X8" foam core
* It rained on 5 days out of the 32
* Evan bought 30 icecream bars for our helpers
* We drank 14 cases of beer and cider and 3 bottles of tequila
* I made meals for 6 or more 14 times
* I made meals for 10 or more 4 times
* Dousing your body liberally with baby powder before grinding
fibreglass, then showering with cold water is the best way to combat
the itch
* Three other methods were tried first
* I did 10 loads of fibreglass dust covered laundry
* Washing each load twice is the trick
* We put 20x our normal monthly mileage on the car
* We used 2 grinders, 3 sanders, 2 drills, 1 jigsaw, 2 skillsaws,
1 reciprocating saw and 1 chainsaw
* We went through 4 chainsaw blades, dozens of jigsaw blades, 8
grinding discs and 50 sanding discs
* The only paid professional help we had was the crane operator
for lowering and lifting the mast and a machinist who machined our
prop coupling
* Many of our helpers are computer geeks, who needed the business
end of a power tool pointed out
* We have taken 4 rolls of slide film and a few hundred digital
pictures
* Evan had 3-4 demoralizing days and only 2-3 minor setbacks
* Between us we averaged 8 hours less sleep a night than normal
* Maia gave up her bed to guests for 10 nights
* Evan and I are still talking



Since then, I (mostly alone) have glassed the inside and outside seams
of the cabin to make it 99% watertight (still have one little tiny
leak), built some very nice carbon/nomex core sandwich interior
setteees and lockers, put in windows, hatches. This summer the effort
has been fairing the seams of the cabin panels and also the stupid
2%#^@%##$ recessed windows (never again). In another month I'll be
ready to paint the cabin.

Comments gratefully recieved, either on the blog or here.

Cheers,

Evan Gatehouse

(whose boat interior will never put Rutu to shame but I might just
beat him to go cruising in 2008)...