Howdy, fellas!Back from another hiatus, since I hadn't been doing much on the boat, there hasn't been much to post, but now with warmer weather that's a changing.
Here's some Ariel bits you probably haven't seen like this before.It's the first part of the process of expanding the cabin back a bit under the bridgedeck, about 14", for the big berth. I've some other pics of the process, but not handy right now, so these will have to do. Last week I pulled the cockpit drain tubes from their thru-hulls and stoppered them up. Figured out the best way to do this while in the water was to cut white EPS (styrofoam) into plugs about 1/4" larger diameter than the thru-hull holes, mist them with water then smear Gorilla Glue on them, wait about 2-3 minutes then pull the tubes and shove the plugs down in. I knew from experiements a few years ago that the GG would foam up when treated like this, and it worked a charm. I shoved the plugs down far enough that there was an inch or so of space on top, and into that area I stuffed some epoxy putty, the 2-part 'stick' kind, keeping an eye on it while it kicked so that I could cover any leaky bits. Once I had all three holes done (drains + sink drain hole), I gave them a good covering of Great Stuff expanding foam, just as a little extra protection. Not a bit of leakage since.
So today I cut out the front end of the cockpit, a bit more of the ex-aft bulkhead, and the pegboard in the area where the footwell no longer exists. This week I'll be re-glassing over the hole, creating the new bulkhead there at the forward locker drains, and starting in on the berth base.
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