There are two more significant activities to carry out on the boat before we flip it over to finish the bottom hull - clear coating the upper hull with epoxy resin, and painting the interior of the cabin.
There are a few minor activities to finish also, such as drilling the footwell drain holes. But they can be done at any stage.
I decided to do the clear coating first.
The entire upper hull was covered with fibreglass cloth in November last year, with the exception of the forward deck and inside topsides which were already finished.
The upper hull had been sanded to a P80 finish and was ready for resin, so thankfully no big sanding job was required.
In a previous post I said that I had problems gluing the mast because the resin had crystallised without me noticing until it became too 'gloopy' to pump and failed to cure properly.
The cure for this is to put the resin container in boiling water and warm it until the resin flows freely again. I did this for all three resin containers which I currently posses and it was completely effective, although it does take 20 to 30 minutes and a lot of hot water to restore a 4 or 5kg container.
But now I was ready for clear coating and had no problems rolling out a thin coat over the exterior of the upper hull. It took several hours, reminding me yet again that this is a big small boat!
Here we see the port forward topsides and roof.
And here we see the cockpit viewed from starboard.
Lastly, here is a view from starboard of the forward topsides and cabin roof.
Clear coating is always fun because it covers large areas really quickly!
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