Dorade Boxes | Eleventh Cock Up!

Encouraged by the success of the bow eye developments, I started to consider the deck layout for some fixtures and fittings.

The first thing I checked was the location of the various blocks and sheaves for sails and halyards on the cabin roof, and here I immediately discovered my eleventh and possibly most embarrassing cock up yet.

NB: for non-UK readers, a 'cock up' is a self-inflicted, major error that could and should have been foreseen and avoided. I haven't had one for quite a while - nearly two years, to be precise. So it was well overdue.

I first checked the location of the halyard sheaves and immediately saw that there was a nice round hole where they should be situated.

Like this.

The hole is where I thought the ventilator cowl should be located, in the top of the Dorade box. I remember spending ages deciding where to cut the holes, from an aesthetic point of view. I should have looked at the deck layout illustration instead.

What a bummer.

I didn't need to spend much time figuring out what to do. There was only one option - fill the holes, refinish the cabin top, and cut new holes in the correct place.

So a support plate was fastened under each hole, as here.

Tape and plastic film will stop any resin from sticking to the plate.

Then I marked out filler pieces on scrap ply, like this.

A test fit followed.

It seemed to work so I coated each piece with two coats of clear resin, as here.

Then I sanded them smooth and glued them in place with thickened epoxy. This is the starboard filler piece, held in place with a lump of lead.

When cured I applied some Hempel fairing compound to both pieces and when that was fully cured, I scraped and sanded them to a smooth surface. This is the port filler piece being dressed by the very effective Bahco scraper.

Here is the port filler, sanded flat and smooth.

Lastly, I made a fibreglass cloth patch for each side, like this.

And I then wetted them out, as here. A second coat filled the weave.

That will ensure that the cabin roof remains strong and secure.

When fully cured I will feather the patches flush with the roof and figure out how to refinish the surface, making the rework as invisible as possible.

Onwards and upwards ...