The Deck Mould is Ready!

Anders Kurten
CEO
As the Helsinki International Boat Show drew to a close on Sunday, I received images that once again made me excited. For those of you who follow this blog regularly, you realize that I get excited over boat related stuff quite easily, but as project milestones go this is really one of the major ones. The images depicted the deck form detached from the deck plug. Everything had gone very smoothly, and detaching the form (which can be quite dramatic) was successful. By the end of this week, we have also conducted test laminates on a 1 metre long portion of the deck (the hardest part to infuse; a 1 metre long cross section of the deck by the companionway entrance) to determine flow speed and to get a bearing on the optimal placing of vacuum ports and resin entry ports. Concurrently, we have run laboratory tests (adhesion, mechanical stress, aging) related to gelcoat adhesion to epoxy laminate, and have found both a suitable gelcoat as well as a methodology that ensures a perfect surface finish. This is good news for owners in terms of maintaining the yacht, as standard white gelcoat repairs are fairly straightforward jobs that can be done by yards as well as semi-competent DIY types even in less then perfect conditions. And the occasional nick and dent on the deck is inevitable, especially during races. It now feels like one of the last BIG obstacles has been successfully completed and eliminated from the critical path of our project. Now only a million details and lots of qualified boatbuilding remain prior to launch. For ever the optimist, Anders Kurtén