Hey All,

I'm working hard at it to get the deck ready for reattachment. I decided to reuse the old pieces and patch the rest. I might as well be consistent with the rest of the rebuild. In the pictures you will see that I've installed the kevlar lining in the cockpit. I used profuse amounts of epoxy to ensure a good layup, it went well. I had only one air bubble of no consequesce so I'm pretty happy with the final results. While doing the kevlar I also taped the bulkhead seams.

Currently I am sanding the old varnish and any rough epoxy off both sides of the recovered deck pieces. Once done, hopefully later this week I'll tie them back on and glue them in place. I'll use stencils of the original panels to create tight fitting patches for any deck sections missing (lots). Since the shear joint along the starboard shear joint was badly degraded (effectively rasped off) from hitting the rocks last year I'll have to either fill it in with epoxy or pieces of wood and sand to the desired shape. This is the exciting part of my long labours. I am putting the final pieces back into the puzzle. At least with this puzzle if I am missing any pieces I can make one to fit instead of look under the table in a frenzied fit of angst (how many of us have done that with a 1000 piece puzzle?).

I'm hoping to have the rebuild done before it gets too cold over here. That means I have about one month at the most. If I don't make this time frame I guess the kids will have to make room for the rebuild in the living room while they watch TV.

The latest pictures at the link are dated for September 14, 2003.

Robert N Pruden