Dawna and I tried to take advantage of the slightly warmer weather (60-70 F in the boat house at mid-day) to make progress on taping the keel seam. Leo's parents were visiting and they took these pictures (at last, proof that Leo and Dawna actually do spend time together, and Dawna even looks happy about it!)
With the float upright, it is a bit of a stretch to reach the keel through the access holes in the deck. The process of taping the seam is similar to that used at the deck seam. First, I filled the entire length of the keel with a slightly thin putty. With a little encouragement, this putty flowed into a nice clean fillet and filled all the voids in the seam. Next, after the putty started to cure, we laid in pre-wetted glass tape along the seam. Note the tape folded on the deck awaiting installation in the next section. Also note the stick with a paint brush on the end, used to more easily reach the keel. (Please try not to note the thinning hair...) Finally, after the tape starts to cure, we went back and applied a second coat of epoxy to help ensure the keel seam is water tight and durable.
Here's a good shot of me working inside the bow end with the paint brush on a stick, Actually, all of my dad's shots look pretty good. I think I like his camera better than mine.
And here we are in a state of ecstasy applying epoxy with a long stick. The bow end gets very narrow, which adds to the challenge of applying the tape.
And here is a view of the bow after the seam work is complete. It came out quite nice, and didn't take too long. We only had a few hours a day before temperatures starting dropping too much to continue. But we managed to do one stage a day. Just one step closer to the finish.
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