The sides and transom have been repainted, several times, to get to a reasonable finish. The masts have also been assembled, and have had several coats of epoxy.

The centreboard has now been installed. The pin was a snug fit, but was easy to slide through with the board lying down. The uphaul was cut slightly longer than the plan calls for, though I have marked the correct length so that I can trim it later. The centreboard cap was fitted. A bead of silicone will prevent any water leaking out. A bead of silicone also seals the centreboard inspection port.

The stations for the masts were measured out, centred on a string line, and then leveled. Once they were level I screwed blocks to the frames to keep them aligned properly. The edges of each station were covered in tape, to prevent the masts from being glued to them tomorrow.

To make sure that everything runs smoothly tomorrow I have swapped out the epoxy for new containers, so that I don't run out part way through a batch.

Anthony, another WBA member, and I glued up one of the masts today, starting by coating the staves with clear epoxy. Once the birdsmouths were coated we coated the opposite sides of the staves with unthickened epoxy as well. When piping the thickened epoxy along the birdsmouth, we spread the epoxy along the strake to make sure we had a good glue line. Once a few of the stave edges had been coated we started joining the staves to build the mast. The final stave was glued up on both sides and then squeezed into place. Once the final stave had been locked into place the internal sleeve was pushed up into place, with thickened epoxy added as needed. Cable ties pulled all of the staves together, stopping the staves from opening up along the length of the mast. Excess epoxy was scraped off the outside of the mast to reduce the planing needed. The mast was rotated, and more epoxy was removed.

The stringline was checked to ensure that the mast would be straight.

Gaffer tape was stretched around the mast to apply an even pressure and to give a good squeeze-out along the mast.

The following morning, the gaffer tape and cable ties were taken off the mast.

While waiting for Kirsty, I laid out everything, ready for gluing up the second mast. We wet out the surfaces of the mast with unthickened epoxy. Thickened epoxy was piped along the birdsmouth profile of several staves before locking them together. While I ran a bead of epoxy along the stave, Kirsty spread the epoxy across the surface of the birsdmouth profile. The thickened epoxy held the staves in place when we started joining them. A short while later, the other staves had been glued up, the insert was added to the bottom of the mast, and cable ties locked it all together. The squeeze-out was scraped off, gaffer tape was wrapped along the mast to provide a tighter join, and the mast was complete. The tension provided by the gaffer tape led to more squeeze-out all the way along all of the staves. Exactly what we were wanting! The gaffer tape and cable ties were removed from the second mast. There's lots of squeeze-out to remove. I will probably do this using a combination of chisel and rasp, prior to planing the edges.

The masts released from the jig without any trouble. The tape successfully stopped the staves from sticking to the frame. Now that the masts have been glued up, I have dismantled the jigs. I will reuse some parts when I am planing and sanding the masts. I removed most of the surface epoxy with a rasp, and then used planes to shape the mast to 16 sides, eyeballing the amount to remove along each glue line to achieve 16 even sides. Once I had 16 sides I then planed along the edges of these to get to 32 sides. I then worked on the rounding of the mast with a sanding belt that I made for working on the masts of my previous boat.

This morning saw me finishing off the rounding of the first of the masts, and running the jigs along the mast to make sure of the dimensions. The mast was rounded with the sanding belt to get it to the correct dimensions. A little bit of hand sanding along each stave finished the sanding of the first mast. The mast was then measured and cut to its final length.

It was then on to repeating the process on the second mast. The mast was planed from 8 sides to 16, and then from 16 to 32 sides. The second mast was then checked for the correct dimensions along the mast, and then finished with the sanding belts and hand sanding along the staves.

I still wasn't happy with the paint finish on the sides of the boat, so I filled a few spots, and sanded the sides with 600 grit paper.

It was too cold and damp to paint today, so I cut the pieces for the sprits and glued them up, making a jig to hold everything straight.

The four pieces for each sprit were clear coated in epoxy, and then thickened epoxy was added. The sprits were then pulled into tension using gaffer tape, and then clamped.

The sides and the transom were given another four coats of paint, this time using a higher density foam brush, which gave a much better result on the vertical surfaces.

In between coats of paint, I removed the clamps from the sprits, took the tape off, and then pried them out of the jigs. The sprits were cleaned up, sanding the excess epoxy off, and getting them down to close to 37mm square.

The transom and sides were again sanded with 600 grit paper. Tomorrow's weather is looking good, so they are ready for their final coats.

The transom and sides were given a couple of coats. The transom and Port side looked good, but I'm still not happy with the Starboard side. The Starboard side was sanded down with 600 grit paper yet again. I'll try painting it early tomorrow morning.

The plans call for the edges of the sprits to be rounded, so I ran my router over them, using a roundover bit.

After sanding and washing the Starboard side, a couple of extra coats seemed to give a reasonable finish, so I'm happy to leave it alone for now...

I've bought some non-yellowing epoxy hardener, for the masts and sprits. Three or four coats should be sufficient on both. Bolts through supports in the horses and into the hollow tops and bottoms of the masts let me coat and rotate the masts as needed.

Two more coats of non-yellowing epoxy were applied to the masts today. Both masts were coated using a foam roller, and then brushed to remove bubbles.