Working at the boatyard

The old wooden fishing boat in previous pics has been dismantled. It was too expensive to run compared to modern metal hulls, because of massive weight of around 65 tons and necessity to caulk etc every few years.

OK we have to pay more rental and Sagres is 20 miles away, but the working atmosphere is so much better.
Made and installed a plywood beam from the ww hull entrance to the lee hull entrance. Then proceeded to make decking in between with small ply (Okoume) beams and Foam/glass between. Doing this to make it easier to install masts (still wrapped on the right), and attach the booms which can be seen beside the masts.

Took a while to get the far mast through the top bearing and slotted into the bottom bearing  as the top one was a tight fit and they are about 75 cm long. The nearer mast slotted in much easier and could easily be swung around by hand.

The gap in the decking is where a ramp will go. This cannot be made until I have an RIB and its hull shape to work from so it can slot in the ramp and be tied down. Once tied down with a 20 HP outboard still attached, we will see how well she can propel the boat, and from that decide what additional propulsion is required.

Come together

The beams weighed about 500 kilos each, but all the lifting was done by 4 manpower, jacks, comalongs rope and peel ply.
-Peel ply?
-Yes, it is surprisingly strong and stretched less than the rope

Although a tight fit it was easy enough to slide the beams into the lee hull.

Th difficult part was slipping the beams into the slots of the windward hull. Doing it the other way round was not an option due to the amount of reinforcing around the lee hull beam slot and UHMWPE mast bearings which were already installed.

We got the further beam slotting in easily enough, but know amount of pulling with cum-alongs and altering the 'horizontality' of the hulls would get the closer beam to go all the way. Eventually we had to cut out the bit of the ww hull above the beam slot, shave things a bit, and slide then slide the beams in all the way.
This gave us the opportunity to really glue the near beam to the hull.  Pic was taken before reinstalling the hull piece over the beam

The move

At last, all the permits for moving two 'Excepcional' loads.

About 3 hours two move in 5 stages to the flatbed at the roadside craning over trees, wires and a field. Did I mention we managed to snag an electric cable and almost deprived a villa of electricity?

The lee hull stuck out 7 metres from the back of the not 'Excepcional' enough lowed truck, along with the two wing masts, and these  proceeded first at speeds up to 60 km/hr with me driving behind nervously. Then an hour to unload at the boatyard, so too late for a second load the same day.

Same procedure the second day but slightly more difficult to get the windward hull/ pod to the roadside, and also to tie securely to the flatbed. I asked the driver to go a bit slower this time partly because the width meant it took up a bit of the other side of the road, but mainly because I would be driving nervously behind.....

2012 Update

Lee Hull painted a bit

WW hull shell semi complete, working on wing masts

Wing masts coated with twee carbon fibre twill just for looks (Ed's idea). We are ready to put the pieces together, so maybe move to somewhere closer to the water in the New Year, as she will become too wide to take to the roads once put together.