JEM Watercraft

Yes, it is amazing how well it has gone together. Its a great design. I can't wait to get her in the water.

Yay! all done with making the epoxy wood flour messes. No more gluing or filling, just sanding, fiberglassing, and varnishing. If I'm lucky, this will be in the water within a week or so (minus the varnish).

Couple of picks with the hatches dry fitted in and the Hobie Stow and Go rudder.

How do your rudder cable tubes exit the stern?

How do your rudder cable tubes exit the stern?

The Hobie rudder cable attachment points are a little lower than other rudders I have seen. Also the rudder is shorter, but wider, than other rudders so I had to keep it lower to be sure the rudder would be deep enough in the water. Therefore, the cables had to exit through the transom. The holes are on the upper left and right of the transom The smaller holes in the middle are for the rudder mount. The control cables for raising and lowering the rudder exit through the top of the rear deck. They have not been trimmed to size yet.

The cables will run through some irrigation drip tubing to the cockpit and exit through these wonderful wooden fittings. I wonder where I got the idea for the wooden fittings???


As you can see in the photos, I have a lot of sanding to do to clean up all the epoxy wood flour glue mess.

SANDING SUCKS! But, it had to be done. Sanded for what seemed like forever. It was 91 degrees F. That made it even worse. Here are the results.




I feel like I am on the home stretch and may use some vacation time this coming week to have it done by next weekend. I will let it cure fully before varnishing.

Finished the final glassing. The boat is now completely encapsulated. Unfortunately, I weighed it and it weighs 59.5 pounds (with the handholds) . All the hatches and the rudder add another 4 pounds. Was hoping it would be lighter, but thats what I get for using up my six ounce cloth on the inside. It really sucked up the resin. There is two layers of 4 ounce everywhere on the outside but the decks, cockpit, tank well and tumble home panel, they just have one layer. The bottom two panels have a total of ten ounces plus an additional keel strip. Its a tank, but came in within Matt's estimated range of 55-70 pounds. Just need a couple of fill coats on top, and a couple of graphite/epoxy coats on the bottom. Hopefully, that won't add too much weight.


The white areas are the seams in the cloth that I scraped down. After another day of curing I will sand the whole thing down and start the fill coats.

Man, Craig, that thing is already beautiful and looks like a SST for water.

Looking Great like your cable fitting idea

Mike

Man, Craig, that thing is already beautiful and looks like a SST for water.

Looking Great like your cable fitting idea

Thanks guys. I hope to get the scupper holes cut today and the bottom taped for the graphite epoxy coats. I thought about painting the bottom to look like a stellar sea lion as a practical joke to be played on the great white sharks. However, common sense got the best of me and I decided against it. I guess I could hang a giant treble hook off the back and make it the worlds largest wooden popper.

Probably best to not go fishing for great whites - you might catch one.