Tonight I disassembled the various bulkheads and temporary shear clamp, then got ready to turn the bottom over.

People are sometimes coming over now on their walks to ask about the boat. Tonight someone came over, just at the right time to help me turn her over. I was just removing the last piece which happened to be the stem. As I was turning the nut to loosen it the carriage bolt instead turned in the hole. There was no holding it still. I tried plyers to hold the bottom of the nut but no luck. I then sawed a groove in the head of the carriage bolt and used my leatherman to hold it fast. It started bending the leatherman. As my visitor was waiting I expedited things by using the hacksaw to just cut the dang nut off. I had already ruined the carriage bolt anyway.

I positioned two sawhorses under the ends. We each took one end, lifted her up, turned her over and set her back down. I put a couple of extra saw horses under the middle to hold it. In order to get good results I had to make sure the bottom sat completely flat. Once fiberglassed, any twist would take a set that would be very difficult to remove later.

I have decided on the plan for the bottom and major assembly. First, I patched all the holes I could find, including this butt joint shown here. I purposely left it not glued before since it was upside down and all the glue would just run out. Now, with the bottom of this slot sealed up, I can just pour in as much epoxy as she wants to soak up. She took 4 oz of epoxy just disappearing into holes and joints. I plan to periodically inspect and if necessary mix up more epoxy to apply tonight. The idea is to lay fresh epoxy on top of epoxy that is not yet cured. This gives a chemical bond. To wait until tomorrow, when it is cured, the fresh epoxy would only create a mechanical bond with the old, which is not nearly as strong.