Kaimusailing
s/v Kaimu Wharram Catamaran
| Vessel Name: | Kaimu |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Wharram Custom |
| Hailing Port: | Norwalk, CT |
| Crew: | Andy and the Kaimu Crew |
| About: | Sailors in the Baltimore, Annapolis, DC area. |
17 April 2024 | St Marys, GA
Dinghy Skeg
I was suffering with what seemed like a cold and also had allergy symptoms. I awoke and felt fine. The green pollen that was coating everything was gone. Maybe it will return.
07 April 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Clammy Hands
Items came in from TEMU, the Chinese cut rate retailer. One was a nice little drone that cost about twelve and a half dollars. It looked like an easy thing to play with while I coughed and sneezed. I was fighting a summer cold, even though it is not summer elsewhere, it seems like it here. A nice [...]
02 April 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Sun Doggie
After laminating the cedar strips onto the gunwales of the dinghy I found the screws I used wouldn’t come out. The epoxy had seized them. The screw heads were stripped so I cut a straight slot in the heads with the cut off wheel. The cedar smoked when the screw heads got red hot. I could remove [...]
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Just Add Water
The rainy weekend started off with overcast and fog but no rain. It looked like I might be able to get something done on the D4 dinghy. I wanted to change the bow seat which is really the bow deck. The sailing option uses the deck to hold the freestanding mast. I didn’t like how the deck looked, [...]
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
D4 Dinghy Alternative Seats
The rain event was more wind than rain, strong winds with gusts up to 44 mph. We drove into town to see what the harbor was like. There was a small sailboat that had dragged anchor and was sitting close to shore. The tide was out. We left and played with Bleu at Notter’s Pond.
23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
D4 Inside Seams
Day two of the dinghy build started out with me finishing wiring the hull bottoms together on the centerline of the bottom panels. This was much easier than the wiring of the chine edges of the bottom panels and the side panels.
BFB Test Fit
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I could do other woodwork, trimming gunwales with the trim router, rounding off the square edges, but keeping the square edges wherever the crossbeams intersected the gunwales. The inboard side deck coaming was rounded off on 3 edges to facilitate the fiberglass wrapping around it. The corresponding piece of wood on the outboard coaming was also rounded off.
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The epoxy came in and I got to work, using almost a gallon in two days. The inboard side deck received fiberglass on a 3 foot section amidships. This locks the midships edge of the side deck so that the coaming can be lifted until the ends of the side deck are even with the bulkheads. The outboard side deck was totally fiberglassed, filling in the spaces between the previously glassed sections on the top side of the side deck, and the complete underside was glassed in one session. This took two days, glassing the top on one day and the bottom on the next.
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The glassing of the foam core of the side decks was done in steps, first priming with unthickened epoxy, then troweling on epoxy thickened with microballoons, then laying the first layer of glass on top of that, then wetting out the glass with unthickened epoxy, then adding the second layer of glass and wetting that out. Whew.
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It was time to cut the coaming where the crossbeams crossed it, so the boat was jigged together with clamps and sawhorses. The picture is of the boat after the coaming has been slotted for the crossbeams, with the hiking seat resting on the crossbeams. It looks like the outboard side deck will need spacers between its outer edge and the crossbeams. The plan is to attach the side deck to the crossbeams to support the weight without breaking the hull’s gunwale, where the side deck is attached.
