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.
Choco Mtns
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The work continued on the skegs and rudders. The gudgeons were cleaned up with the angle grinder and any drips of blobs on the rudders were ground off. The surfaces of the rudders were sanded with the belt sander and 120 grit belt. A mix of microballoons and epoxy was prepared and troweled onto the skeg to keel joint to make a fair curve for a strip of fiberglass roving that was set into the fairing mix, then brushed over with unthickened epoxy to wet it out. Another strip of roving was similarly glassed onto the joint where the replacement rudder blade joins the rudder stock. The surfaces of the rudder blades and skegs were covered with the same fairing mix using a toothed trowel, producing a corduroy finish.
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When work is accomplished during what is forecast as a rainy day, it is rewarding no matter how much is accomplished. This was a forecast of rain to continue intermittently through most of the week. The next day was indeed rainy, but then the clouds went north and I got the same amount of work done while looking up at the overcast dark clouds. The other sides of the rudders were coated with the corduroy epoxy mix, as well as the remaining skeg. This time I altered the mix by adding colloidal silica to the microballoons. I used 1 part silica to 4 parts phenolic microballoons. The silica is difficult to sand by hand, but it trowels on very smoothly and doesn’t sag. The phenolic microballoons are easy to sand, but sag, even when mixed to a very stiff consistency. The 4:1 mix is smoother troweling and sags less.
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The result of using so much colloidal silica was that I am almost out of it, so I ordered more from Raka epoxy. I ordered 3 lbs. and it cost about 40 dollars. Someone pointed out that they had purchased 5 1/2 ounces at a marine store and it cost about the same. I will have to pay shipping, but the marine store is an hour’s drive.
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The picture is of the fairing corduroy surface.
