Repairs were made to the mast partners to allow a new Proctor "D" to be inserted without a problem. The measurements were taken off the new "KISS" Rondar’s which were at the US Midwinter’s lounge festival. At least I was able to get some constructive information from the event.
The mast step is proper height as well. The idea was to be able to rig the boat as close to the NA standard as possible. The 3-4mm marine mahagony ply was cut to fit as two sections. The grain was matched as carefully as possible to give the illusion of being constructed from one sheet. In preparation of the installation, I laminated the underside with Kevlar and I was going to sandwich the top layer with 3/4 oz glass. The 3/4 oz fibreglas is tricky to work with as it is soooo fine that wetting it out can be very frustrating. However, the results are spectacular. The only way that you can tell that we used glass on the topside is evident in a couple of places along the spine.
A wee problem came to our attention when it came time to fit the finished cut deck to the spine and ribs. The Kevlar needed to be sanded to allow for proper adhesion, but Kevlar doesn’t sand very well. The lamination of the underside was so effective and complete that the edges at the gunwhales and the cockpit that we had to use some filler so that the Kevlar fibres were hidden.
The stain was applied over the glass and epoxy combination then a coat of linear polyurathane was sprayed to the deck as a finish. The maintenance should be next to nothing for a minimum of 3 years. The result is an incredible shine and depth to the mahagony that you’d swear Luis and Brad were working on refinishing a dining room table.