Things are moving along nicely with the construction. All interior welding in the keel has been completed, and keel tank tops have been fitted. Jesus and his crew have also been busy building up the frames and installing stiffeners on all the bulkheads. Once these start going up, the idea is to move along quickly so they can all be tied together into a rigid structure that will hold up to gravity and our regular afternoon westerlies.
Bottom photo shows the parts that will become the rudder. I had the enjoyable job of drilling out the holes for the 3/4" bolts that attach the rudder shaft flange to the top of the rudder, and the bolts for the palm bearing that supports the bottom of the rudder. This involved drilling through 2" of steel, but is necessary so that we can remove the rudder for maintenance without dropping the rudder shaft out of the boat. Tomorrow, Sam and I will be working on sandblasting and priming the stern tube and rudder tube which we cut from a single length of pipe. This material is 4.5" schedule 160 pipe with over 1/2" wall thickness- about the heaviest piece of pipe I've ever seen. Should outlast us all...
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