Fifth strake no.2. Kerosene stove.

By mounting both strakes no. five I have reached my mini-goal of the build before winter comes. Which means each new strake is a bonus.

Temperature drops to 6 degrees at night, too cold to use my epoxy (WEST system). As my boatshed is isolated I will try to prolong the build season with kerosene stove as far as possible.

As my face is still healing from close encounter with hole saw the other day I was not in the factory. During the day I re-organised the boatshed to get more space as the build progresses.

Kerosene stove had to be moved closer to the wall so I built heat-shield / heat accumulator around it. Works like a charm, didn’t cost anything and hopefully accumulated heat will keep the shed warm a bit longer after I extinguish the stove.

Fitting the strake was rather straightforward but, unlike its twin on the other side, it was springing out of one mould. I did not notice that when dry fitting but now, with epoxy acting as a grease, friction was not holding it in place and after a while the plank glided away from it’s position on one station.

I took a mental note to always stay a bit longer after all clamps are tightened, to hopefully catch such phenomenon and be able to fix it.

Luckily my reserve, massive clamp was long enough to grab frame end and bring back the strake to its proper position.

I try preparing reserve areas where I could use excess, squeezed out glue. This time I created fat fillets on the inside of aft flotation tanks. Nothing got wasted.