Building Carougie
The photo to the left shows a shot taken over the transom looking forward. You can see the back bulkhead/frame the center frame, the forward bulkhead/frame and the stem all the way forward. Carougie is built right side up and each of these is epoxied in place to the bottom of the boat.
Here you can see over the stem looking aft. This is what I call modified stitch and glue.
The bulkheads along with the frames, stem and transom are what gives the boat her shape and holds everything in place until the epoxy cures.
All structural attach points are filleted with thickened epoxy, and where the sides meet the bottom, the fillets are covered with fiberglass, then another coat of epoxy over that.
Since the sides are held tightly in place no stitches are required at all. Just epoxy, tape, more epoxy and let it cure. Then turn it over and do the outside seams. Ideally you could use epoxy there also, but to save money I used vinylester resin instead and fiberglass. I only taped the seems, and chose not to cover the entire boat in glass.
Optionally a builder could cover the entire bottom and sides, which would certainly add more protection for the boat, but would also add some cost. Since I store the boat under cover, and keep it dry I don’t need the extra glass on it enough to justify the cost, but others may choose to glass the whole boat.
Here is a look at her from the port bow looking aft at an angle. At this point her sides were already previously temporarily attached with fasteners only, and then removed.
Right after this we reinstalled her sides permanently, which was really quick and easy to do with a helper. My son helping me sure made it a lot easier than it would have been otherwise, although one person could certainly do it alone if they had too.
Here she is with her sides in place. Still some work left to do, but now she is beginning to take shape.
Building Carougie was a lot of fun, but putting her in the water for the first time was even more fun. Its starting to get cold here in Virginia, and I’m already looking forward to next spring, but it’s not so cold yet as to keep us off the water. Looking forward to another day on the water already.
