G'day all,
We had some exciting news this week. AXE had her first inspection and she aced it! ...
The inspection was from a structural engineer that specializes in timber boats. He was really impressed with her construction and hull integrity
.
With full tanks the engineer gave her a safe operating rating range of 15 passengers and 3 Crew @100kgs each plus 500kgs of luggage
Not that I'll ever carry that many people or have that much luggage but its good to know she'll have no dramas carrying the three of us and Chevy my cat
Also good that if we are out boating and someone needs assistance then I know how many I can safely have on board without needing rescuing ourselves
During the last few weeks we also fixed the go fast boat and sold that off before anything else happened to it and if that didn't keep us busy enough, Felicity and I bought our first swing mooring!
... Its a 12mtr with the ability to go upto 14mtrs. The guy was asking $15,000 but I managed to get him down to $8,000. This will be AXE's home when she is finished.
I am letting a bloke use the mooring for free at the moment because he has found himself stuck without a mooring. Moorings in Perth are rare as rocking horse sh!t. Its a Long story but apparently he's down on his luck and, well, im a big softy at heart apparently so despite running the risk of getting fined from the government fisheries people, i told him he can use it but also told him when the time comes, he will have to move on to somewhere else so AXE can go there.
Now that all of that has been sorted, we are back to working on AXE. Sanding, Sanding and more sanding
Im really happy with how well the epoxy is sanding up tho
. I only need to do this step once (Thank F#&K)
... Once ive done this, I will apply a skim coat of epoxy paste, but it is only for filling in the small air holes and hand sandable so should be better than the sanding that im doing now which is like sanding concrete with a belt sander using 240grit
anyway that's all. Hope y'all well and thanks for following our progress!