My friend Paul gave me a 16 foot beater kayak. I took it down to the water and sat in it and found that the horizontal seam between the top and bottom was about 2 1/2 inches above the water surface. So I took it home and cut the top off with my sabre saw about 1 1/2 inches below the seam.
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I used the seam as a guide to run the saw against. The cut line was a tad wavy, but that won't matter.
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Next, rip some 3/4 inch cedar stringers and epoxy them to the rails for stiffening, and to make a surface to glue the deck down onto. Plastic pipe slices make great clamps when you need a lot of them.
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A close up of the clamps.
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It's chilly in my garage this time of year (November), so I tent assmblies being epoxied and run an electric space heater inside the tent. I usually let things cure overnight, and they're nice and crispy in the morning.
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Stringers complete!
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A close-up of a stringer, with excess epoxy dribbling down the inside of the hull.
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Now time to cut out the decks. I use door skins from Lowe's. They have really high quality door skins with almost no voids in the plys. Not marine plywood, but pretty damn good.
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The decks cut out. There will be a seam in the middle, but that won't matter.
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The decks will be laminated top and bottom with some lightweight fiberglass cloth. Cutting the cloth here.
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The door skins are flimsy, so bulkheads are needed for support, and to form the framework for the mast base boxes and the dagger board box. These bulkheads are tricky to make. I used a piece of wire bent to the shape of the hull to trace a line on some door skin material. After cutting the shape, you have to test fit, trim, cut and repeat as necessary.
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Here are bulkheads and panels to support the 2 mast base boxes that will be mounted in the deck approximately 45% of the way back from the bow to the stern. I printed out diagrams of the Serenity and measured proportional distances of the location of their mast base box and daggerboard box from the bow. Note the plastic pipe clamps. I didn't trust exactly replicating their mastbase box location, so I'm installing 2 boxes, one fore and one aft of their location.
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I traced the area where fiberglass reinforcement will be epoxied onto the hull around the bulkheads and panels. Need to abrade the hull surface to give it some 'tooth' so the epoxy will stick.
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Pieces now epoxied and clamped.
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A close-up.
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From the side, showing the cut-outs for weight reduction.
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More bulkheads added, and some of the first ones cut out more for lighter weight.
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Quite a few hours of work for this.
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A close up of the mast base box slots. I drilled holes in the sides so thickened epoxy will ooze into them to form a better bond.
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The Serenity has a built-in handle to make it easier to carry. Here's mine. The blue rod is from a fiberglass ski pole.
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It's pretty much right in the center of the boat, and is well-balanced when you lift with it.
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Rather than a retractable daggerboard like most long boards, this will use a "Tuttle" box for a long fin to serve as a daggerboard. I suspect I'll eventually run the fin into the ground when coming ashore, so I'm making a framework around the Tuttle fin box that will not fail when impacted. It has to handle a lot of lateral force too when under sail. The red cylinders are chunks of windwurfer masts that form a hole down through the deck to the bolts that screw into the fin below. The white sleeves over them are 2 of the pipe clams that add a bit more bearing surface for when the deck is glued down to them.
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Looking down into the bolt holes.
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Fin box assembly from the rear.
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The bottom of the hull. It's scratched now, but it won't bee soon enough.
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The Tuttle fin box for the dagger board fin.
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The rear fin box, and old school "US" style box.
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The fins in their boxes.
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The daggerboard fin.
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The rear fin.
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Deck panels sanded where they'll bond with the stringers and bulkheads below.
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Close-up of sanded deck panels.
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First coat of oil-based paint over bulkheads and panels. Epoxy is a little porus, so these get painted to prevent water intrusion.
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Close-up of painted bulkheads.
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Painted deck panels.
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Deck panels epoxied in place tieh duct tape used to clamp them down. this turned out to be not so successful.
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Blocks used to weight the panels down over framework around mast base boxes and the handle cut-out in the center.
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Close-up of duct tape clamping. The tape stuck well to the fiberglass hull, but not the plywood. The next day after this I found that the plywood had popped loose at various points. I spent some time cleaning epoxy off the stringers, bulkheads and panels where it was loose, slathered on new thickened epoxy and then used screws to clamp down the panels. That worked. Should have done that the first time.
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The heated tent for curing epoxy.
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All cured. Decking is down nice and tight.
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Close-up of the deck.
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Fiberglass now laminated onto the fore and aft deck sections. The second layer of door skin is now epoxied onto the center section.
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A close-up of the stern showing how the glass is wrapped around the edge and overlapped about 2 inches down the side of the hull.
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Screws are holding the second layer of door skin down nice and tight for a good epoxy bond. No duct tape this time.
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Lots of screws.
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The bow, with the hatch cut out.
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The hatch with the bottom layer of fiberglass being laminated on. The paving blocks are putting a slight bend in the hatch cover so it conforms to the shape of the deck better.
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You can see the slight bend here.
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Top decks all laminated with an extra coat of epoxy, and now salt sprinkled on the last coat for a non-skid finish.
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I normally use granulated sugar for this, but I've found that it's just not grippy enough after painting it. I once tried sugar on a slalom board that had really big crystals. Great grip, but it could actually give you a rash if you dragged your bare arms or legs over it while water-starting. I won't be water-starting this board, and I tend not to fall in while longboarding, so I'm going with big crystals again. This time it's coarse sea salt.
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A close-up of the coarse sea salt. You sprinkle it on on while the epoxy is wet, then rinse it off after the epoxy cures.
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Hull bottom sanded and ready for painting. Final sanding was with 100 grit paper.
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Close-up of sanded hull. I filled the gouges and scratches with thickened epoxy and sanded. It's not perfect, but I feel like sailing this thing instead of working on it for weeks more.
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The stern, and rear fin box.
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First coat of paint on the bottom.
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After sanding, applying the second coat and letting it dry for 2 days it was time to wash off the salt on the deck. I covered it with towels and poured on hot water to dissolve the salt. Let it sit, did it again, sit again, then wash off with a hose and scrub brush. I think the texture looks pretty good.
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Top side sanded and ready for painting.
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A close-up showing the pits in the epoxy coating formed by the dissolved salt. Pretty grippy.
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First coat done.
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I'm going to assume this thing will be sailable and make it look nice. I made some hibiscus flower stencils and bought some nice, teal colored paint for an "island" look.
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