Our deadline of 10th June is fast approaching. It’s remains doubtful we’ll make that date but there’s been a lot of progress this week. Things are starting to come together.

Weekly Video Summary

In this clip we see how far the painters have progressed with the faring, and we examine how we make our deck boxes out of honeycomb and epoxy. Plus there’s a splash of green and purple in there…

A Dash Of Colour

We mentioned last week that we’d be adding a bit of colour to Esper and, as you can see from the picture above, the Wilson Art laminate has been applied to the two heads doors.

Ton applying the WIlson Art laminate to our heads door

Deck Boxes Taking Shape

Last week you saw us cutting away at the old box lids and fibreglassing them into a different shape. Now the boxes are ready to be attached to the deck. The bases are chamfered so that they follow the contour of the deck and we have to grind away at the filler around the edges so we can create a smooth edge to the join.

The deck boxes in place

Lek grinds away at the edges around the box

With the rear boxes in place Moo is now able to concentrate on the cockpit box. We spent quite a bit of time trying to work out the position, height and curvature of the box since we require certain deck fittings to fit around it. Let’s not forget our large speakers too! Moo began with placing some honeycomb either side of the companionway, which will be the base for the remainder of the box.

Honey comb is epoxied in place

An aerial view of the cockpit box base

Faring Complete

The painters have been working really hard this week and by Saturday they had pretty much completed the faring of the deck. It was a long old process but now the Awlgrip 545 primer can be applied to the areas that will be sprayed with top coat.

Doors, Hinges And Handles

As Tui continues to apply the ‘white vine’ veneer, Ton has been fitting the handles and hinges to the doors. Pong, meanwhile, continues to lay the teak floor and is currently completing the galley, having already laid all the floor from the saloon to the forepeak.

Detail of a freshly veneered door

The first door is hung!

Plumbing Fun

What with a new tap to be installed in the heads and a new deck shower, we’re having to look at our plumbing system. Esper was fitted with the old Acorn system, which has now been replaced by the Hep2O system. We’re gonna have to tackle this job soon, but not before we order the parts from the UK. We attempted to contact three companies in Australia who supply Hep2O and not one of them replied.

The mess under the cupboard

What’s Next?

We never got a chance to photograph our new heads doors before the painters came in and blocked access to the boat off with clingfilm. Hopefully next week you’ll get to see the doors in place and, you never know, the carpenters may even have hung the laminate on the walls too. You’ll also see some primer and those deck boxes should have been completed too. It’s all coming together very quickly!