Week 8 The Hull comes off the moulds.

This week was a milestone in the build with the hull being turned over off the moulds and on to a cradle for the fit out. At times I thought this was not going to happen as again everything seemed to take so much longer than expected and I was working on my own for almost 2 full days.
The first part of the week I spent doing some more work on the centre board and case and a couple of final fills and fairs on the hull along with glueing up the spruce for the boom. On Wednesday we laminated the transom and covered the boat for making the new cradle. I worked on Thursday on my own glassing up the cradle stations at 4, 12 and 18. Paul and I then worked flat out today joining and levelling the cradle. We levelled the cradle by working off the plans using a new base line drawn parallel to the lower water line, starting at station 4. We got thereby 4:00pm when we crawled under the hull to cut all the cable ties and wire and take out all the screws holding the hull to the moulds. At 5:30 we where confident every screw was removed and so we lifted the hull at the stem but there was no movement. Justin arrived over armed with a plank of wood which he lodged between the hull and the floor and as he hauled, it started to crack and creek and I began to break myself and then with a pop, off she came............perfectly in tack.....and I breathed a sigh of relief. I could not believe how light she was as 3 people lifted her off and up onto the cradle which was sitting on the bench. A trip to the Royal Standard to celebrate. Oh yes........Bob was back with us fighting fit much to the relief of all staff and students.