Marc

It’s official, I shall never refer to going back to sit in my nice comfy clean office as “back to the grind” this was brutal, 5 hours of boat yoga and so much dust, I had to change the pre filters on my respirator 3 times, but it’s done now and I can move on to designing the anchor locker and bed… Definitely earned tonight’s cider time

Evening folks, we’ve actually done some work on the boat!! So here’s the templating and manufacturing of the main support beam for replacing the front bulkhead. It’s a laminated construction with 2x 19mm ply spans with 2 layers of 600gm bi-axial glass Matt forming the center, this makes sure the interface between the 2 pieces of wood have a…[Read more]

Evening folks, we’re fresh back from a little jaunt to Porlock Wier to pick up some lovely stainless steel beaching legs for Merganser, the same fella had some very nice T rail too so we swagged that to make some new jib rails and upgrade the traveller to something a little more beefy. Buying the legs this early has several benefits, they are so…[Read more]

Evening all, Update time 🙂 Nothing significant has happened with the actual build this weekend. I did measure and cut the last bit of the new core for the bulkhead move and that’s about it until the epoxy fairy comes in the week.
We took the tempest out sailing for the first time this season along with the test battery for Merganser and we’ve…[Read more]

Evening folks, I thought I posted this on Monday but the sun obviously pickled my noodle. Update time! The next bit of bow core is in, huzzah! This was a particularly important bit as it’s the main load bearing area for the foredeck. We started by using the tracksaw (I need to give it a name, all the best tools have names) to cut part way through…[Read more]

Evening folks! Got a few bits and bobs to report, starting with the glorious Pure Lead Carbon battery I’ve got to test, if this beauty lives up to it’s sales hype it’ll be joined by 9 of its friends, 8 as drive power and 2x as the house bank. The testing will consist of abusing the hell out of it as a battery for my electric outboard on the…[Read more]

Evening folks! Busy day today, we’ve got bow core sections 2 and 3 templated, cut and sealed. I’ve also placed the windlass and decided where the chain locker will be going. There’s still a decision to make regarding the support of the deck where the front bulkhead has been removed but I think I’m halfway to a plan on that one. In other news…[Read more]

Happy March Folks! I do apologise for the lack of updates, you haven’t missed much. I’ve been job hunting and interviewing and such like things and I’ve gone and got myself an employment upgrade, it’ll be a few more boat tokens a month and more civilized hours, hurray! So back to Merganser, the 3D printed brush cover for the motor came out…[Read more]

Bit of progress today, we’ve removed the last of the structural bulkheads, huzzah! Thanks to Christopher for bringing his oscillating multi weasel, having 2 certainly sped things up. We also measured up for the new bulkhead, bed, chain locker and a couple of the load bearing storage boxes and laminated beam that will take the place of the old…[Read more]

Decisions are being made! I’ve decided to go with copper coat for the below waterline, it actually worked out cheaper than stripping, fairing, barrier coating and antifouling in one hit.

Happy new year folks! I’ve put a few photos together to show how far we’ve come since buying Merganser in November 2017. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who’s come down to get dusty, offered advice, had a chat, brought a cuppa over and generally been involved in the project so far. I knew it’d be hard physical work but I had no…[Read more]

Found one! A little surprised the conditions today were acceptable for epoxy, I warmed the resin a small amount just to reduce the viscosity a bit and it layed up like a charm with a nice 15min pot life, in other news the first of the primary winches has been removed and was a clear entry point for water so I’m assuming the 2nd one will be the…[Read more]

Busy day! The legendary Tim Carter helped me remove the genset from its frame and it’s the perfect size for the engine bay, spent most of the day tidying up the carashed and organising my tools ready to get cracking when we get the chance. Next on the list is measure up for the new in boat mounts, figure out the exhaust routing, figure out the…[Read more]

As you can see from the dramatic lighting in the new cover photo… The car is fixed and the rebuild is back on! I went down tonight to just take an objective look at the best use of our time over the colder months where structural work with resin is severely slowed, I’ll put the list of goals up when I’ve got it all straight in my head, but it’s…[Read more]

Still no car to visit the boat but the end is in sight, it’s been in for the MOT and only failed on a few bits of corrosion which is easy to fix if this weather chills out enough the weld outdoors, retest booked so hopefully we’ll be back to the refit very soon! As we’re going electric I had a little think about what that means for ancillary items…[Read more]

Hi folks! It’s been a while, the car is far more broken than I expected so all my time and funds have been diverted in that direction. I did manage to scrounge a lift to see the old girl last night and check over base camp and the Tempest as she’s still out on her mooring and all is well. One big surprise was the 3″ of water in mergansers…[Read more]

****Boring theory post alert!!**** Here’s the calculations for the EDrive system based on Mergansers hull… all the numbers! obviously these are absolute best case senario regarding water conditions but my super rough maths panned out quite well regarding expected run time, plenty for getting in an out of marinas with a nice safety buffer.