Time to flip. If you decide to build a boat, you'll discover that beer and donuts are two hugely important tools in your toolbox because that's what you'll need for the volunteers when it's time to flip the boat. Time start work on the hull...
I wish I had the proverbial middle aged men flipping their neighbor's boat pic, but I don't. One of my regrets is that I don't have enough pics. I do remember that I invited about 8 guys over to help me. The oldest one, Floyd, one of my best friends and a full time senior citizen curmudgeon, interrupted me while I was barking instructions and reviewing all the safety rules... and said "Andrew if you're done with all that yapping, I'd like to hurry up and get this thing flipped because I have things to do..." And with that said, all lifted the boat off the cradle, brought it out of the tent, flipped it and zipped it back into the tent... With 8 of us, the boat was ridiculously light...
That was in 2003, flash forward to this past Spring (2008) when I decided to flip the boat to do some painting on the bottom... Floyd was there, he had aged by 5 years (he's 75 now) and I had only invited 5 guys + me... Well, the boat was a great deal heavier this time around and the boat lifters were all a great deal older and chubbier... Floyd interrupted me again as I was giving an extremely organized and articulate safety speech and he was impatient again and he lifted and we all had to lift with him. He looked distressed as he discovered it was a great deal harder this time around...and we all moved around to help him... Thank God he didn't get hurt, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy...; )
Anyway... here is the boat in all it's bottom glory. This stage is enjoyable... the chines (where the hull and sides of the boat meet) are radiused (smoothed round) using a vibrating sander and a random orbital. The entire hull is given an 80 grit etch all over in order to get ready for fiberglassing. Fiberglass comes in different types (extremely strong and expensive such as kevlar to "normal" cloth that's plenty strong and far cheaper), I chose a Xynole as my first layer, and a layer of good old 10 oz "normal" cloth as my second hull layer. The sides only received one layer of Xynole. I applied a layer of 6" tape along the edges before the hull and sides were draped.
Fiberglassing a wooden boat adds abrasion protection (shells, rocks, sand, etc.). It does not add structural strength. This is a light boat - about 400-450 lbs empty, it has plenty of abrasion protection.
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