I'll admit, I thought fiberglassing was going to fun. It was hard. I applied the fiberglass "dry"... meaning I draped the cloth and then pushed the epoxy through the cloth. Awful. It took forever. Many people swear by the dry method, I thought it was a drag. It was perhaps the Xynol cloth that I used. The second layer went on much easier.
I then mounted (3) doug fir pieces on the hull. One in the center and two outboards. I followed it up with brass "half rounds" to protect the doug fir keel pieces. Note: I wish I had used mahogany instead of doug fir. Doug fir is too soft. It's been 5 years since the hull was finished and the bottom has held up amazingly well. I take care of this boat, I baby it actually. However, I use it for duck hunting in the winter and I am constantly rubbing against rocks, shells and sand on the bottom. It can't be helped.
The only real damage I have done to the bottom - and it's cosmetic damage - was a bad (too short) roller on the trailer... it had this metal hat on the end of a metal shaft that would roll along the center keel and damage it. I have since replaced that roller and the problem has disappeared.
The Snow Goose design has a history of porpoising... which means that when the boat is underway, the bow slaps rhythmically rises and falls - it's annoying. With this knowledge, I applied wooden wedges on the bottom of the boat near the transom. Wedges act like a "trim" on an airplane's aileron. the wedge pushes the bow down and keeps the bow in trim.
Some say it slows the boat down and in some cases is unsafe - as it is hard to get the bow up in big wave situations. This boat has seen a lot of big water and I can get the boat pointed up no problem at slow speeds - i.e. the wedges are NOT unsafe. They may slow the boat some, but for my use, the boat goes plenty fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment