Next on the list was the deck plating and the superstructure. This was started in February 1999 and the first problem to solve was how to get the deck plates up 14 feet to the deck. Again no sky hooks available so muscle power had to do.Steel Kit were tasked to design the size of the plates around a one man operation but the size of the coach roof plates got me a little worried.

They were big around 3 meters by 2 meter.They took some shifting.Getting all the plates, four coach roof plates, ten cockpit plates and twelve walkway plates took three weeks to place and tack weld in place.
Then the biggest shock ever, the port side walkway plates were to short so it seemed as there was a gap aft where no 3 plate joined with the transom plate.Steel Kit did not want to know they said if all the measurements of the frames and stringers were correct then the plates should fit.

They were willing to check plate sizes to CAD so I measured the plates. There was no difference between the CAD Data and the measured plate. All were correct. A lot of neck scratching followed. Questions like is the keel warped? Was the hull bowed? What had I done wrong?

No one knew.In the end I decided it was a build up of tolerance issue. All plates, frames, stringers had a design tolerance of +/- 1.0mm and my conclusion was that the 10mm gap was caused by a build up of these tolerances along then length of the hull. So the gap was filled and forgotten about.

<< Next Hatches and which Rig>>

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.