A small but critical component: a carbon chainplate built around a stainless thimble, carefully aligned and electrically isolated—then back to the mould setup for the second hull half.
Carbon fiber chainplate
This section covers the build of the carbon fiber chainplate: a stainless steel thimble on top of a high-density foam core, wrapped in UD carbon fibre. The chainplate is prepared for synthetic rigging with Precourt deadeyes. To keep full control over straightness and fibre alignment during lay-up, this part was not vacuum treated.
With these lessons learned, it was high time to start the second hull half. Because workshop space is limited, I had to build the second hull half of the same float next. That meant setting up the mould frames again, including the fore and aft battens. Fortunately, rebuilding the setup was quicker than moving and storing the finished hull half elsewhere. The new setup took less than eight hours.
This photo gallery (13 images) shows the chainplate build step by step, from shaping the high-density foam core to wrapping and wetting out the UD carbon, isolating stainless from carbon with glass, and preparing the deadeye slot for synthetic rigging.
