September – oktober 2013:
Breakdown the mold
The time has arrived to break down the support beams and turn the hull. Exciting because the hull only really gets his sturdiness when the glassfiber mats are attached on the outside. The trusses in the hull ensure some extra sturdiness and therefore enabling us to turn the hull. The first step is to decide which part of the support to break down first, an important factor is the local sturdiness in the hull.
Having the support structure in parts, showed to be a real convenience. The thousands screws in the support structure are being removed. They come out much easier then they went in 8 months ago. Alertness is required to ensure we do not forget and leave screws in the hull. After some crawling we can remove the structure parts below the waterline.
Turning mold
As expected the middle of the hull needs extra sturdiness. Now that we don’t enter the hull as often as before we are able to place the final bulkheads in the hull. On the bow and the stern we place 2 molds on which we lift and turn the hull.
A few support beams, some leftover MDF and Corecell and a few bolts and a few more just in case. You cannot secure it enough. The leftover Corecell protect the hull from any scratches, this worked well by the way!
Hoisting frame
Now that we have a basis we made a huge support structure above the hull on which we connect the chain cable. This way we keep control of the hull before we remove the rest of the support beams. This moment was also ideal to draw the waterline on the hull.
Ready to turn the hull
One support beam away from being completely of the floor. The turning can almost commence. The turning itself went very easy. Porter stood by the stern and Lora at the bow. Lift the side of the chamfer (the angled side) as far as possible and lower the other side. In 5 strokes we had rotated the hull 180 degrees.
With a laser pointer on the trusses we ensured and watched if the process went parallel.
We released the rotation molds and in a couple months we will mount them again to rotate the hull. The next couple of months we will be occupied with laminating the outside hull. For now another milestone has been reached!
In the clip below you will see how smooth it went to turn the hull.