Doing a bit of surgery to reinforce a standard LPB for a quick proof of concept on the kayak catamaran. I just built one boat that’s designed for this but that still leaves me half a catamaran short.
Turning the boat upside down on sawhorses is by far the easiest way to do this kind of work. It’s extra nice in a a skin boat because of all the light. It’s surprising how many things you can modify or repair through the cockpit, although it doesn’t really hit varsity level until you’re working out of our it’s reach!
My general process for reinforcements like this is to cut the piece, mask off the glue surface, give it a quick coat oil, drill for clamping screws, then pull the tape and apply glue. Another strip of masking tape on the edge directly after clamping (screwing in this case) catches the squeeze out from the gorilla glue and then I can peel that tape an hour later for a clean edge.
Hopefully in a few days I’ll know if the kayak catamaran is a viable concept on my standard designs, (with the single front deck ridge) or if I have to surrender to the flat front deck like the boat I built last month.
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