The state of play, as it currently stands:

The 0 station bulkhead is basically finished - I've glassed the aft side with light cloth (approx 2oz, 48g/m2) and epoxy and fitted the battens/frames on the aft side. Work has started on the 1 station frame. The deck beam has been laminated and is waiting to be taken out of the clamps, and the wood for the frames has been milled. I've drawn the v-berth top on the lofting lines so the framing for this can be built into the frames and bulkheads. Photos soon :-)

A week on the boat, practising manoeuvers takes it out of you. I've just slept over 12 hours on the first night back home! It was good though, and I'm sure we all learnt a lot. Of course, for me, doing it all in German adds an extra difficulty - a whole load of new vocab!!

I'm now just back from a great week on the Baltic, sailing on a Willing 31, a boat that I'd never even heard of before, but which turned out to be a capable sailboat. Most of the time was spent around the Kiel Bay area, but we did get up into Denmark for a couple of days. The purpose of the week was to practise for the practical part of the German Yachtmaster Coastal license, and it culminated in us taking the test on Friday. I'm proud to say I passed and am now the possessor of said license (having completed the theory and navigation parts last winter), but unfortunately the other two takers on our boat didn't have the same luck, which left a bit of a sour note on it all. The test itself is quite stressful, in that you have to perform manoeuvers under the eagle-eyed vigilance of the examiners, and they have their own rather inflexible ideas of how it all should be done (to the point of arguably being wrong sometimes!). It's not for the faint-hearted. Anyhow, I'm home again now, tired, happy, and with that definite feeling that the boat is still rocking :-)

I'm heading out for a week's sailing on the Baltic. We're starting from Kiel and aiming to do a bit of cruising through the Danish Islands. The weather is a bit iffy, but looking forward to it :-)

I've started on the forward bulkhead that comes at station 0. I began by cutting a template of the forward deck crown. I then used that to loft the bulkhead and mark it out and cut it.

Once cut out, I covered the forward side of the bulkhead in a 4oz cloth and epoxy (heavy cloth as it may become part of an anchor locker). I then used the crown template as a form to laminate a deck beam from douglas fir strips. This has now been cleaned up and cut to size. Finally, I cut some frame pieces and epoxied them to the forward side of the bulkhead.

The next video episode is out, featuring the second part of the stem/knee construction!!

I've fixed the stem to the knee, so it looks like this. To make sure everything was correctly aligned, I simply laid it on the lofted lines with glue applied and put 3 screws through it to hold it in place.

Then I cut some strips of 31/2 inch wide douglas fir and laminated them to the stem to give it more width and a bigger fixing area for the ply panels later.

When that was tidied up, it made this - the part that will hopefully one day plough through the oceans' waves :-)

I've just released episode 4 of the SV Tapatya video series. There are a few more details of the lofting process and the beginnings of the stem lamination in detail.

I cut and glued up the pieces that form the knee yesterday evening. The knee is basically a reinforcing web between the stem that forms the line of the bow and the flat bottom (curves fore and aft) of the boat. The plans stipulate 31/2" douglas fir for the knee, and that is exactly what I've used, layering up 4 pieces cut from a 2 metre length of 9cm square doug fir. At the moment its held together with screws, but these will be taken out again and I'll put some dowels through it instead to give it an additional mechanical bond. It'll be planed up to its final shape at the weekend and then joined to the existing stem, with some further bulking up of the stem after that.

There's an inspiring story in the latest edition of Classic Sailor about a guy sailing backwards to raise money for Alzheimer's/dementia research. The story can be read here;

https://classicsailor.com/2017/08/sailing-backwards/

At the bottom of the story page, there's a link to his fundraising page. Please help out if you can!!!

I've started laminating up the stem. I've used some recycled mahogany for that, laminating it on a form made of steel angle brackets screwed to the lofted stem line. Photo soon, video in production :-)