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The first hurricane I remember was when I was eight years old. My family had decided to charter a sailboat with another family for two weeks in the British Virgin Islands. We flew into St. Thomas where we picked up the boat. I remember the first day my father went over all the safety information with us, including all the necessities, like how to properly operate the head. He was the sailor of the group and took on the role as captain looking out for his crew.
The first stop we made was at Peter Island and Norman Island (reputed as inspiration for Robert Luis Stevenson’s Treasure Island) we anchored overnight. It was my first night sleeping aboard a sailboat at anchor. I can still remember the magic of watching the sun set, the colors turning cooler, and water gently lapping the hull.
The next day, we started our journey in earnest with our destination being Virgin Gorda. On our way, we were heard some reports of a weather disturbance in the Atlantic with favorable conditions for strengthening. My father’s healthy respect for nature kept him attuned to the situation. I recall him radioing the charter company asking if they wanted us bring the boat back to Tortola while there was still time. “No worries, man,” the voice on the radio said, “All is fine. There’s safe harbor at the Bitter End. Just ride it out there.”
We continued and rounded Mosquito Island heading for that one particular harbor as the first storm of the 1980 Hurricane Season was making its way to the Caribbean...
The instruction manual discussed 2 ways to proceed with preparing the hull to be glued. One way uses pushpins, the other uses wooden cleats to help align the hull pieces as they are glued in place. I opted for the cleat method since it appeared that method would give me a little more stability and time when it came to epoxying the hull pieces together. (Being in the heat of Florida, I had concerns about the epoxy setting up quickly.)an
I marked the bow and top so I could keep the sides and orientation correct for both pieces.
The instructions say to make a number of marks 1/8” of inch along the top and bottom. I measured the intervals first along the length, then I used a wood block and the hatch piece from the top deck as a guide for the thickness to mark the offset of the line at each location.
Instead of the cedar pieces per the manual, I used 1/8” x 1/8” x 3/4” balsa wood for the cleats. I chose the balsa wood as soft material, to give me the option of being able to easily cut it back when it came to epoxying the fillets. The balsa wood strip can be found at a hobby store.
I used crazy glue to attach the cleats, keeping the cleats back 2 ¾” from the bow so they wouldn’t interfere with each other where the two sides come together to form the bow. Use the crazy glue that is suited for wood (porous materials).
Here’s an image of all the cleats in place, as the crazy glue dries.
The hatch piece pop-out provided a great scribe. Be sure to keep this hatch piece as it's used for mounting the controller device in a later step.
This all took very little time, and so I decided to give the glue plenty of time to dry.
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