Building the mold for the urethane foam.

The foam is incredibly strong, considering it weighs so little.  The force of expansion popped out some of the screws that held the mold.  No problem, too much foam is easily sanded away in minutes.

In this picture you can see the glass and filler covering the factory exhaust holes.  Since we purchased Sunny Ray we have glassed over 14 factory holes in our boat!!!  Holes are just simply not good things in boats.  We almost sunk due to a through hull failure in the Gulf of Mexico, so I am happy to seal up any unnecessary holes.

I decided to use filler over the foam to help the shaping process and to aid in sealing the foam so no water works it's way in over the years.  The sanded and shaped filler will provide a good base for the layers of biaxial glass which will come later.  The rail along the deck will be screwed into base plates not allowing the screws to penetrate the deck Nidacore.  The base plates are pre-drilled, bored out and filled with epoxy.  After the glass and gel coat work is finished I'll re-drill the holes only deep enough for 3/4" screws so the watertight deck will not be compromised with screw holes.

One piece at a time

Vertical bulkheads, and decks glassed in place.

 Starboard transom piece with mounts for swim ladder in progress.

 Port transom with outboard engine transom board receiver mount in progress.

Nidacore is amazingly strong, light and stiff building material.

Transom extension work, first step.

Transom extension work underway at St. Augustine Marine Center, FL.

Today I will install the starboard deck, and start cutting out the new transom faces.  Waterline is not where it appears.  The normal waterline is at the bottom of the blue stripe.  The bottom paint has been slurry blasted off and the remaining black color is an epoxy copper coating that was likely applied when the boat was new.  Based on our best estimates we should have a 6 inch overhang when the boat is fully loaded.  No more slimy green bottom steps, and hopefully a smoother faster ride offshore.

In the last second of this video you can see water backwash up to the second step of the original transom.  The video shows about 6-7 knots of boat speed.  At speeds less than 5 knots, in large waves water would cycle on and off the bottom step, generating lots of turbulence and slowing our boat. It felt like we were towing buckets each time it happened.  The new transoms should eliminate this.