It's been too cold in the basement to glass the hull. Even with a space heater I could only warm it up to 69 degrees. I experimented on one of the bulkheads and thought it was going well until I checked it the next morning. The glass weave was still visible under three coats of epoxy. Looks like I'm waiting for warmer weather.

So in the meantime I started to build a pair of retractable skegs from Nick's plans and some carbon fiber hooks for the internal bungee hatch hold downs.

I used blue masking tape and spray adhesive to attach the pattern for the skeg to a 1/4" blank of western red cedar. I modified Nick's shape to eliminate the sharp 90 degree angle between the leading edge and the pivot point. This will allow me to use a triangle of carbon fiber cut on a bias from a 20 inch square to cover the entire blade.

Rounded over the leading edge using a 1/8" radius round over bit. Chamfered the trailing edge using a 45 degree chamfer bit just to establish the center line for the trailing edge. Then I drew a curve where I wanted the airfoil to start and drilled holes to transfer the line to the other side.

Shaped the airfoil for the trailing edge with a microplane.

Looks sharp after sanding.

Gave it a sealer coat of carbon-tinted epoxy. After some light sanding I'll apply the carbon fiber.

Also started on a pair of control knobs made out of 3/4" cherry. Not sure how well the carbon-tinted epoxy is going to work here. It might leave a stain on the cherry after these are shaped and sanded. If so I'll be remaking these with clear epoxy.

Finally, made a set of carbon fiber hooks to help hold down the hatches with internal bungees. These consist of 6 layers of 6 oz glass sandwiched between 2 layers of 5 oz carbon fiber. They were shaped around a piece of 1/4" poplar covered with packing tape. A piece of mylar on the outside held everything together while the epoxy setup.