This week, we are back with Matt and Janni from The Duracell Project. As the new owners of this Open 60 sailboat, they are transforming this legendary racing boat into a comfortable cruising home. They have an action packed summer full of boat work ahead. In today’s video of the week, Matt continues the boat’s transom transformation by putting together the transom face and large swim step with our High Performance Epoxy !
Matt is working on gluing together the swim step and transom face for Duracell. He previously designed and began the stern rebuild to create a bigger cockpit by taking advantage of the racing boat’s sloped transom. His new design to expand the cockpit will leave more room to sail the boat single-handed, benches for guests and a large swim step. He begins by cutting out the swim step and transom face from old pieces that he cut out of the boat during demolition. He plans on recycling as many parts of the boat as he can during this refit. Once the transom face and swim step pieces are cut out and sanded down, he tapes together the face of the swim step so he can remove the whole part out to finish it.
He mixes a batch of thickened High Performance Epoxy and begins the glue-up with 1708 Fiberglass Cloth. He saturates the cloth by applying the epoxy with a chip brush and an epoxy roller, followed by a layer of peel ply. Once the face and step are taped together he removes the whole part as one piece. He brings it back inside the boat shop to finish glassing the other side. Now that it is ready to go, he glues the piece on Duracell with more thickened epoxy that he dispenses using a plastic bag to pipe it into place. And, just like that, this big transom transformation has taken shape!
They also received a special visit from an old friend and mentor, Al. Al has been a huge influence in Matt’s life as he did his first couple ocean crossings with Al along with getting the boat building bug from him as well! It was really great to see Matt show Al around Duracell, especially because Al has also previously owned an Open 60.
Be sure to give the video a like and subscribe to The Duracell Project to follow along the weekly episodes of this journey as Matt and Janni document every step of their project!
