Purely to offer some protection to the hull while work continues, a coat or two of undercoat seemed advisable. I used Hempel's two part epoxy which certainly gave a very tough finish but, working with about a litre for each coat, I found that the pot life (in theory between 2 - 6 hrs depending on temperature) wasn't quite long enough. The mix started to drag a bit towards the end so that the finish at the end wasn't as good as at the start; need to work with 1/2 litre mixes in future.
The hull plus mould weighed about 120kg and since there wasn't room to lift the hull cleanly off the mould, I had to turn the whole thing onto its side, push it up against one wall and then let it down the right way up. (Thanks for the help John and Graham).
I had designed the mould with removable sections in the frames so that it should lift cleanly away from the hull - Ha! - in my dreams. Once the removable sections had been taken out, the mould was clearly free of the hull (thanks to all the sellotape used) but lifting it free was a bit like pushing a very fat drunkard up a spiral staircase; I gave up! In the end I had to resort to cutting the mould into three sections before the hull was at long last revealed. (Thanks to Sarah and Peter for help with the fat drunkard). At this stage the bare hull weighs 72kg.
Even without ribs or frames the bare hull is pretty solid - probably due to the rigidity of 9mm marine ply - but care will have to be taken that no slight twist from bow to stern creeps in. The order of work now is firstly to trim the upper edge of the sheer strake (with the aid of temporary pins as shown), then fit the breast hook and knees, then the outer gunnel and rubbing strip.
Glad to have finished the planking - the rest looks pretty straight forward - except for the outboard well which I reckon will be a real problem.
