A Wooden "Alternative" IOM RC Sailboat

Being forced to stay home due to the Coronavirus quarantine has had a positive impact on my boat building. I still haven't been able to sail my newly completed Vickers V8 IOM, yet have just planked and glassed a wooden Alternative IOM. It only took me eight days. It usually takes a couple weeks.

I haven't been motivated to blog about it, but I started planking on 5 April and finished planking last night. Today I sanded and have fiberglassed the outside.

The Alternative by Brad Gibson was a challenge to plank due to its up-swept bow and flared sheer near the bow. It turned out okay, but as any builder will tell you, there are goofs all over.

One that I only discovered after sanding is a lighter colored plank on the starboard side. It really showed up after fiberglassing as the epoxy brought it out... GAAAAH! How did that get there? The other goofs I'll let you find, but that one is pretty obvious.

Here's how it looks so far:

Here you can see that much lighter plank... Ugh!!

Here you can see the narrow bow and the flared topsides near the bow.

Look how bright that plank is! Ugh...

I'm trying an experimental keel plank idea using a plywood plank that I can epoxy the matching planks too. The plywood alignment piece becomes the keel plank. So far it seems to have worked but we'll see after it comes off the building board.

More after I cut it off the building board.

Cheers!

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