Cannot resist a photo of the access stairs now that I have a second coat of clear epoxy on them. Also a close up of the quality of the plywood used in the stairs and also in the hull.
\nAnother alteration I have installed is 12 mm plywood reinforcement over the keel in two places where there is a splice join. Dudley’s plan already has plywood across the centre line join down the keel on the outside of the hull. This provides considerable cross grain strength to the keel. I have added the 12 mm plywood to give cross grain strength in the inside of the keel as well as stiffness along the section. So effectively there is a sandwich construction with ply on both sides of the meranti keel. \u00a0Each 12 mm piece of plywood weights approx 2 kg so for 4 kg additional weight low down on the keel I get a lot of insurance. I added these because the meranti backbone has a massive amount of cross grain reinforcement in the keel floor area and then nothing extra in the quite wide spans between the frames fore and aft of the keel.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>No worries about cross grain strength in the keel floor area. The laminated frames are 110 mm wide where they cross the meranti backbone<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>An interior layer of 12 mm plywood for cross grain strength for the keel (backbone) of our Didi 40 Cr<\/p><\/div>\n