The irony of running your own business is that when you are full time employed, you sit at your desk dreaming about being your own boss and being able to take time off whenever you want….The harsh reality is you NEVER get time off!
I decided enough was enough and took friday off to do the big bit of the ninjaville project.. laying up the hull. I woke up with an excitement not felt since I was a kid.. I was about to fulfill a dream that started two years ago.
Javi and Jordi arrived at 10am on the dot and were a huge help. I must reiterate… this could not have run as smoothly without their help. It turns out that Jordi is a dark horse and has been making windsurfers and kite boards since he was 15 so he was a dab hand throughout the process.
The first step was to thoroughly wax and polish the mold which was done in 1/2 an hour with so many hands! The two guys steamed through it with clinical efficiency.
The garage heaters worked brilliantly and the ambient temperature was exactly 18.9c (ideal for working with resin). At this point it was time to layup the hull so the first skin of 200g twill weave carbon went in. While Javi and Jordi brushed the resin in, I followed behind them with the squeegee to even out the resin and ensure a nice level spread.
The next stage was to put in the 3mm core cell and c-mat. We squeegeed in a generous amount of filler (resin and colloidal silica) into the c-mat to form a good bonding surface and fill in the slots. Once they were jiggled in to place, we filled any gaps with more filler. Thankfully the templates from Mike were pretty spot on so they slotted together nicely.
Once in place, the final inner skin of 200g biaxial went in to complete the layup. We used b-grade biaxial which was stuff that came off the start of a big roll. The carbon itself is absolutely spot on and the only problem with it was the joining threads which meant that in some patches it was very tricky to keep the two directions of the weave in check. Again Jordi came through and gently teased it all in to place.
With it all laid up, it really was starting to look like a moth so on went the vacuum bag. This was the only place where we had issues. We couldn’t find the leak for ages until an hour later we tracked it down to the worst possible place, right in the bow (the Ninja bow is incredibly fine which looks awsome, but is really tricky to fit hands in!)
With the skill of a gynecologist, we managed to seal up the hole and everything came together.
The portable cellotex oven is superb and the final check last night had the temperature at 63c. So later today I’ll be removing the vacuum bag and seeing the first stages of the boat in reality.
Once again, special thanks go to Mike for showing me the most efficient way to do this. His wealth of experience in building moths certainly saved me a lot of heartache and frustration.
Jordi and Javi are excellent and future superstars in the world of boatbuilding, keeping a cool head when things looked like they were going off track.
Thanks to you all for giving me my dream!
Next chapter is the unveiling and then deck layup. No chance this weekend as I have another website to get live 
