First team race

It was a last-minute decision to start with Afonya on the Saturday race on 2nd September 2023.

The weather conditions were not ideal for sailing due to the very light breeze, but it was perfect for trying the boat for the first time in race conditions.

Here is a short video summary about AFONYA’s first race πŸ™‚

Keel & keel box & beavertail bulb

Huh, it is a huge work to make the lifting keel properly despite the design describing everything that one should know during the build works. Not only theoretically, but physically as well.
First, you need the find proper raw material, and I had to figure out how to do the process for the proper result.
Because I have a lot of pictures that have been taken during the working process I split the working phases to show you – it probably helps you to understand the process.

  • raw-material of the keel
  • shaping the foil (a symmetric wellformed wing profile holding the lead bulb)
  • shaping the head (a massive upper part of the keel to drive the keel up and down in the keel box)
  • keel box (the structure that supports the lifting keel from the boat bottom – backbone – to the cabin top)
  • reinforcement (to achieve the necessary strength to keep your boat well-balanced with whole sails)

Here are some pictures that make your mood better to follow the story πŸ˜‰

Pictures are originally taken from the year 2012 to 2022 – (I am going to add links to the end of this post that point to the split detailed posts to make you easily follow the timeline.)



to be continued… with the details

First sailings – summer 2023

The western basin of Lake Balaton in Hungary seems like ideal water for testing my Didi26 sailboat’s behavior. Last summer the water level was too shallow for her 1.7 m draft. This summer – however – the conditions are perfect. The quickly changing wind direction and gusts test the crew too πŸ™‚

New blog engine

I have started this blog in 2010 when started building a Didi26 sailboat. In the meantime, I had to suspend the processfor a couple of years and when I came back to continue working on the project I had to face that the provider PHP engine was upgraded without upgrading my blog engine. As usual, my old stuff was not able to be presented on the newly featured site, and also the missing blog updates made it impossible to publish new posts and properly display the old ones. Now, I refurbish everything – my sources were untouched, so for dispelling doubts I am going to place the original date stamp for every republished post of mine.

Fairing after 3nd layer of coating epoxy

This is the last layer under the paint. Anyway, the painting base coating will be also epoxy, and the middle layers – the so-called β€˜undercoat’ as well.

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Preparation for turning the hull (if you can, do all the painting before turning the hull, later much more difficult to paint)

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Fairing after 2nd layer of high coat

Putting on the second layer of UV Epoxy was relatively easy, but after each layer, I needed to sand the surface. Sanding is quite hard work, but the surface is getting nicer and nicer after every hour of the fairing. Some pictures: during the sanding process…

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