Events Since Launching

   It could be seen a mile off that T3 was sitting too high and well above the waterline marked by the anti-fouling.Her profile on the water was about that of an 18' canoe and that, not unreasonably, pretty much spoke for her stability.

Her being tail up as well was contrary as one of my worries before launching was what I considered to be her fine entry aft would mean my weight at the helm would cause her to go tail down - thus the effort to afford her balance by way of the trim tabs on the rudder and make the sections hollow where possible.

Below shows the hollow rudder tube where the dotted line represents a heavy gauge but thin tube inserting below into a wider tube which houses the rods which locate on the back of the tabs.

The balancing part of the rudder is hollow so as to afford a lifting component to the stern of the boat.

T3 really does lie high in the water - I had calculated she would be down to about an inch below the paint line.

Despite some 176 lbs of bagged aggregate as aft as possible and as low as possible (down under the floor boards)  very little changed by way her footprint on the water. What did happen however was   to level her fore and aft trim. 

In order to test the engine and the mechanism for lifting and lowering it through the hull the boat had to be steadied. A beam clamped across the cabin uprights extended enough across the pontoon to be clamped a bracket held on the pontoon by a sack of aggregate.

......show picture ...............................

The motor started easily and its exhaust girgled merily up from it's propellor hub vents into the engine box in the stationary boat with some 6 inches to go before water would lap into the boat.

This looks bad as the substantial more ballasting required will offer precious little leeway before water would start to tumble in and sink her.

.........show picture of water in engine box and video of engine running ........................................

T3 has been lifted out of the water and dropped into her 8 castor cradle. Pretty much all over the submerge metal work the anti-fouling had bubbled. The blisters show that the separation has occurred between the tie coat and the epoxy- resin. The implications are several. The epoxy- resin was not roughened enough; the epoxy-resin I used was not that recommended by the makers of the anti-fouling; the time from application of the anti-fouling to the boat being launched had to within the month and I think this might have been borderline. Some parts of the submersed pintels that were free of anti-fouling were well covered in green stringy weed - the anti-fouled areas, bubbles and blisters as well, were slightly grubby but essentially without growth - so that was something!