Sanding down the seat plugs ready to fill and fairing any unfair patches on the plugs before coating them again

Sanding down the plywood plugs to fair them up ready for next stage

Now it is ready for the filling to being and a lot of sanding to be done

A good use for the powerful vac, using as an extraction device.

Getting back to painting the yacht's hull

Getting back to work on the hull of Mai-Star II, starting to build up the coats of undercoat, The first of four coats of undercoat.

Now the first coat of undercoat is on, now the filling and fairing can being with sanding and filling until we get a fair hull again.

Starting to look more like her old self with a beautiful white hull.  

Starting to make the seat moulds out of the seat plugs that came with the boat mould

Sanding down the plugs surface to make it rough enough to take the first coat of epoxy to seal the surface before sanding it down later to have a smooth surface.

First coat of epoxy applied just got to wait for it to go off and harden ready to apply the next coat and keep building up the surface until happy with the surface finish before going on to the next stage. 

Getting the aft seat ready to go through the same treatment as the front seat.

Aft seat sanded down and first coat of epoxy applied 

Getting back to work after a few days off,

Marking out fore hatch ready to cut joints 

Starting to make new toe rails to replace the old damaged toe rails on Mai-Star II

Here is one of the old toe rails using it as a pattern for the o

new toe rails

Getting on with the varnishing of the rubbing skates and new toe rails and painting chain locker bulkhead and the step locker lid

All the cabin floorboards painted now ready to go back in the yacht when the rest of the work in the cabin is finished

Rubbing skates and toe rails get more coats of thinned varnish building up the layers slowly

The step locker getting ready to be painted 

Step locker now painted with  a fresh coat of undercoat

Taking up the port side half of the foredeck on Mai-Star II

Marking out the areas between the deck beams so not to cut them while removing the deck

More marking out 

One major bit to remove from the fore deck,so to gain access to the two damaged deck beams below

Steel knee put in sometime in the past to connect the deck beams to the grown frames

This is the port side deck to hull steel knee before the deck is removed

Most of the foredeck is off now, just a small area beside the forehatch area to the cabin front left to remove.

Making new fore hatch while renewing the fore deck

Putting the old hatch on to a jig to set it up to make the new hatch fit within the size of the old hatch

The new fore hatch will still have many of the old features, however, a few may be modify to fit into the new design of the new fore hatch  

Getting the new fore hatch pieces planned and thickness-ed up ready to set them up to make the corner joints 

Which will be unlike the last joints which were just screw together as butt joints. 

The two apprentices and myself hard at work on Mai-Star II

The second apprentice checking out the standing rigging 

While the second apprentice is hard at work giving the topsides a second coat of Yacht Primer before doing some spot filling of the other side of the topsides 

Starting to do the spot filling of te topsides

There is a far bit to do this time

Finally got to the end of the starboard side

The rudder getting a bit of TLC as well

 The top as well as the bottom

Starting to make a jig to make the new fore hatch around 

Planned up and thicknesses one bit of mahogany to make the new fore hatch, just a few more bits to go  

Finally finished the sliding doors on the lifeboat

both sets of windows finally finished off and the boat is now off on its voyages