The next stage is to fit the deck skins but before doing so I drilled some holes in the bulkheads to pass the wiring for the lighting circuits and servos through later.
The battery supports are in place and I have cut two larger holes in bulkheads B4 & B5 and bridged them with a bar to act as a support for wiring and water cooling tubes so everything is supported and looks tidy. I then applied 3 coats of sanding sealer to all accessible areas inside the hull, rubbing down between each coat. I forgot to mention previously that before fitting the bottom and side skins the voids at the bow ahead of B1 were sealed with sanding sealer. I used silver Hammerite paint over the sanding sealer as suggested in the building instructions, and when dried and hardened has provided an attractive and durable finish.
The insides of the cabin sides and cabin formers will probably be painted black at a later stage.

The deck support fillet supplied in the kit is a bit too narrow to support the foredeck skins when they are butted together so I made a substitute from some obechi strip laminated together resulting in a larger surface area for the skins to be glued and pinned to.
I fitted the deck skins in a different order to the instructions starting with the side decks, but made sure that the joins butt together over the bulkheads. All are glued with aliphatic and pinned in place, clamps were used to hold the deck skins down where they meet the cabin sides as I didn't want to use pins there. The towing hook deck and transom decks are also fitted.
Finally all the deck skins are trimmed flush with the hull sides, the pins punched just below the surface and a little filler applied and rubbed down.

Whilst researching finishing techniques for the hull I sent off for some samples of woven fibreglass material so that I could choose an appropriate gsm weight. I settled on a 100gsm woven glassfibre twill cloth that is particularly good at conforming to compound curves. The same supplier also does carbon fibre and Kevlar cloth and they are prohibitively expensive but a narrow strip could be good to further protect the bow and keel I suppose.
The resin I have chosen has a 'pot life' of 95 minutes so work can be done at a reasonable pace, the alternative is a 'fast' hardener that has a 17 minute pot life which might entail rather frantic application!
I ordered 3 metres of 1m wide cloth, a 1kg pack of resin & 'slow' hardener, some mixing cups and sticks and 10 disposable brushes for £45 including shipping.
When it all arrived I thought it would be good to do a test piece before the real thing.
The resin and hardener are mixed in a 100:30 ratio by weight, hence the electronic scales in the picture.
I found that the easiest way to use this stuff was to apply a thin coat of resin to the surface, lay the cloth onto it and gently stipple the cloth into the resin, a further thin coat is then brushed on then set aside to cure.
I found it best not to overwork the resin into the cloth, it's definitely a case of 'less is more' as you can easily ripple the cloth and having done so it can be made worse by trying to flatten it. No need for plastic cards or such to smooth it out, it self-levels nicely.
I left it to cure for a couple of days and then experimented with sanding, a detail sander with an 120 grit pad achieved a very good flat surface without going through the cloth.
Two further coats of resin with a rub down between, each with finer grade abrasives, resulted in a glass smooth surface that when keyed would be an ideal surface for the paint system.
Encouraged by these results I decided to do the thing for real 😰
The supplier for these materials is www.easycomposites.co.uk if anyone is interested.

The hull was prepared for fibreglassing, any pins are punched below the surface, filled and rubbed down with a fine grit paper. The wood does not need any sanding sealer applied as this will react with the epoxy resin.
I cut the cloth roughly to size and shape and laid onto the bottom skin, the upper edge was lightly taped with masking tape to hold it in place.
The resin is mixed to the correct 100:30 ratio and stirred well, the pot life is 95 minutes and will allow me to take my time to get this right.
My previous test was very helpful in establishing a working sequence and I know how the materials will react when I start working them and how much time I have before the brush stops brushing and starts dragging the resin.
The cloth is folded over to the other side of the keel and a thin coat of resin applied over the skin and the side of the keel and then the fabric is carefully folded back onto the wet resin.
The resin immediately starts to draw the cloth to the surface and a very light brushing from the centre outwards helps to make it smooth and flat, the remaining resin can then be gently brushed onto the cloth so that there is an even coating. The cloth needed to be pushed up against the keel sides and I used a steel rule edge to get it into the junction of hull and keel.
I decided to trim the cloth just at the bow along the line of the join in the skins whilst the rein was still wet so that I would have a clean butt join in the cloth in this region instead of an overlap, probably not really necessary as an overlap should sand down ok and that join will be covered by the chine stringer, but it seemed like a good idea anyway.
I did a similar thing on the keel below the propshaft and around the skeg.
This was done with a sharp new Stanley knife blade without disturbing the cloth and the excess cloth removed.
Once the cloth is on you must resist the urge to brush on any more resin or smooth it out any more, this first resin coating only needs to be light as subsequent coats will build up and fill the cloth weave.
I let it to cure overnight and the following day is still felt tacky so I erred on the side of caution and left it for a further day until it was entirely dry to the touch.
The excess cloth was then trimmed back with a sharp blade. Caution, be careful because the cut edge of the cloth is itself very sharp, as I found out the hard way!
Feeling quite satisfied with these initial results and a great deal more confident I repeated the process for the other bottom skin.
At this rate of progress, allowing for proper curing of the resin, it will take 8 days just to cover all five faces of the hull with cloth alone, but a wise man said 'a job worth doing is a job worth doing well' 😄

The fibreglassing process is turning out to be a great deal easier than I anticipated, the cloth weave allows it to conform to the hull shape without any creasing, and the resin brushes on very easily and has no unpleasant smell at all.
I had read other build blogs where the resin was described as having an unpleasant smell and was difficult to work with, perhaps that's because this is epoxy rather than polyester?
In retrospect I could have ordered an alternative resin kit from the supplier where two bottles of hardener are supplied, one slow (95 min pot life) and one fast (17min pot life), because as my confidence increased I could probably do an application with the fast hardener in the shorter time and thus curing time would also be correspondingly quicker.
The transom is the last face to do and once that had cured I could then give the complete hull it's first rub down before I shape and fix the gunwhale and the chine rubbing strakes.
Once these are on I can apply the two further resin coats to get the final finish.

Because the fibreglassing process takes a while, there's time to consider other things that need to be done such as the wheelhouse, cabin roofs and hatches, and the electrics.
The electrics are very straightforward and my initial drawings are transformed into a panel that also contains the master power switch, fuse holder and a charging socket.
All the wiring is in 12awg silicone insulated wire and all connections are soldered and insulated with heat shrink.
Initially I used large Futaba connectors but having assembled and tested the loom I'm not very confident of the current handling of these so I replaced them all with XT60 connector that are rated at 65A.
I'll leave the Futaba charging connector in the switch panel as this doesn't need to be uprated.
The master switch is a high current DPDT, centre off type that in one position connect the battery supply to the ESC and motor via the fuse and in the other position to the charging socket.
Although the ESC has a BEC I will supply the receiver and lighting circuits from separate battery supplies, mustn't forget to remove the power wire from the ESC servo connector!
I have incorporated an in-line ammeter in the loom that should monitor and log peak amps and volts, it's only rated at 30A and I'm not sure that it's up to the job, if not I know that 'Component-shop' do something similar that will meter up to 150A for about £18 or so.
I have chosen a Turnigy charger from Hobbyking that will accommodate the 16 cell NiMh (19.2v) series battery system so that the charging can be done with the batteries in situ, the charger has a 12v DC input so this can done at the lakeside from a car battery if required, but it has no AC input. it will also handle LiPO batteries if I decide to switch chemistry !.
That means that I'll need a meaty DC power supply to run the charger on the bench and I have just the thing for the job.....

The power supply that I want to go with the Turnigy charger is out of stock at Hobbyking so as a temporary measure I have decided to convert an old PC power supply for the purpose.
I'm not going into any detail on how this is achieved because unless you have the required skills and knowledge it is best not to mess with power supplies. 💀
A PC power supply actually has a number of different voltage outputs but I'll just be utilising the 12v output.
Two insulated sockets are fitted to the side of the power supply case for the output, and a switch and a couple of led's and current limiting resistors are fitted to the back panel, the existing rocker switch is the main on/off switch and the small toggle switch 'starts' the power supply, the LED's just indicate power on and 12v output present.
For now this unit will be sufficient for my purposes until the unit I want is back in stock at Hobbyking, in the meantime I am now able to charge the NiMH battery packs that have arrived and test the boats electrical system.

The centre cabin roof is designed to be removable and to get a good fit the frame is initially constructed in place with some card packing inserted and clamped between the frame, the cabin sides and cabin formers.
I used two layers of 'cornflake box' thickness card for this.
This is to ensure that when sanding sealer and paint has been applied to the surfaces there is a bit of clearance so that the roof can be easily removed, ideally this should be a friction fit but I can use a couple of small magnets to hold it in place if it ends up a bit too loose.
Once the basic frame was made it was removed to the bench and the centre roof former and fillets were fitted and glued.
I then glued and pinned the roof to the frame with about a 1/8th overlap of the cabin sides and then the frame and skin clamped together while the glue set.
Once the clamps were off the roof was tried for fit and although loose at this stage it should be a snug fit when it's all painted
The hatch was made from the pre-cut piece and some 1.5mm ply scrap for the frame, I assembled this on my cutting mat with some brass pins to hold it all together.
I also made some runners for the hatch from scrap ply and obechi strip and glued these to the roof skin, a couple of small slots in the finished hatch locate it on the runners.
I won't fix this hatch in place until it's all painted.
The pins were then punched in just below the roof skin surface and a little filler used to level it and after a light sanding it's ready for sanding sealer. I think I will make a frame and door to fit to the cabin former to add a little more detail.

I made the engine room roof covers in the same manner as the centre cabin roof but this one is a bit more complex because of the raised roof panels, escape hatches and rescue net rails
Spacers are used between the roof skin and the raised roof skins and it's here that I have made a small error in that I should have trimmed the spacer a little so that when the raised roof panels are fitted a lip is formed. The pre-cut spacers are actually supplied cut slightly too large and need to be trimmed to form this detail. it's only a minor thing and I know it will bug me but to rectify it would mean re-constructing the roof so I'll just put it down to experience 😭
Before I fitted the raised roof skins I added some additional spacers in the areas where the white metal deck fitting would be installed as I intend to bolt these through the skins rather than just rely on glue which won't really be sufficient to hold them securely.
The two hatches also have spacers that are correctly sized so that a lip is formed, at least I got that bit right!
I cut shallow groove in the hatches to simulate the hinge line but I'll fit the hinges later in the painting process.

The rescue net rails are very fiddly to do as each support needs to be drilled accurately so that the rail passes through it nice and straight.
I used scrap ply for these although using some obechi strip may have been easier, for some reason I'm always drawn to doing things the difficult way to get the best results, but that's just in my nature. The blocks were cut from a strip of scrap ply of the correct thickness to all the same height and drilled through. After a quick clean-up with some abrasive paper they were then were glued to the roof skin with epoxy at carefully measured spacings according to the plan, the dowel rod was passed through each as it progressed to be sure that the alignment was correct.
Once the epoxy had set the blocks were sanded to all the same height...... then it's onto the other side and repeat the process.
I needed a tiny bit of filler here and there because the drilling process tends to split the ply face out a little bit despite very careful drilling. That's why obechi strip might have been the better choice.
I will fit the dowel rails in place once it's all fully assembled, rubbed down and sealed.
I'm not too sure if I will attempt to make the rescue nets, finding something ready-made may be difficult but not impossible and I'm certainly not going to take up crochet work at my age !
Anyone fancy making them up for me for a small fee?