Bow Capping

The 5.5 meter Rob Shaw design boat has a plumb bow and follows a gentle curve going from side to side.  The topsides that we installed only go forward so far so we had to create another piece to fit.  Goran was in charge of building it.  He got the measurements from AutoCAD and the built a jig that he used to glue thin strips of foam together to go around the needed curve.  We actually had to do this twice.  The first pieces of foam were not bevelled at all so the inside of the job was neat and tidy but the outer facing had large gaps.  So we made new strips of foam that had several different angles and once they were glued together and the finished product sanded it was nearly perfect.  the next step was installing it.  In order to fit the plumb bow I had to shape the bow capping and the topsides to fit.  Once I had cut back the topsides to the desired distanced, I learned that the bow had a smaller radius at the bottom than at the top so the piece fit perfectly along the deckline but at the chine it was too large.  I made a two symmetrical cuts starting at the bottom and finishing about 35% up the piece.  It fit perfectly.  After glue and coving the hull was complete and ready for glass.