S/V Po Oino Roa: CONSTRUCTION MOVES ALONG

Pinoy Boat Services
Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines

It's been ten days since our last update and progress's keep moving along. Sandy, who is the fiberglass and prepare to paint worker keeps busy sanding and then adding "bog" which is epoxy mixed with different type of fillers to then sanded to give a smooth finish. Today it was a mixture of epoxy paint and talcum powder to fill the smallest of pinholes. This gets sanded further and more fill applied until perfect.

During this same time Lando, the carpenter, has stayed busy building what will be the support for the top. This has involved lots of input from both Kathy and I as we will be the ones who must live with the final result. One of our main concerns was that the final product did not look like a box set on top of the center cockpit of Po oino Roa. We have been thinking of this "room addition" for a number of years and want it to add to the look of the boat not detract. To accomplish this our idea has been to keep all the supports at angles. So far as we look at the framework that Lando has built we seem to be on the right track. As each and every support has been cut and held up both Kathy and I look at it from various locations trying to get a feel for what the final outcome will be. Lando has an excellent eye for how things ought to look too. The plan was to box in the splash guard combing and for the supports to then be attached there. This involved first putting up some of the supports at what we thought was the proper angle and then having Lando make a model of the front part of the bimini top as it had been laid up in the honeycomb material and fiberglass. This gave us a two foot wide replica. We then spent time looking and adjusting until we were happy. This same process was done for the aft section of the new bimini. Lando then was able to complete the boxing in of the space in front off the splash guard combing.

That was finished yesterday. Today all was removed as the new wood needs to be encapsulated in fiberglass and then re-installed on the boat. It will then be fiber glassed to the existing cabin top. Once the structure was removed this morning Lando used the grinder to smooth away the areas on the cabin top so the new construction has something to adhere to. Tomorrow the re-assembly process starts.

I'm very impressed with the carpentry skills we have seen here, most all is done the old fashioned way with hand saws, planes and chisels. They do use a power grinder and planer but most is done with the simpler hand tools. It may take them a bit more time but we pay 800 pesos or $20 US per day for Lando, in the USA a carpenter with his shill would more than likely command $40 to $60 per hour. I was speaking to another yachtie here who has eight workers daily on his boat. He figures that there daily wages approximately 5,000 pesos equal what the same as for one hour of a shipwright in Australia.

Now after a proof read by Kathy I'll send this off to publish and then with luck be able to add some photos.

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