Hi,

For those interested I attach some pictures of progress of Romanza no 4 'Brio'. Not the prettiest hull I think you will agree but a dramatic shape never the less. She has been rubbed down and the first filler coat applied so a fair bit of work yet to get get to the final finish. As you can see she has the keel box and all internals installed, the mast box, radio pot & deck are also finished.

The plans do not give any details of the keel section so I have gone for a slim keel built from cedar strips and skinned in eglass, this may affect the displacement but if it proves to be a problem I shall have to build another keel with increased volume.

I am a little worried that I have built her too light, the stripped hull weighs just 1.3 kg, may be OK but I have gone too far to go back now.

The picture also shows the ballast which I cast and shaped today. I cut a timber mould and cast a 30mm thick billet after heating scrap lead in an old biscuit tin with charcoal on an old BBQ (Health & Safety rules apply here). I then cut additional contours from lead sheet and bonded them to the billet with body filler and and shaped the ballast using more body filler. It was simple to shape using a jack plane, rasp and orbital sander. Not quite finished but all in all it took about five hours to complete.

I have drawn up the top suit of sails based on the details given in the plans and plan to make them build the rig and over the next few weeks.

Cheers

Brian

looks good Brian