Going Sailing

I am going to teach sailing in Baja for about a month. Should be fun but sadly it means there won't be any more progress on the Enigma 460 until the Xmas holidays.

Side Deck Carlins

Fitting 'em was a little tedious but the side deck carlins are in. They look like they belong there so doesn't look like much, but noticeably strengthens the sheer.


Here what they look like from below. (Sorry photo is sideways!) (Deck beam on the left, sheer batten at top, carlin bottom.)

Laminating Deck Carlins & Filleting

I've waited to install the deck carlins because there shape is taken from the installed deck house. I made a template out of scrap plywood to get the shape and am laminating them to the curve out of 2 pieces each.


Pulled the wires and added fillets on the exterior and interior of the house. The interior corners were masked off prior to applying the fillets to keep things neat. Here is some of the exterior filleting.

Deck House is On

The deck house is aligned and tacked on with thickened epoxy. (My wife has changed her assessment of the project from "coffin" to "tug boat.") The house tapers to provide full width at the aft end and accomodation for yuloh storage at deck level forward.

Overhead view. The bracing was used to spread the house sides and the front and back to fit the deck. Still have to fit the side deck carlins now that the shape is established.

Decks Going On

The underside of the aft deck was coated with epoxy, then the sheer and framing buttered with thickened epoxy. Temporary screws into the sheer batten hold the plywood in place while the epoxy sets.


Same process for the foredeck. The underside is coated with epoxy only as far back as the bulkhead. The rest will be coated later when I am finishing up the cabin.


The sheer batten and frames are buttered with thickened epoxy.


The foredeck section is turned over, set in position and strapped down to bend it to its approximate shape. The plywood was cut oversize, so precise fit is not critical. The edges will be trimmed after the epoxy is set.


The foredeck is clamped down with temporary screws into the deck beam and the sheer batten every 6-8 inches. The aft section will be cut away up to the deck beam once the house is fitted.


The side decks are cut out oversize from the remainder of the foredeck sheet and held in place temporarily with screws and a few impromptu braces. They will also be trimmed once the house is fitted.

Bulkhead Hatches

Once the decks are on, access to the forward and aft compartments will be restricted to the hatch openings. Consequently, I am finishing up as much as possible at this point in those soon to be awkward-to-access areas. Final coat of epoxy, reinforcement for the bow eye on the stem, and the fitting of the hatches.

Matt's Enigma hatches are fashioned from cut off tops of screw-top polyethylene plastic buckets. The bucket side is epoxied to the bulkhead early in the building process. Epoxy doesn't stick to this material so the joint is mechanical. In the process of looking for screw-top buckets, I ran across a different style of screw top for a bucket called a Gamma Seal. I thought I would adapt that to the 460 instead of Matt's method. A Gamma Seal is basically a screw top adapter for the more common snap-on lid bucket. Not sure if this is going to be any better than Matt's solution, but I think it will serve.

The basic Gamma Seal lid.

A temporary template was made to hold the bolts in place while the outer ring is filled with thickened epoxy. Mold release is used to keep the template from adhering to the template.

Bolts epoxied into the outer ring. The epoxy makes the ring much more rigid, too.


Outer ring fit to the aft bulkhead.


Nylock nuts secure the ring in place. The bolt holes are very close to the edge of the cutout in the bulkhead. Less than ideal, but I'm going with it at this point. Eventually, I'll epoxy the rings in place and that should provide a secure joint. One might even leave the bolts out, fill the ring with epoxy as above and epoxy that straight to the bulkhead.

The hatch in place with screw-in cover.

Deck Framing

Compound angle cuts, all the clamps I have, and the carlins are going in. The bulkheads were a little bowed, so I am using the carlin installation to set them straight.

The blocking at the deck beam is for the mast partner, and the blocking at the bulkhead is the backing for the foredeck cleat. It's been a little weird putting all this together without permanent fastners, but I am getting the hang of it. Not a single permanent fastner in the boat so far. Temporary screws (and the wires of course) make good clamps occasionally.


Aft carlins complete. Blocking is for the stern cleat.