A few notes prior to beginning this journey:

• The grey stuff is rigid Divinylcellâ foam, ½” thick
• The pink, flat parts are surplus aircraft honeycomb from Boeing Surplus
• The darker pink stuff smeared all over the place is Bog, a mixture of epoxy and thickeners about the consistency of peanut butter. Low and high density fillers are used in various proportions, depending on need.

The location didn’t look so industrial under the proper lighting

My “truss” for hanging the infrared heaters used to help cure on cold days

My big box o’goodies from Australia

Laying the foam out in 32' long strips and placing carbon on one side to increase their stiffness

Cutting the foam into strips. I used mostly 2” strips, but went as small as ¾” in areas of tight curvature. I initially was cutting with a Makita cordless saw and a blade with less than 1/16” kerf, but the carbon destroyed that blade pretty quick so I went to a carbide blade on my skilsaw. That blew carbon all over the place and I ended up wearing a tyvek suit for cutting.

All set up for striping. This is for the starboard outside and port inside halves

It would take about an afternoon to strip one half. and then I would trim it put the unidirectional carbon going transverse install the bulkheads pop it out of the frames and repeat

After both halves were out of the frames, it was time to reverse the frames and build the other two halves. This would be the starboard inside and port outside halves.

The same process as before…

When the first half of the second set is complete, add one half from previous set. The wood strips are just for alignment until the bog cures.

Remove it from the frames and repeat for the last ama. Set them upright (don’t forget to put the sterns on) make the required cutouts and put in hard spots for deck hardware. For this step, I just set my router to the thickness of the foam and then filled the hole with bog There is a “crash block” (that is the beginnings of the daggerboard case on the right) , specified in the plans; a watertight bulkhead at the tip of the ama and about 6” of foam I used sprayfoam and sanded it down with a longboard.

Then the amas get their exterior fabric on both sides That’s it for the amas for now. I decided to paint the whole boat at once because at this stage I had no access to a qualified painter. That made it harder than if I had followed Ian’s recommendations, but I really had no choice.

All the ama frames are now scrap and the strongback is set up for the frames for the main hull.