Well, that keel that had such a modest start a couple of weeks ago has grown up. I now have a full-fledged skeg at the rear. Twelve layers (I think it was) by the end, it adds up to a 9" depth from the hull bottom. This should give good tracking and good protection from any floating debris to the prop.

After the bolts, (http://www.madmariner.com/blog/bruce_dillahunty/10648) the next layer was a bit of a pain. Had to hollow out a bit of a space for the heads of the bolts. After that, I just stacked and glued. Then I'll have to plane it to shape. Wound up with a couple of them too long toward the bow, but much easier to plane more off than try to add if I get something too short.

One item I keep "learning" over and over, but don't seem to be absorbing well in this project: Go ahead and make the jig, waste the "scrap" or whatever. I always want to "not bother" or "not use the materials" to rig up a jig. I find that usually it winds up wasting much more time, or more materials when I mess something up, than if I had gone ahead and made the jig.

This was a similar case. The plans include a nice picture of building up a similar skeg on a Mark V20. The designer/builder has rigged a temporary couple of boards to lay out the shape he is building to. After a couple of layers I realized finding the right "angle" to determine the length of each layer was tough. Broke down and rigged up a straight edge out of some scrap and wah-lah... easy as pie.