Pirates and Ernie Tape Ball!

Here's most of our group engrossed in building their yachts. L-R James (the Stig) trimming the edge of his deck.
(my son) Jake painting his boat "Keo Hop So", in a green colour scheme inspired by his Skull Candy brand headphones.
Sam is cutting the hatch opening into the wood stained deck of his pirate ship Arrr!
Peter's hands and as yet uncustomized boat are in the bottom right corner.
The yachts in the centre of the table are: L-R Avril's awaiting being painted bright red!
Les Hamptead's complete boat with recycled kite sails and a deeper keel than on the Papaya 3 plans.
The last (fishy) boat is mine, it has plastic bag sails and a noticeably shorter keel, all of our boats use steel as the keel weights and while three have nut's and bolts in a length of electrical conduit (as does Les's) and the other three use steel plates which because they are stuck to the sides of the keel shorten it a little, something I only noticed later, I'm hoping it won't effect their ability to tack too much, I'm waiting for some better weather to sail mine to try it out also I want to check that the sail area is balanced and do any adjustments before we use it as a template for the other boats.
Once they have done with painting things should be pretty well straight forward as i have made up all the bits of chandlery they need to assemble the masts and rudders etc though they have rejected the idea plastic sails in favour of nylon, I bet they they’ll be pestering their Mums to sew them for them!

Maybe in the next blog entry I'll introduce you to "Ernie tape ball" Sam and Jake's attempt to break the Guinness book of records largest ball of (assorted) self adhisive tape! He even has his own facebook page!