Welcome back aboard good old Spiffy—our 44ft hurricane-damaged Antares 44 catamaran project boat. In this episode I head back into the CNC workshop to make the deck ring (deck flange… deck flangy ringy thing) that’ll sit on the deck around our temporary refit hatches and help keep rainwater out. Instead of going straight to a female mold like last week, I cut a plug in MDF first, because it’s way less miserable to prep outside corners than to sand tight inside corners. Plus, making a plug lets me do a quick test fit before committing to fiberglass. From there it’s polyester time: primer, sanding, wax/PVA, gel coat, and then fiberglass layup—along with the last set of clamshell covers while I’m at it. I run head-first into my dear friend Mr. Alligator (gel coat alligatoring) and I’m pretty sure it’s a mix of timing and film thickness—especially with the lower-viscosity neutral gel coat I tinted red. The mold also teaches me a few lessons about shortcuts (cork and “random filler” instead of proper filleting wax… and some Bondo that absolutely wanted to become one with the gel coat). In the end, the red deck ring pops out, fits perfectly on Spiffy, and I’ve got a solid plan: next week I want to spray gel coat and put the alligatoring nonsense to bed.