Thanks everybody for the replies. It really did help give me some direction with this one and I think I've come up with a good solution. I am going to forge ahead with this hull. No matter what it will be a great test platform and I will certainly get it on the water sooner this way. My goals for the project are going to change a bit though. Instead of trying to make a great boat on the first shot I'm going to try and make a functional boat and learn as much as I can without spending too much time and money on this hull. This should let me cut a few corners and get onto the water much sooner.
Carbon skin - GONE
Internal carbon reinforcement - GONE
Perfect smooth finish - GONE
This will be a total test hull for learning the building techniques and getting the overall shape right. I intend it to be very underbuilt and expect it to last only one season. I better include some major buoyancy bags though. Plus, without any carbon skin of any kind, Mothball One MK 1 will be a super fast flying woody! Ahh, Mel Brooks would be proud.
Also, got my sail from the UPS guy today. A used Bladerider 8x thats in very nice shape. Thanks Bora!
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2 comments:
Good on you Bob... try not to cut too many corners though. For the sake of getting a good fleet going in the US (and for the sake of you getting something back for your time and effort when it comes time for mothball one to move on to other pastures, preferably some kid who wants to get into these things really cheaply) I'd still recommend putting a bit of carbon (even just some tape on the joins) on the inside. Suggest that having a fair bit of blue dupont foam framing as per phil stevo's boat is a good way to go instead of adding bags, because the foam isn't heavy, it floats pretty well and also adds to the structural strength of the boat. You can probably get away without laminating a carbon ring around the foam bulkheads though.
I don't think that adding a carbon skin on a ply boat would have achieved much, phil stevo's ply boats have all only had carbon tapes on the joins and they've all held together very nicely... in fact his minimalist, stayless "Chainsaw" is still one of the quicker boats in sydney when it gets raced, and all of his boats are still being sailed in various places around aus.
The smooth finish can be eliminated pretty easily, so that'll save time money and weight at the small cost of a little bit of added form drag (non issue when up and foiling), and that can be fixed by a future owner anyway if they want it to be faired up more.
Sort of right attitude, but be careful. Cutting corners is OK if you cut the right ones.
- Make the thing strong it is horrible to sail something that keeps breaking.
- Make the foils good.
- Make the controls systems perfect.
- Make the rig good.
and you have a great competitive boat you can sell on and get the cost of your materials back.
Beautiful paint finish is time consuming and heavy. This is a corner to cut. Fairness is also a nice to have thing, but a corner that can be cut.
I have no experience about ply and if it needs carbon on the outside so take the Aussie advice on that.
So far you have a small unfair bit that is not going to slow your boat down. Crack on and you will have a great boat. You can make the next one perfect (or better).
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