Buccaneer 24 Builders Forum

Build one!

Nelson, with your experience, you could just about build a 24 in your sleep. Everything important is in the plans, and with the full size frame patterns, it is hard to go very wrong. For a somewhat experienced and equipped wood worker, the 600-800 hour time estimate is also very realistic. You could be sailing next summer.
Good luck
Bruce

 

Thanks for the comments bruceb. This winter I am building an 11' nesting sailing dingy. Something I can throw in the pickup and go sailing with my nine year old daughter. I plan on using it as tender when I obtain a trimaran.
The decussions on this thread about different plywood used on the buc 24 have been helpfull. At first I was just going to use 6 mm gaboon ply. But all the decussions about weight got me thinking and I think I will use 4 mm meranti instead. It is stronger than the same thickness in gaboon but a little heavier. The 4 mm meranti will be lighter than 6 mm gaboon and be more rot resistant if I am correct.
How are your folding beams coming? Did you ever make them for your buc24 or is all your time going to the buc33?

 

another ply opnion

Of course I have an opinion! Just an opinion though, and it all depends.
The 24 doesn't use a whole lot of material, so try to use the best you can find. If I were building new, only with wood, I would use 6mm meranti on the main hull bottom "flat", 4mm meranti on the outsides of the floats, and 4mm gaboon or similar as speced elsewhere. Meranti is also a more durable choice for the bulkheads. If you plan on keeping the boat in the water, use a very light layer of fiberglass just below the waterline, and the decks have to be glassed to be weather tight. These boats cannot carry much extra weight, so you have to use the lightest materials and work hard at keeping weight out of your build. "Thin" is also a little less expensive, so it is possible to get something for "nothing".
By choice, I would build my own floats, bulkheads and some parts of the main hull with foam/fiberglass instead of ply. It would save some weight, and be a lot lower upkeep, but it would add expense and time.
A properly built and finished 9' dingy is probably harder to build than one float. The Buc is really simple.
My 33 has taken up most of my time- don't even ask about ply bulkheads in my floats. They are now mostly replaced with foam/glass. I have studied folding more, but neither boat is ready to fold yet. The 33 is closer, mostly waiting on me to spend the time and money.
B

 

Foam glass question

I read an article where Lock Crowther mentioned something about foam/glass construction. He said besides getting away from potential rot problems encountered with ply epoxy a good bit of the extra cost associated with foam glass can be offset because you can often use vinylester resin or polyester since foam is stiffer, lighter, and you don't need as much resin because you aren't worrying about rot. I haven't done much work with foam glass so does anybody have some experience or ideas on this.
Dan

 

Yes. Back in the day we built three Crowther B33s, and three 18ft A Class cats
in foam sandwich, using polyester resin. No point in using Epoxy for this method.
We also built two B28s, a Wharram Tehini and a rowing training barge in Wood Epoxy. The Epoxy method is essential for wooden boats. Polyester or Vinylester is cheaper but perfectly effective for foam sandwich hulls.
I was also involved in the building of Bagatelle, the 52ft Crowther Offshore Racing catamaran which was the forerunner of his successful Catana range of catamarans.
Bagatelle was built using Klegicell foam and polyester resin. Despite Bagatelle being severely damaged by sailing onto a reef, she has been restored and is sailing again after 35 years, a tribute to this form of hull construction.

 

And polyester is cheaper, usually....

 

saving?

Since I had to replace several wood float bulkheads on my 33, I did some experiments with polyester/glass/foam and the same foam with epoxy/glass/foam. I built test panels with 1/2" corecell and tested them to destruction. The epoxy panels have at least twice the peel resistance as the poly ones, but the poly works fine in any other loading. The airex/glass construction of my 33 still seems tight and very peel resistant after 40 years, so different foams can also make a difference.
The hand laid foam/glass panels are about 30 percent lighter than equal strength ply.
I used a combination of epoxy and poly on my 33 bulkheads, and I would expect to build floats for any boat with poly/glass skins. Carbon requires epoxy to achieve full strength construction, and is lighter and stronger if you can afford it.
B

 

Vinyl ester is a good investment if you are spending the money on stitched fabrics or exotics. Its also osmosis free.
Further, when trying to get down to 4mm ply type weights skin thicknesses get pretty thin and the extra performance of VE is worth it.
If it was me, I would use basalt or Sglass fabrics and epoxy/VE is money was tight.
The Superstructure is a one off item that can't be upgraded later like mast and rig, spend wisely.

 

Just weighing options

My plans should arrive soon then I can research my options better. Here in south Louisiana humidity year round is seldom lower than 80 percent so maintenance especially on wood is always an issue. Is there a general rule when figuring foam panel thickness/weight and skin layup schedule when converting from ply/epoxy if I decide to do the build in foam/glass? Or would the best course of action be to talk to the panel manufacturers for specific recommendations to get the proper strength/stiffness/weight ratios?
Thanks
Dan

 

Dan,

let me know when you get moving on the build. I'm located in Houston and just finished my tri. I have also rebuilt an ama and repaired large sections for a Buc 28 here in Houston. I would like to swing by sometime if that's ok with you, and check out your build.

I understand you and the humidity. Blush will be a concern but I'm not sure if vinylester/polyester resins do that like epoxy. I had some blush issues on my boat as its wood/epoxy and I used West Systems.

 

replaced bulkheads

Bruceb how did you replace your bulkheads? Cut a section of deck away to acccess the ply bulkhead.
I am guessing when you said you used a combination of poly/epoxy that you layed up the bulkheads with glass and polyester and bonded them in with epoxy fillets and glass.
I have owned both wood and glass boats. The wood boats require you to be more careful of maintenance, but if you have to do repairs the wood is much more pleasent to work with. I hate doing repairs in fiberglass. It always seems to become an enviromental issue with glass repairs. Making sure the glass dust and debris is kept from contaminating the surrounding area. Wearing a full suit and resperator. Then worrying about carying any of that dust into the house before you can wash it off.
Having said that I would be very tempted to build the amas in foam/glass/epoxy with the vacuum infusion method just because of the possible higher humidy inside.
Just my 2c nelson

 

The hard way?

Had I know how much I was going to replace, I might have cut the decks off and started over. Instead, I climbed in the floats covered with all the protective gear and cut and ground out the bulkheads. I did lay up the new ones on a work table, trimmed them to size and epoxied them back in. I built the critical beam bulkheads with epoxy and the rest with poly. I couldn't start on the floats until mid summer as I had my right hip replaced this time last year and had to get flexible enough to work inside the floats. It was a miserable job!
I did take the most of the decks off my 24's floats to replace bulkheads in them, which was somewhat easier, but still no fun.
With my float repair experience hopefully behind me, I can definitely say I would build my own floats in foam/glass. I NEVER want to repair any more floats. I have read on the F-boat forums that the wood trailer tris have many of the same issues. I don't think it is practical to have ply floats in the southern US climate.
I have not done any vacuum infusion so I am not a good judge, but from what I have read, there is not much of an advantage from a simple hand lay up on a work table when only laminating one layer of glass to the foam. My foam/glass panels were very easy to make and quite light. The 24's floats would be very easy to build the same way. They would be very light, and most of the interior structure could be eliminated for some additional savings in weight, time and materials.
B

 

With such simple construction as this boat I would think a poor mans bag job on a flat table would be simple. It all flat parts that can be pulled round bends during build so the old plastic drop cloth, manually squeegee cloth and resin, fold plastic over that and squeegee excess to vacuum tubes to grab excess would work. Vacuum cleaner has enough pull for that. Used to do an scca class race car body like that, looked like a mini CanAm body wedge thing. You manually drew most excess resin out of it, but vacuum just aided it a bit more. We'd stick a shop vac under it with all tubes going together to vac but with just a t right before it with gravity drop for resin. You squeegee out so much manually anyway that we'd never fill more than 8 oz in bagging. Later with my real bagging system it still only got maybe 3 oz more out?

Barry

 

Keep it simple

Barry, I think that would work well, and create a VERY light 24 if you chose your materials carefully. Bucs like to be light The table type layout keeps finishing time to a minimum, even better than plywood, and really helps reduce the total build time. Airex or one of the other cheaper foams would be fine for the side panels, and use Corecell just for the deck surfaces where necessary. I have guesstimated it would add about 35 % to the materials cost and around 30-40 hrs to the build time. I would think it well worth the added investment to have much lower upkeep and probably a longer lasting boat.
B

 

I'd seriously look at Polycore.

They now have an American agent Revtec.

http://polycorecomposites.com/Home.php