CNC Plans not Included

I built my own lifepo4 battery because it was the cheapest option- cheaper than Tesla here in Oz at the time, and cheaper than tubular LA gel cells too per usable kwh. As Dennis already said- no point continuing to spec out gear at this point as its all changing so fast- wait till your closer to the water.

I think if I were to approach a build like this - assuming it's a 1 off not a series of 3 boats etc I'd avoid the full mold. I'd strip plank the bottoms of the hulls in foam glass, glass over it and fair before flipping right way up.

Topsides would be flat panel off a perfect table complete with gel coat infused with vinyl Ester. Design has to be developable Topsides inner and outer. Same goes for the bridgedeck floor and incorporate the joins under the stiffneners.
The deck and cabin I haven't figured out yet.
The inner bulkheads I'd almost consider 9mm plywood for all the small ones and the ones where butt blocks could be hidden behind cupboards or beneath floors etc. I'm a lot less worried about moisture in the interior areas. P refinish and paint them of course before installation. I'd still pay for the cnc routing of them too along with all the foam core materials and temporary frames in MDF etc

Interior panels would be rob denny intelligent infusion style- all flat panels off table and folded and$ bent to form seating, bench tops and integral cupboards. Could pull an entire hull interior from a full length table.

I can't see the benefit in a full mold jorge- to pull the entire hulls and bridgedeck in 1 shot. The Costs are too high for that approach on a 1 off IMHO.

 

I hate the noise from motoring as well. Need to listen to it twice as long as 4k compared to 8K But the batteries should get you around a little, and the gen set would likely be less noise. When I cruised the pacific in my mono we motored at 4k anyway. That was because we had no friends to pick up and nowhere to get fuel so mileage is all that mattered. With the cat back home I was picking up various friends all the time. Deadlines to meet for flights etc. Using it as a dive boat etc to a particular dive site where we had to average 7k to make it even in zero wind or direct headwind.

Just cruising with a permanent crew these issues wont come up as much. That's a good way to live. It actually is stressful trying to hangout with friends when cruising to organise when and where etc. In these cases fast motoring is important and you make them pay for fuel of course Thats the way I used the boat and I think its pretty fair to say its a normal sort of usage pattern for the average cruiser who likes to hang out with mates. Open ocean adventuring away from airports and fuel its a different story. Thats where I want to be anyway

When I see a design like the flying fish or similar, I see an extremely fuel efficient and fast motor sailor with a decent engine. The Schionning kato http://yachthub.com/list/boats-for-...erboard-performance-cruising-catamaran/173781 has twin 75s and can motor at 15k or something like that Jeff Schionning told me when I was on it at a boat show. This is a fast cruiser but would me much heavier than what we are talking about in this thread.

 

Groper, how does gelcoat work with infusion? Why plywood? Whats to be saved here compared to just getting premade duflex sheets? It would be a nice selling point to be able to say "contains zero wood', even though I personally have zero issues with it, many others do.

 

You just apply the gel coat and then setup the infusion on top of it.

Ply wood for bulkheads makes sense in terms of cost and also the weight isn't all that much different either. Duplex requires filling of pinholes and a light coat of bog to smooth out the weave which otherwise prints through if you try to take it to paint directly. They aren't ready to paint unlike a sheet if ply which has A grade faces.

You could make you own flat panels for the same purpose but I don't see the value in terms of extra cost, time spent, and weight saved...

 

The other issue with cored panels in the interior like bulkheads etc is all the decoring and back filling of the edges such as doorway perimeters etc. This is why I'd seriously consider ply in there. Easy to frame up, paint, and quickly glue doorway frames to etc. Another trick is to avoid rounded doorways. The go is to use 45deg corners instead... gotta look at every detail like this to reduce build time and effort.

 

My list of time savers is growing ... but I really want to have plans in hand before I put too much thought into it.

 

That's the point- a lot of the time saving smart decisions have to be be made in the design of it. Not sure all the pro designers put much effort into these details...

 

Well a good one that I am glad surfaced from this thread will be the hull notch for the outboards. That will now be part of the mold.

Another that concerns me is the kickup rudder. What mods need to be made to transom if any.

Bulkhead Landings, those bulkheads need to be glued in, no tape. I figure they will be CNC cut and can have up to 1/8 inch clearance which can be filled with an adhesive paintable caulk.

I'm not really worried about door frames and edges of core. I think he might suggest something but we can standardize hatches and frames and cnc cut and fab the molds for all that.

I don't want a tramp in the rear deck if it's avoidable. Might have to get him to draw up two different options if that is what you want.

For lighting I love these led photography (flat panel 1 inch deep) lights that have built in dimmers and run on batteries. The chargers/mounting bracket can be wired to the wall without a light switch needed. That saves on wire all kinds of mess with chase tubes and switches and the lights can be taken off the bracket and moved around. Also they put out quite a bit of quality light.

I'm going all electric so no gas/propane to worry about. I think you will have more work in that area.

A lot of the time savers I have thought of have to do with scheduling.

The mast, using your idea, pop two out of the same mold, that should go quick. And I think we can use that same technique to build the front beam and maybe the tubular supports for the roof.

I don't have much planned for fitout. I hate clutter and too many horizontal surfaces and storage places just gather clutter.

Another idea I am toying with is the outside galley table should have a hinged top so I can store a plate/glass and utensils for each sitting position. I don't have too many friends that are going to be visiting me, when I have a party it will be paper plates.

 

Will your tender be electric too?

 

Yes I think so... Something really small.

 

Here is one I knocked up cheap. $12 charge controller (epoxy encased) a free car battery, 60w panel (the max physical size I was willing to tolerate), and $140 ebay trolling motor.

Dingy is a walker bay 10 (the BIG walker bay, most are 8 foot!) and did hull speed, range of a few miles. It was used primarily to get to and from the dock daily for several people at the cats usual mooring in the Brisbane river. The trip was only about 300m return. It was never flat. It had to be all cheap stuff for theft reasons.

I loved not having to fill in fuel, no noise and smell. It was great. The perfect tender for this job IMO. People always asked about it. However, I used a RIB for actual cruising and left that one as a mooring minder after attempting to use it as a real yacht tender a few times while actively cruising. It was woefully inadequate in any sort of chop when we went cruising, to mainly due to the dingy itself. Obviously it was no good as a dive boat etc either.

The cheap motor died in 6 months due to the cowling not being waterproof. This was never packed away and was expected to take salt and fresh water daily. We purchased a far more expensive "watersnake" which lasted about 1 month showing a high price often means SFA. I think a real salt duty electric outboard may have fared better, but no way was I leaving that tied to a dock.

Obviously many people have this sort of dingy as their main tender and seem to put up with its deficiencies, so its not like you cant do it. I reckon a 10 foot rib with a torqueedo and big lithium battery would be a big step up in usability. Not being able to plane would suck, but obviously planing IS possible with electric tenders too.

 

Nice! I haven't studied the torqeedo solution but I seem to remember they have a small motor that folds away into a small duffle. I guess for theft purposes but I can't really see carrying around the motor when going for groceries )) Have to really think about this one.

 

Transoms and any other areas that take a sizeable load such as your rudder cassettes etc need to be decored and replaced with something incompressible in the local area. I used Coosa board , others use ply wood, and if the loads are not too extreme you can just decore a small area and back fill with thickened epoxy and redrill the mounting holes.

Bulkhead openings for doorways, cutouts for hatches and Windows etc all take considerable time Jorge. They are usually decored and back filled with unidirectional glass etc. It's a lot of work and it's difficult to do it during the main infusion of the panel because you get racetracking problems and dry areas. It CAN be done, but it's very tedious to plan and setup. Ie it's all more time and effort which you really should try to minimise.

Don't get me wrong - I hate the idea of wood in a boat. But when it's in the interior it's not very likely to get wet and I can live with it in my head. - my current boat is all foam snadwich- everything- and I think I could have saved some time and money by changing a few things like the odd small ply bulkhead. The main mast bulkhead and rear beam I'd do in foam composite carbon however...

 

I believe there will be 4 interior doors they will all be the same size. I plan to cnc those 4 bulkheads and infuse them separately with inserts in place. The stack infusion is good for bulkheads below sole and which don't require any edge dressing.

As for windows and hatches, I think most of them will be the same size so just cnc the insert out of coosa and then cnc the cutout pattern out of 1/8 mdf. It doesn't take long to mark and cut those areas with a razor knife.

I don't see where the race tracking would be a problem especially if you infuse inward, in grids. There is so much more control infusing inward.



Here is how I figured it should go.
- Erect Stations and run battens for both hulls and bridgedeck
- Start with the below waterline curved area. Pre-Form the corecell screwing directly to battens. I would bevel the edges of each panel and glue them while they are screwed down. Much easier to get the core back into the proper place when you have a 20' section and it's not going to shift on you.
- Add the vertical sections using same process, if they don't need to be formed, skip this step.
- Remove the Pre-Formed core and sheathe the mold.
- Load mold including Pre-Formed Core,
- Add inserts
- Add bulkhead landings leaving a layer of glass under them
- Add laminate

This is the most time consuming part but once infused a huge chunk of work has been completed

- Next step I think would be to break loose the boat from the mold but not remove it, then glue in Bulkheads and post cure under tarps.

 

Describe "sheath the mold" for me...

Are you wanting to setup a rough mold to get a shape or is the mold going to provide a finished surface?

If it doesn't provide a finished surface- what you gain by achieving the shape- you more than loose by having to fair out the surface and paint it.

One of the biggest mistakes I made on the last build was to not build a perfect flat table mold which I could pull gel coated surfaces from. All these surfaces then have to be prepared and sanded repeatedly before painting.