Nacra 18 / Hobie FXOne style sport cat designs?

[kerinin]

I would really like to build a boat, and I would prefer to use someone else's design (since I don't know nearly enough about boat design & engineering to feel comfortable designing it myself). I'm looking for a small, fast, sport cat - something similar to the Hobie FXOne or the smaller Nacras.

Does anyone know where I could find plans for building something along these lines?

Thanks for any help

[Jimbo1490]

How about a Tornado?

Jimbo

[kerinin]

That looks pretty close to what I had in mind. Aesthetically, I like the rounded tops and the elongated wave piercing front, but that's mostly just personal preference...

I really want to use fiber; I'm guessing I could substitute without any huge problems...

[Jimbo1490]

Plenty of T's have been built out of every normal boat material including glass and foam, honeycomb and carbon. If you can manage to build one of these and build it light, say less than 325 lbs, it will be faster than all the boats you mentioned, though not legal to race anywhere.

The T fleet has been switching to carbon masts, making plenty of metal ones available for cheap. They only use their sails a season or maybe two, so plenty of good used canvas out there for also. The mast, X-beams and sails are where the money is in one of these builds.

Jimbo

[Ilan Voyager]

Many thanks Jimbo for the nice and good link.

The Tornado is a very good cat with excellent perfs, and has kept his rank in front of the newer cats: the Tornado is not obsolete. You're right also, a lot of parts (mast, sails etc) can be bought at good price in perfect shape for a non-racing use. That keeps the total price of the boat affordable, as they are the most expensive part of a small cat .

The Tornado is also a very good cat for raid, and sport use. With a simple disposition it can be righted by 2 persons in case of "flipping". With an asymetric spinnaker it becomes something rather wild.

Definitely not for solo: the sail plan is too powerful.

I've downloaded the plans and they are pretty good. With the booklet and care you can have good hulls at excellent price and spent time. The compounded plywood is very strong and with epox and glass cloth plus a Imron Paint ( very good one) you get long lasting hulls, made with very few tools.

I've helped to build 2 Tornados, and I've built for myself five 18m2 catamarans, all in compounded plywood, epox, foam, glass and a few strips of carbon fiber UD.

It's the best ratio weight/stiffness/price/spent time for a home builder.
Polyester or GRP sandwich are heavier than plywood, and for going lighter and stiffer you have to switch to carbon fiber with molds and vacuum. That puts the price of the hulls 5 to 8 times more expensive than compounded plywood, with at least twice the number of hours on a one off set of hulls as you have to include all the tooling plus molds. Fiberglass and others are not economical for one pair of hulls...

The Aussies understood that very well and the Class C catamarans Victoria 150, Yellow Pages and others had hulls in plywood epox, made in a garage as their budget was tight. The boats were highly competitive.

[Zed]

How about one that fits the F16 rule.

http://www.formula16.net/ Boats --> Home Builds

[bad dog]

If you're looking at one-man boats, there is the A Class for purists.

USA - http://www.usaca.info/
World - http://www.mathran.nl/acat
Oz - http://www.a-cat.org.au/

[kerinin]

Wow, that F16 link is exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks for everyone's advice. I guess all that's left is figuring out what to do about the mast rigging and sail. Thanks for the advice about used Tornado sails.

Does anyone have opinions about West Marine? I'm a design-build architect and we use them often for cables and hardware on things like shade structures and guardrails.

For the mast, is there any reason not to buy the raw material from an aluminum supplier and fabricate the joints myself? I have some friends with experience welding aluminum.

Thanks again for the help - I'm completely new to the idea of boatbuilding and I apologize if my questions are absurd.

[Zed]

F16's are cool IMO.

Buy the mast in one raw section then cut holes and drill it as required, then get it anodised. That way it will last the best! Don't weld tempered aluminium! It will take it out of temper and make weak/soft spots, if a mast is to be welded it should occur prior to tempering, ask about what you want to do in the materials section, you will find a wealth of knowledge.... plenty of metal men around here!

As in West Epoxy? ---> Its good but people have their favourites, you will find many other good products!

[Doug Lord]

Heres another good site with homebuild info:
http://www.bladeeurope.com/foto/f16_flyer_en_200804.pdf
-----
Another thing to consider: Matt McDonald ,formerly of Vectorworks has started a new company building the Blade and Falcon F16's and an A cat. He might be willing to allow you to buy just the hulls and help you source the other stuff-just a thought. PM me if interested and I'll give you his e-mail.

[Chris Ostlind]

A gently used mast with all the installed rigging is going to hugely cheaper and faster than sourcing an extrusion, having it shipped to you, finding and paying to have it anodized, (if it does not come that way) getting all the rigging and hardware installed (correctly) and then putting it on the boat.

Texas is a great location to find second hand everything in the cat market. Look around at www.catsailor.com and... www.thebeachcats.com and Craigslist.org ( http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/tx ) for classified adds on beach cat stuff.

If you are clever and do some hustling, you can build that boat you desire for a fraction of buying even a used one and then have the pleasure of having put it together yourself.

[Zed]

Get someone who knows what they are looking at if you go used. A good mast is rarely abandoned, there is very often a good reason its on the market. For instance it may just be too soft for the class, a mistake by a rookie builder perhaps, it could look fine in all respects but still be a dud. I guess it depends what you want out of the boat but talk to people in the class before you commit to a stick, even a new one, there will probably be gotchas!

[Jimbo1490]

I built a 30' mast from parts once and it was terribly expensive; the tube alone was over $500 back in 1989! I probably had at least an additional $400 in miscellaneous parts. There were just no used masts in my area. My, how the internet has changed our scope! Now I would just wait for one to come up on ebay or craigslist or any of several bulletin boards and forums.

Jimbo