Carbon Fiber Construction

Hello my fellow sailors! I'm in search of any information on contractors of carbon fiber construction. A list of builders in the upper Midwest of the states is where I'm looking.
The Plan- A Carbon Fiber Tornado catamaran "Olympic Category Catamaran". Beams and Hulls are what I need constructed. Any help out there would be greatly appreciated.

 

Why Carbon?

Do you want to produce the Tornado's entire hull from carbon or just as part in the laminate?

 

The entire Hull... But what would you suggest?

 

I am not sure if there are Tornado builders in the USA Marstrom is the main builder worldwide, If you don't get any joy here, Try posting this on the www.catsailor.com open forum

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=Test

Gareth

 

Why Carbon?

I don't want to sound negative, but what are in your opinion the advantages of Carbon? Because: the only function of carbon in a laminate is to add stiffness and tensile strength.
The rest of the mechanical properties are inferior to glass. Shear, Compression,
Impact, Abrasion - the lot. Very little flexibility. That's why.

 

From the Tornado class rules:

D.3.1.a The hull shells shall be made only of one or more of the following materials: wood, glass fibre, foam plastics, plastic fibres with a modulus of elasticity less than 100.000 kg/cm2, resins, paints, glues and metal fastenings.

This excludes carbon fibre. In addition, only licensed builders can build Tornados. Individuals are allowed to build a boat but they must build it themselves and cannot build more than one per year.

See www.tornado.org for the complete class rules.

 

Yes but's the point -

a carbon / foam laminate dinghy is much stiffer and lighter than a glass /foam laminate.
So either you can have a lighter and stiffer boat, or a boat the same weight and very very stiff ( and maybe some glass to add other better properties as you suggest )
The carbon boats appear to age better - remaining stiff, light and competetive for longer than glass boats.

 

Andy, about ageing, do you have any parameters to justify that? I am certainly not against carbon or so, but as I said, except for stiffness it has no further advantages that you can use in a cat. Kevlar is just as light and has better technical properties.
That's why.

 

I do need to achieve maximum stiffness in the hulls. My current boat has Kevlar reinforcement and is not rigid at all. The new boat will be well maintained and not pounded on the beach. It’s a pure racing cat and not a pleasure boat. A combination of materials is an issue that I was hoping to resolve on here. For aging, stiffness in the hulls and beams, and over all maintenance… what’s the best combination of materials? I also have one more thing to point out. I have a facility in my area to bake the laminates. Just need someone to build a mold from my design and do the lay-up.

 

Tornado Rules

James,
Thanks for the heads up! Did not know that! I will have to investigate further! If I am to farm out the build I may just use it as a practice boat pending the cost to construct it isnt too much. Again thanks! This website is an awesome source for information!
JLG
Detroit, Michigan

 

Are you looking to make a class legal Tornado? As pointed out earlier the carbon is illegal for the hulls, however you can now use carbon rigs.

I have an old Lindsay tornado, to the best of my knowledge Lindsay and sailcraft were the only two north american builders in the last few million years. so they would have molds perhaps still hanging around.

If your interest is to build a B-class catamaran, of which a tornado is actually one under the b-class rules, that's another story.

Question for you, where is the boat sloppy or flacid? It's not always the hulls that need to be stiffer in a Catamaran, could be your beams, or the mechanical connections to the hulls from the beams etc. Is it twisting and wracking. Whats up with it?

HOC

 

PS,

cost to CNC machine a plug, $12,000 usd

Cost to build the oven ready mold from the plug, proabably another $ 12,000 USD

Cost to pop hulls out of pre-preg carbon,foam core, oven cure and vac-bag, $10,000 per hull. So you're up to about 50K already, sure you don;t just want to buy one off the shelf? Or at least go to a builder with molds already and only pay a fraction of the cost as the tools exist already.

There is other less expensive ways to do it, but they will not be any better the a production Marstrom or comparable boat.

Just a thought.

 

Only empirical results - and perhaps it's not comparing like with like -

ie a carbon foam laminate using quality epoxy, baked, stays stiff - eg int moths are still competetive ( except for the foilers issue of course ) after 6 or so years.
Glass boats ( but no one makes glass moths any more ) maybe don't use the same resin etc etc . ( but do tend to go soft and heavy)

Kevlar has VERY POOR properties in compression. And is impossible to sand.

A disdavantage of kevlar is damage repair.
If a carbon boat gets hit by the bow of another cat, the carbon being brittle breaks and there is usually a triangular hole, which can be repaired fairly easily.
If a kevlar boat gets hit, the kevlar inner skin separates from the core for a considerable area , making the repair a major event. Fairing in new kevlar is not easy either!

 

I agree with you on the kevlar issue concerning delamination and repair afterwards. In that you are more than correct. Kevlar has similar compressive strength values as R glass, in any case better that carbon.

What you actually want to say is that over the years carbon keeps a better formstability. That might be true, but you compare both to ordinary glass/poly
constructions which become soft and spongy because of the fact that neither gelcoat nor the underlaying glass wovens are watertight.

Again, according your repair consideration I agree with you and now I understand why you want carbon.

Around '99 I was involved in the finishing of a 85 ft Andre Hoek, the Ghaccio Bollente. Well, the entire hull was built out of carbon. Immensely stiif.
But, constructionwise a real "troublemaker". For obvious reasons.