new low cost design competion

Hi CutOnce; Thanks for the Aerolite site, I have been there before. You may also want to check out the PolyTarp Sail people at http://www.polysail.com/oldboats.htm who have a cute little (but not serious contender) boat called "wrinkle-dink" the other site you may want to check out is the Stimson Marine site, with their 'Swallow' design
http://www.by-the-sea.com/stimsonmarine/smskin.html#swallow There are probably some others. I remember reading a WoodenBoat magazine article about a young couple who took their SOF boat and sailed it in the Sea of Cortez Images are available if you Google 'skin on frame sailboats'
Anyway, thanks again for the welcome.

 

a degree in dumpsterology would help

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/04/s/columns/al/07/index.cfm

 

Bent plywood provides a very rigid surface for the dollar spent. Performance planing hulls need to be resistant to surface deformation - soft hulls are slow. This is why serious Laser competitors buy new hulls every year (or more often).

You can use better materials and get stiffer results - but they cost a lot more.

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CutOnce

 

I couldn't agree more Sawmaster. All of my plans are for first time builders, and they have been successful. I'm a strong advocate of “build it and use it” and I much prefer for folks to think of using it for many years, not just for a weekend raid. I also advocate scrounging up as much materials as you can, so thus my thought of using the time spent too. If for instance I spend all weekend milling up wood with my chainsaw and band saw for the lumber parts and only buy the ply wood I could save about ¼ of the cost. But if you include that sweat equity in the cost of building then things sort of even out. Here’s a 14’er I designed for my dad last year. She’s a little sweetheart easy to build and to sail.

 

Instead of looking for a way to copy Bolger and other missionary designers, one should ask for a way to recover the 90% of unused boats in our marinas.

The idiotic attempt to skimp on every sensible dollar invested into seaworthy cruisers, should be meanwhile noticed as a dead trap.

Go to sea in a well executed and crafted boat, or stay at home! Wal Mart is not your friend at sea, and does not pay the SAR bills!

These "lampy" and "goodwilltoall" attempts are premature ejaculations.

Going to sea is not going cheap, when your life has any value.

Might be yours have not, but the average has at least one who loves him....

Regards
Richard

 

my fellow Bolgerarians

“Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain”

LOL you crack me up Richard. Are you saying that just because some one doesn’t have the finances to build in a way you approve of that they should not be allowed pride and sense of accomplishment we get from building our own boat and having a good launch day? Of course your not. But if you don’t like what I’m doing. DON’T WATCH! You won’t be missed.

For the last 10 years I have been building plywood boats that are going to be painted, with garden row cover material in place of fibreglass. It is a recycled product and I can sheath a boat with it for less than half the cost of fibreglass. To all my fellow Bolgerarians I recommend you use the medium weight row covers. It comes in long wide rolls and is so cheap you can lay on several layers and save a lot of money in the build. It has the disadvantage that it doesn’t finish clear and it doesn’t do radius forms well.

Dennis

 

So you use this stuff instead of glass cloth?...what kind of resin do you use with it?

 

I have only used it with epoxy, one could try a test with poyester on a scrap to see if it works.

Dennis

 

I've been around the block with folks wanting to use these materials for sheathing before, though this particular screen name doesn't ring a bell.

Garden row cover material is available in several weaves and materials, the most common and cheapest is about 1/6th the price of regular 6 ounce 'glass cloth. This stuff is grotesquely weak, imparts very little if any strength to the cured matrix and breaks down with UV, chemicals, etc. There is a polypropylene version of this material that is much more durable, but it still is ridiculously weak, compared to similar weight 'glass cloth. 'Glass cloth isn't very expensive in lighter weights, which is what most use to sheath their boats with. If the cost of fabric is holding a builder back for their 15' jon boat then they need to reconsider what they're doing, as the cost percentage, compared to the total out lay for the build is very small.

As an example, my RYD-15.1 is a flats boat of very simple construction and requires 10 sheets of plywood. To cover the outside of the boat, you'll need 6 - 8 yards of cloth, which at my usual pricing is about $27 - $35 and at retail pricing will be about $35 - $50. None of these figures should get anyone panties in a bunch, even if they are using home improvement store plywood at $15 a sheet.

I'm all for alternative materials, but garden row cover material is useless and anyone that thinks it isn't hasn't tested the stuff.

 

Now things are getting interesting. Strong opinions generally indicate you've got people's attention.

I'm not generally a fan of slapping together something for a one to five usage competition - hence my original post asking for more clarification on materials, longevity etc. My work shop and "play" time is too valuable and limited to produce something I won't be proud of.

I don't mind exploring alternative materials like home center plywood versus Okume. Okume/Gaboon is a very lmited resource being "strip-mined" from the Earth with no thought towards sustaining the forests it is being ripped from. It would be interesting to see if companies like Georgia-Pacific would be interesting in selling a waterproof glue version of normal Spruce/Pine/Whatever plywood that was better than standard but way more environmentally responsible than Okume.

I think we have to listen attentively to the professionals on the forum like PAR. Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we should. Apex1 has a seriously good point as well. There is one hell of a lot of sad looking yard queens slowly dying on trailers, cradles and dollys. The problem with yard queens is that in today's market none of them are worth the value that is stuck in their owner's mind, and they will never make it back to the water in 80%+ of the cases. Just because someone paid 40K for a boat ten years ago doesn't mean it is worth 10% of that after sitting on the hard for five years.

I do support the idea of a homebuild alternative to a D-1 or RS-100. But not combining the idea with a $3-500 bill of materials. Realistically, this is a $1,5-2,500 or more project - and the end result isn't realistically going to come close to Luca Devoti's (or Martin Wadham's) effort. You can probably achieve 80% of the performance for 20% of the cost, but the last 20% performance always costs 80% of the money. Carbon masts, laminated sails, Harken blocks, perfect foils all cost serious cash.

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CutOnce

 

"I'm all for alternative materials, but garden row cover material is useless and anyone that thinks it isn't hasn't tested the stuff" C'mon Par, once upon a time fiberglass was considered to be crappy and unreliable. 'Lampy' is a lightkeeper on the west coast of Canada. He drags his boats up over rocks and barnacles on a regular basis. If that isn't testing the stuff, in a real world environement, I don't know what is. The real strength in his boats is the plywood, the sheathing only protects the integrity of that plywood. If it doesn't have the ultimate strength of regular fiberglass cloth, it seems to compensate by being more flexible, and less prone to shattering than glass. I note also, that the undersides of his boats seldom get UV on them to degrade them....these boats are USED.

 

So… before I built my first boat using Garden Row Covers I was concerned about the strength of the product. I took a ¼” x 1” red cedar plank left over from a strip plank canoe I built, and cut 3, 1 foot long pieces of it. I then covered one piece with epoxy and 4 oz. fibreglass on both sides. I did the same to one of the remaining pieces with two layers on each side of the row cover. The third I left bare wood as a control. After letting the epoxy cure I set up a brace to hold the wood against, but not fastened to, and hooked a fishing weigh scale, and pulled to the breaking point. I know this isn’t that scientific but is what I had on hand and it gave me a close enough figure to work with. The bare wood broke at 11 lbs. of pull. The fibreglass at 22 pounds of pull and the garden cloth at 17. The garden cloth flexed a lot further before it broke even though it failed a lower pull. Considering that the plywood gives the sort of boat we are talking about it’s strength, and the sheathing is there to protect from wear and to keep the grain of the wood from the elements I decided to try it. I used that boat for 8 years before it got crushed by a much bigger boat.

As to cost comparisons: I built two boats in 1999. Both the same design. I built one for me using the methods I’ve spoken of here on this thread, and one for a “client” who had read several boating magazines and knew what was best. His I will call boat “A” mine boat “B”. I went on line today and got today’s prices. I would not use nor advocate the use of the Hem/Fir lumber found a price on but it’s a low ballpark figure.


A B
From Low’s Hardware:
4 sheets fir plywood $ 51.88 $ 51.88
2 2x6 hem fir $16.20 $16.20
From Raka Epoxy
3 Gal. epoxy kit. $156.00 $156.00
60’ 4 oz. glass $115.00 $ 0.0
Fibreglass tape 50 yd. $ 24. 75 $ 0.0
Filler $ 12.00 $ 12.00
From Cook Gardens:
Row cover $ 0.0 $ 39.90
From Manasquin Premium fastener:
Stainless screws $ 27.30 $ 27.30

Total: $403.13 $303.28

This is for the hull only, it does not include any sails oars, oarlocks nor even the seats to go on the thwarts. It also doesn’t include sand paper nor tools, but that is different for the two boats. You will do a lot more filling and sanding on the fibreglass than the garden cloth as the garden cloth has a smooth surface and needs only some fairing at the chines, bow and stern. Because of the longer work time (about 20 hours) you will also use up more dust mask etc. Also the 3 gal epoxy kit is just barely enough to finish the fibreglass boat while you have some left over with the row cover build. With the glass you will get a marginally stronger boat. It’s your time and money use it how you will.

Dennis

 

PAR, that's a nice looking little boat. Are you willing to give details like HP, speed, weight how many built etc?

 

The design is new and it's one for one currently, with also one of it's little brother (Digger 15). Only the 15'er has been completed, though the 17 will likely be finished before cold sets in down here (late November).

If you click on the thumbnail, the image will enlarge and some speed information is shown. Since it's a light, small craft, speed is highly weight and HP dependent. She could take considerably more power then I recommend, according to the USCG, but I don't think it wise or practical considering what she is. She'll do over 30 MPH and drink less then 2 gallons per hour, which is more then acceptable for most interested in a design like this.

Your tests where not only flawed, that didn't test apples to apples, making them moot and quite useless.

Nope, not true, it was considered expensive, which it was, difficult to work with, which is true of all new things, but the testing was in long before the products went out. In fact some of the first production 'glass boats where the best engineering things going, today being highly praised for their robustness. Naturally, some folks, who didn't know what the material was or how it worked in the matrix said bad things about it, but this has been true of all new things.

Clearly you don't buy many boats per year. I move about a dozen or so and I always get them well below resale value. Of course this takes experience, but the premise that owners want more then their boat is worth is silly, particularly in this economic market. I can buy a $10,000 boat for $2,000, put $1,000 into in repairs, upgrades and cosmetics, then offer someone a deal at 7 - 8K. It's much more common to find larger craft for great value, such as the lovely 65' power yacht over in Sanford, twin Cats and just stunning workmanship. I can have it for about 30K. It needs about 10K and is worth 100's of K. The other end of the spectrum are the $500 specials. I had one of those this summer a tri-hull from the mid 1980's with a 140 Mercruiser Alpha on it's butt. It needed a trim cylinder & hoses, tune up, oil pressure switch, fluid changes, etc. I replaced all the hoses and belts, fixed the butchered wiring, installed a new bilge pump, greased up the steering, replaced the tilt gauge and buffed the crap out of the hull. The trailer was repaired for $200 and I sold it for $2,500 in the spring. I had a weekend of work in the boat, and another painting and buffing. I made $1,500 for my troubles, so I'm not sure what you're talking about with over valued owners.

 

How can you save "a lot" of money when your complete BOM is just pennies?

When glass fibre is too expensive for you, and has to be substituted by inferior cr@p, you should really look for another hobby.

Is you family name "Swain" ?:?:

Putting words into other members mouth is a Swain specialty, you know?