40 ft fibreglass boat build

In an Australian summer you would not want a cover that allows light to penetrate through the plastic covering, the only way to go would be the "silver" tarpaulin that reflects, otherwise it would be way too hot inside. Which would be a problem for the boat builder and the GRP ! Realistically this is probably not the best material (GRP) to be building a large boat solo, when a continuous hull layup is desirable, or somewhat more desirable than one that involves dozens of stops and starts, at best.

 

In a hot climate, one might want to add a conventional metal roof over the top of the gothic arch so as to shade it. This can be in the form of a lean-to roof biased to the side facing the sun. Large layups like the hull are best tackled with help, 4-6 people or more, everyone having a pre-assigned job to either mix up batches of resin, lay down cloth and wet it out etc. You need to manage it like a concrete pour, to avoid weak secondary bonds in critical structure. The later bonding in of bulkheads and joining of hull and deck are done with secondary bonds even in the factory.

The main problem for a beginner is that you dont have much practice and finding out what you dont know should not happen during the layup of a large item like the hull, because if someone makes a mistake its going to be a very expensive one. Hand layup is no-where near as critical as an infusion project, but there are still plenty of things to go wrong. Infusion requires everything to be dry fitted, core + facings + sealing plastic + peel ply + feed hoses + porous layer + more sealing film. One has to seal everything up so that a good vacuum can be drawn and have the knowledge of where to feed in the resin to achieve full coverage that possibly the boat designer may have from making initial hulls. Far too risky to just try to "wing it " on a 40' hull.

 

Talk with a trucking company specializing in oversized loads about obstacles between your build site and launch site. You don't want to see years of work stuck in a freeway underpass.

 

Hi Gages
If you want to follow a blog or video channel with a similar build process check out "life on the hulls" by Ross. The cat he's building is at least twice the laminating work at the same length but will give a pretty reasonable parallel as to what's involved and the challenges, he's a canoe builder too.


You'll need help at stages as close to impossible to shoot gelcoat to a 40 foot hull and follow up with the skincoat to start, set up and planning needs to be spot on, couple of hiccups on your own and that's a pile of material messed up. Not impossible though. There's other approaches that work too depending on income and circumstance, next door to my work is a charter yacht sales and management firm... Some attractive depreciation allowances etc with owner use mixed in.
All the best from Jeff