Catamaran plans, who have I forgotten ?

Check with Tafe sometimes it’s part of boat building or fibreglass courses.
Employ someone who knows what they’re doing to supervise you.
Not building because your can’t infuse is silly. Plenty of fine hand laid boats out there.
Perfection is the enemy of good. (enough)

 

Guzzi3 just a suggestion. Kerry Thomas is a NZ guy who describes the design below as: "The Altair ClamCat 28 was designed for a client who wishes to cruise and occasionally race locally in Florida waters." Construction plans and instructions are aimed at home builders. Yes it folds like a bigger Sango but a talk to the designer may make it into a solid crossbeam foam glass design. Jpegs below. I do not know if he is still active.

 

I found the Altair website archived , a catamaran 860 was designed first before designing the folding system , explained by Kerry Thomas here in I think 2008 . There is contact info on the archived site , might still be good .

 

I have some ideas to get around the "scared of wasting foam with infusion" roadblock:

- Practice building a one or two sheet boat with infusion/vaccum bagging. Hopefully this will either give you the confidence to start building or force you to look for an alternate path. Flomo has some cool one and two sheet designs that would maximize the use of foam.

- If that doesn't work practice building a one or two sheet boat with foam/hand layup (as suggested by redreuben).

- Find someone who has hull deck molds of an open deck design that suits your needs, and have them make up a pair of hulls/decks which you then finish.

- Find a used open deck boat that can be refurbished and modified to suit your needs.

- Lastly, if the above fails, you might again reconsider ply. Perhaps the ply boats you have owned that caused you to detest ply were poorly built/maintained by previous owners? Here's a clip of Jim Brown and Richard Woods talking about plywood. Richard talks about how small boats built in okoume are almost as light as carbon infusion. Jim talks about his then 40 year old sea runner: how he keeps the bilges dry/dusty, and how he believes the boat is still ready to go anywhere. And that's a boat that predates epoxy. And yes, I know you hate ply, so no need to respond to this directly.

 

I know it’s too long and it’s ply, and that there are probably other things that don’t meet your needs/requirements, but I was wondering about pricing on this boat and what you think it might cost to build your own in comparison?

You don’t see Woods boats listed for sale often, and on more than one occasion I have seen newer nicely built examples for sale for what I thought was very little money given the time and materials involved.

What might a boat like this one listed cost to build new?

I’m sure Fallguy has some insight into this as well as Mr. Woods of course.

Just curious. I’ve always been a buy and modify/rebuild guy and not a build from scratch-er.


2005 Richard Woods Romany sailboat for sale in Florida https://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/99306

 

Guzzi3 , when I was looking for a cruiser and trying to decide between a cat and tri in the low 30' range it came down to a Woods cat , a Horstman or Cross tri . The tri came out on top when looking at cat -v- tri up to 35' , and as far as room the Horstman 31' couldn't be beat for bed space . I don't have any place to dock it anymore so I wont be building it any time soon , if you want it to go fast then build the 32xr , it wasn't on Ed,s stock plans when I bought . You already know if you went with a tri it would be a Horstman 31 or 32 , so why worry about a cat . Rick

 

I have trimmed your post for brevity.

1. I am in Australia, almost literally on the other side of the planet. That boat in in the USA and shipping it here is prohibitive. Trust me I've looked into it as there are so many lovely boats for sale in the USA for great prices.

2. 75US is about 100 or so Australian $. There is a Woods for sale here:

Catamaran for sale | Sail Boats | Gumtree Australia Lake Macquarie Area - Wyee | 1251692313

$110AU for a Banshee. Full bridgedeck cabin boats are common here. The Banshee is in a dearer registration bracket and too big for me to handle alone. The reason I set 10m as an absolute upper limit is registration but really once you go over 9m handling the boat single handed gets difficult. Yeah I know people single hand giant boats in ocean races, but my name isn't Ellen Macarthur...

3. Romany, I can get foam glass epoxy and bagging materials for about $12kAU, althought that was a year ago and prices may have changed. Second hand mast ? $1500, sails 2 jibs and main maybe 7k ? cruising fitout, how long is a piece of string. I could certainly build it for less than 75kAU let alone US$ but how much labour ?

If something nice came up second hand for sensible money I'd jump on it but everything I see is either massively overpriced, or I wouldn't bother at any price. And I reckon I am not alone. That Chamberlin was sold in 60 seconds. When I see really nice boats come up they don't last, and I can't drive anymore so it's hard for me to be at the front of the queue.

I'm obviously an idiot because I don't understand why anyone would consider this:

Blue Water cruising Catamaram | Sail Boats | Gumtree Australia Gold Coast North - Runaway Bay | 1310344173

When you could buy this:

11m Grainger Catamaran For Sale | Sail Boats | Gumtree Australia Redcliffe Area - Scarborough | 1306017330

4X the money ???

 

Good suggestion. I had thought TAFE over here had stopped running courses like that but maybe they are still available.

I'm not so worried about the infusion side. I'd start by infusing smaller parts simpler and work my way up. It's the foam shaping and it not moving during the infusion that scares me.

Maybe I should look into a fiber glassing course.

Perfection is the enemy sounds like something I'd say

 

Hi folks. This is my first post!
@ Guzzis3: why don't you buy that Grainger?

 

As far as foam shaping goes build a hot box and buy some gloves and your sorted.
The hotbox heats it all the way through which makes it much easier to form than trying to soften it on the job with a heat gun. For time and temperature see your foam seller.
There is a contact glue in a spray can for locating glass and foam pre infusion.
INFUTAC - Adhesive spray for vacuum infusion and RTM Process | Diatex Composite https://www.diatex.com/diatex-produit/infutac/ Here is one, I’m sure there are plenty more.

 

Yeah I've got a can of something similar. I've always wondered if the glue interferes with the resin...

The thing that always worried me was lumps in the foam ie if one or more strips don't sit hard against the mold it'd make the hull unfair. It just seemed simpler to get good at making big flat panels cutting full length chines filling and taping. One skill for the whole hull and bridgedeck.

I had thought maybe slicing the foam into strips and essentially strip planking the bilge. Slower and lots of bog but it would get it done with no heating as the curves should be very shallow.

Gerry Whelan: What Granger ? If you mean the one above I was posting those boats as examples of how insane our boat market is. I don't want a boat over 10m, and arguable 9m 30' would be better. I don't want a full width bridgedeck cabin and I'm sas not going to pay that sort of money for any boat. $110k! As I said that Chamberlin 9 for $40k would have been very nice, but they do seem to have limited carrying capacity.

And there is always the Avalon 9 and Scarab 32, both beautiful boats. Wish either came with an aft cabin option. I can figure out the cabin but I'm not sure where you could fit an outboard, that's a bit tricky on those.

 

Do you think they would sell it specifically for infusion if it interferes with the resin ?
All your problems are solvable.

 

What do you think about horizontal strip planking in foam ?

It astounds me I can get foam for literally 1/3rd the price of kiri or wrc, unless there is a source I have missed...

 

Vertical would be the preferred method. Look on YouTube
Some of your savings evaporate as foam needs thicker skins.

 

I've seem the vertical strip videos and such. Ian Farrier was an early adopter. The trouble is it creates lots of opportunities to go wrong IMO. Unfair bow to stern. Maybe I'm being paranoid but horizontal strip over a male mold you can check by eye as you go. No heating either and cats with their slim hulls not too much spiling, not like a trimaran hull...

12mm foam 80 kgm^3. I think the wrc he suggests is 10mm and where he planks in chined ply it's 9mm. This seems typical for this size boat. In the case of foam 600gsm 45/45 either side.

I guess I'd need to glass a light layer on the foam to stiffen it, possibly only on one side.

I can get 12mm foam for $25.50 sqm or could a couple of years ago. Haven't had a quote in 18 months and they sell in US$ so exchange rate covid phase of the moon whatever reason to change prices...I have not found strip for anything like that money.

If I got the foam air tight I could even infuse the outside skin flip it and do the inside.