G'day,

Wouter,
Done that, the guy running it is a German who has been boatbuilding in China for 20 years.

Tami,

No offence taken.

I don't expect this forum to know how factories fixed the problems, but it is a good source of what the problems actually are.

Andrew,
Ta. Some of the controls I want to include are: weight and centre of gravity of the boat. Static load tests of hulls, mast, rudders, beams and booms to test deflections. Tests will be photographed and included with each boat's paperwork, as will instructions on how to repeat the tests, so the distributor and/or the owner can do them as well.

Resin coupons, hull cutouts, materials, environment and vacuum details recorded for each laminating step, and included with each boat.

This is already standard practice on our larger masts. Takes a while for the workforce to get into the swing of it, but once they are, quality is good and consistent.

The beams and decks are built in the same mould so alignment is not a problem. The rig is unstayed, so as long as the carbon mast and boom bench test within limits, there should be no problems. Sails will be mass produced once we know what works, so should be accurate.

The rudder blades are joined along the sides, not the front and back. This is more work, but gives a much more reliable join and more accurate leading and trailing edges.

The boats will be painted post mould, so a visual check of the laminate will show any major vac bag leaks.

There is still scope for stuff ups, so a 100% money back guarantee is the last part of the equation.


Windswept,
Ta, that is exactly the sort of problems I want to know about.

Re ads: The plan is to build a couple of boats and test them in China to get any obvious glitches resolved, then offer 4 boats each to buyers in Europe, USA and Australia at a low price to get feedback from sailors. As boats become available, ads, test sails, races and boat shows will follow.

Happy to discuss any of the above.

Regards,

Rob