Folks,

I've just made up a prototype of my wing net rails.

The plans have the nets terminating on a 50mm round al section between the beams out near the float. Thinking this would not be that comfortable to sit on when sailing from the nets I had some M80 corcell foam machined into a wing shape. Then I made a glass tube with a 16mm intenal dia and 2mm wall thickness. Routed out the foam to take the tube. If I cut a slot the length of the tube I'd have a luff grove but I will cut slots 90 deg to this at intervals that I will work out once I get the netting.
My aim is to use an open weave netting that will be laced in place to avoid the need of stitching as the stitching is always the first thing to fail.
I wrapped the foam and glass tube in a layer of 200gm plain weave glass , 2 layers of 300gm Uni carbon running lengthways and another layer of 200gm glass and cured it under a vacuum.
This will give me a nice comfortable wing shape to sit on when sailing from the nets.
So far I've only made a 1200mm section to test out the concept and test for both strength and weight. This section seems very robust and only weighs 1.2kg per metre. I'll leave it a few days for the resin to get to full strength and then do some deflection tests. Even so I'm so happy with how it has turned out so I've just given the rest of the foam to Mark to get CNC cut so I can make up 2 wing net rails 3600mm long. I only need 3300mm and the off cuts will be used as supports between the wing net rail and the float.
I think I'll use the prototype as the bow foil.
There is a lot more work in this than getting a bit of al tube but I enjoy the work so it is just good fun.

Regards,
Phill


I know that the voices in my head aint real,
but they have some pretty good ideas.
There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!