I have about 120 hours in the boat, and I still need to paint it and finish a few misc parts.

My hat is off to you! That is a truly phenomenal skill level! I've worked around wood for over thirty years and don't believe I could have finished the Wharrram project in appreciably less than 400 hours (so I bought one already built!)

Still, since I know nothing about carbon fiber, I'll probably upgrade an existing boat.

So why do you insist on breaking my balls?

Bill

C'mon Bill, why don't you just invite Wouter over to this country and you can adopt him? He'd make a great son for you!

Get Steve to send some pictures of his boat to the USACA website. We'd all love to see it.

Bob

I am sorry Wouter but I have to agree, If you just take the material costs then you can have a full carbon A cat (fully competitive or not depending on all those other variables between hull shape, foil shapes, sails, etc) for $10K US, BUT, material costs are only one element for a "commercial" builder, don't forget, labour, profit, overheads and that big ugly one TAX. When they are all added together you can approximately treble the material costs to reach an equitable retail price.

Yep I used to think that way as well. If only looking at material cost I would have ...


It looked promising for a while when I was building my own boat, then I had to fit it out: cleats, blocks, boards, stainless steel hardware etc. All small costs in themselfs but overall quite a big portion. Not to forget that you can't build yourself the required moulds (hulls and boards) in addition to the boat and stay under 10K USD. Bill is lucky that he can pay only a small portion of the mould costs as the he has access to moulds that are used buy many other builders. In addition you need vacuum pumps, tubes and disposable items like bleeding cloth etc. All adding themselfs to the cost of a single A-cat unless you already have all those items or are sharing them with other homebuilders. Either way the costs are added to the building of the boat or you are rewriting those costs to other projects.

Mast fittings ! WOW ! Either you have to make them out of stainless steel yourself (requires professional grade tooling) or you can expect to pay alot for literally a handful of parts.

I can honestly say that I could not build a fully fitted F16 (with alu components) for less then 11.500 Euro's (14000 US$). And my mast was only 880 Euro's including taxes and shipping. My beams fully fitted were about 150 Euro's, my boom and spi pole were only 74 Euro's combined. Try to get these components in carbon or better still try to make these components out of carbon yourself. Each will require their own moulds or mandrils which will cost as well. Then you'll need to teach yourself proper technique (test pieces). I've ran the numbers back then and I could not build a F16 a la A-cat (= no other sails then mainsail and carbon mast beams) for less then 11.000 Euro's. So I opted to ditch the carbon stuff for the aluminium and spend the cost savings for F16 specific parts like the spinnaker setup and jib.

In addition; the hulls of my boat were build using the deck jig of a friend so the quoted final price doesn't include the full cost of that.

Naturally you can make things in a really inexpensive way if you have all the required facilities and tooling already (due to other projects or work). Hell, I'm sure Phill Brander can build himself a Blade F16 for the smallest amount of investment (material costs) but that is because he has made all the other costs in earlier projects already.

But this is a long way from be able to say that "One can build an Blade F16 for the same minimal investment"

Now, I'm not saying that Bill DIDN'T build his for 10K or less, just that there is more to that achievement then he is giving away. He sure as hell was able to cut down on costs by sharing moulds and other stuff. It is impossible to do it without these cost savings.

Wouter

Wouter:




Hey, I didn't say you couldn't home-build a competitive A-cat, I only said that you couldn't homebuild it for less then 10K USD. Of course I will have to add here that this assumes that you can not get access to all the required tooling and moulds (of a competitive A-cat class design) for some incredibally low cost.






Well that is another thing. As far as I know the group around Steve Clark is the only A-cat group of homebuilders that seem to have access to a modern A-cat hull shape. All the plans that are available for A-cats are seriously outdated and will not result in a competitive A-cat or are very rudimentary. The last means that you pretty much have to find your own way with respect to building steps and methodes. Of course this requires alot of time and even some prior building experiences. The Taipan building plans (Not an A-cat) are more elaborate in these respect and they also cover the design and building method of the beams, mast and boards (among other things). But still these plans are pretty dated and do require alot of time investment to sort out the errors and such.

If you want a modern (competitive) shaped hull then you need to do what Bill has done and get into contact with the builders around the moulds owned by Steve Clark or get the Blade F16 plans. Both of these designs are modern hullshapes and both allow you to build the parts yourself.


Picture below shows a Marine-ply/epoxy Blade F16 (orange) and a Marine-ply/epoxy Taipan F16 (grey)




One benefit of the Blade F16 is that it is designed to be build out of tortured marine ply and will probably fit in very well with your wood working skills. Only the seams are glassed (with epoxy resin and glass tape); the main surfaces are not. If the used batch of marine ply is of a good quality then the hulls will be very stirdy as well despite their low weight. You don't need moulds for the hulls, nor extensive vacuum bagging techniques. The building plans cost 250 Aus$ = 190 US$ and rought 200 hours are required to complete the ply boats. For an impression Go to this page (showing the building of a Taipan by tortured play method) : http://www.geocities.com/phillbrander/taipan/taipan_construction.htm


If you are interested then e-mail me at wouterhijink(at)hotmail.com and I will show you pictures of the Blade F16 building proces in tortured play or the pics of my Taipan 4.9 homebuild when it was under construction. And I can put you into contact with the design of the boat itself so you can purchase the plans or ask questions to him.

With respect to cost. You must not expect to save much money when homebuilding. You can save some but in my experience not more than about 15 %; that is unless you can really cut costs due to work relationships or something. You can buy a commercially build Blade F16 for 13.000 USD; I don't expect a normal average homebuilder to go below 11.000 USD.

The true attraction of homebuilding is the satisfaction of sailing a fruit of your own labour and the fact that you can do everything (have everything) exactly the way you want. The last thing really adds to the enjoyment of sailing.






The A-cats require some close control on the building techniques in order to not come out to heavy. Typically the A-cats hulls at 18 feet length come in at 13-15 kgs a piece. Same applies to most other parts as the overall A-cat platform minimum weight is 75 kgs.

The Blade F16 hulls are 25 kg's a piece. F16's have a minium weight of 107 kg's and a relatively good homebuilder can achieve that minimum weight.

In performace there are not many boats at all who can outpoint or outrun an A-cat upwind. With the introduction of the spinnakers (F20, F18, F16's) quite a few boats can now outrun and outpoint A-cats on the downwind legs. On reaching legs all boats seem to be pretty even. Don't expect to outpoint a monohull skiff on any catamaran, but you completely expect to outrun them when going upwinds. The VMG of the A-cats are just much higher.

Cost ?

In general you should be able to homebuild an F16 for about 25 % less money then an A-cat. Especially now as the carbon cloth is pretty hard to get these days as Boeing and Airbus have bought up nearly all the production capacity of desired carbon cloth for the next two years. The only alternative is to go for full Kevlar construction of the hulls (in the way of Blade F16 you can also choose to use marine grade ply) ; however Kevlar is a pretty rotten material to work with. It produces great hulls, maybe even better then carbon cloth, but it is really not much fun to work with.

Well, if you are interested in the Timber/epoxy construction method (either F16 or A-cats) or just the F16 path then I'm open to all your questions. With respect to carbon and kevlar A-cats I can best refer you to Bill and the group around Steve Clark.

I hope this helps,

Wouter

Wouter has it right in my experience. The hulls are not that expensive, especially not if you build them yourself in ply/epoxy. But when you begin to buy all the small fittings and blocks, you will be astonished at the bottom line (I was).

Best option if on a tight budget and you want to homebuild, is to find an old beachcat, preferably with one or both hulls wrecked and buy it for the fittings, rig and beams. I have all the equipment from our first Tornado (hulls are history) in storage, and I am not selling..
Carbon cloth can be bought at a discount at manufacturers. They often have leftowers from the looms, if you can get in a position to buy it. Carbon tubes, "I" beams and other profiles can be bought from 'pulltrusion' firms who manufacture them for the industry. The challenge again is to find them and convince them to sell you the parts you need (if they make them).

Kevin Cooke built an all carbon Tornado (that I wanted to buy) for much less than $10k. I know this because he was selling it, fully rigged with carbon spars, beams, and sails for $9k.

Yes he has an autoclave in his backyard.

I dont think there is any more than I am giving away.

I worked with Steve last winter in his shop to lay up the hulls. I took the 4 halves home one winter day and stuck them in my basement. Once I had the foam cut and fitted to the mold it takes about a half day to lay up hulls, if you use Nomex you can do 2 halves in one day. Cutting the carbon according to the pattern takes about a half day. The hulls prior to mine were done in a weekend.

http://www.intcanoe.us/mygallery/index.asp - see A cat construction Feb 05

I built the bulkheads, and sterns in my basement with corecell foam, carbon cloth and epoxy, without vacuum pressure, tabbed them into the hulls. Made anchor points for the rigging out of fiberglass and epoxy, and tapped in Wichard anchor bolts.

I glued the hulls together with Proset and beamed up the boat (Proset again) with the help of a carpenter friend. Lots of measuring, laid the lines out on a concrete floor. Glued it all together, which I think was easier than building anchor points for beam bolts.

I purchased new Flyer Rudders and rudderheads, and purchased used daggers. I got the boom and beams from Forte I got a used curved travelor from a friend, used an old travelor car, modified with carbon plate, and added components from my spare parts box.

Midboom sheeting was custom made, no mold, just built up carbon and epoxy, using an Ronstan rachet block on a cutoff section of boom.

Mast from Hall with gibb tangs and carbon gooseneck.

Phil Kinder made me a tramp.

The only mold was the hull mold.

I collected chop sticks for stirrers, and used plastic butter containers for epoxy mixing pots.

If anyone wants to try it, I would be happy to introduce them to Steve, and share any of the things I learned along the way. I will also lend you the Proset gun and a handful of chopsticks.

No secrets Wouter.

Hey! now that's a great tip!

Look this is what I was talking about :












I'm assuming here Phil Kinder is a private person and not a sailmaker and he was only charging you material costs.




Which was build and is owned by another guy. This guy made the expenses and allows the others to seriously cut down on production costs. This is not something most of us have access too.








Great please send that tool to me in the Netherlands I promise I will send it back to you.






Indeed, you are not making any secrets of it, but I think we have established now that there was more too it then what the first impression was suggesting. You did have access to a mould of what looks like a competitive A-cat and in the group there was ample experience in building good quality hulls (boats). Some other guys helped you with second hand parts, stitching your trampoline and what not (all rather significant cost savings) and you already had some stuff yourself you could use.

Did you order a new mainsail ? Or did you pick up a second hand one ?

Indeed no secrets, but some other guy must be able to reproduce all these things in order to come out below or at 10K himself. Try getting a secondhand curved rear traveller everyone ?


Actually I think Rolf made an excellent comment here. Best is to buy an old cat cheaply for all the parts like blocks, mainsheet system etc and save a bundle not having to buy these things new. Because indeed these parts new are alot of cost.

Fair winds to you and your new boat Bill,

Wouter

Wouter,
Cut the crap.

I PAID Phil Kinder to build me a tramp. Your assumption is WRONG, he builds tramps for a BUSINESS. And he charged me regular retail price. http://www.kinder-industries.com/

I PAID Steve Clark for the use of the mold. We did it in his shop because they are big and heavy, and I didnt want to move them to my shop. I could have easily done it in my garage it I had chosen too.

I PAID for the used parts - travelor, etc.

I PAID for the new parts too.

My crime is that I got a used travelor? Well, I bought a $2500 Hall mast too, so that is the other end of the scale. Oh heavens, I used some spare bolts I had lying around! If anyone is going to attempt to build a boat, you would expect that they might use some of the stuff they have laying around if it works?

Cut it out.

My budget is realistic, and could have even been less if I had sourced a less expensive mast.

You are not proving anything except that you are a pain in the butt.

Yeah, right. Carbon is impossible to get unless you happen to go to Jamestown Distributors or have access to the internet.

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/find;a;1;ID;,Fiberglass,Carbon.Fiber,Carbon.Fiber.Cloth


Get real Wouter.

Actually Wouter, I bet Steve would help anyone on this forum make a set of hulls if you asked him nicely.

I know of another set of molds that you could borrow.

And I could name 3 people who would help with info, questions, etc.

Oh,and if you happen to check out the Acat website, they have lots of used and new stuff for sale all the time.

So, no I didnt have any special access.

No special secrets.

Sorry

any useful parts here?
[img]http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotor...PageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem[/img]

I guess that two independent professional catamaran builders (with hunderds of sport catamarans sold) plus a well known carbon mast builder with tens of masts in the competitive A-cat fleet are all mistaken then. As it was they who told me of the carbon shortages.

You know what, I really don't care what you think. Any person that you convince to home build a competitive A-cat due to the 10K claim will soon enough learn what the real situation is.

I can tell everybody out there that I couldn't build my timber/epoxy Taipan F16 (fully rigged with alu beams and mast) for less than 11.500 Euro's and yes I used some secondhand parts as well just like Bill. Hell my mainbeam was part of a broken mast that I could buy really cheap. Back then I could get an Ashby mainsail (competitive) for 1400 Aus$ and now he is charging 1850 Aus$. An increase of 30 % in 3 years. And it will all add up.

Now everybody else make up their own minds.

Wouter

Just for the record.

The Poo-Bah is siding with Bill on this one :P


... carry on ...

Has anybody tried the new basalt fibre that is available? Its supposed to be much cheaper than carbon..

http://www.sudaglass.com/

It does look to be a little stronger than fiberglass but it's density is higher so it's heavier than fiberglass.