TMS-20 Building female mold

Busy weekend traced, taped, and sawed. I have the stations all cut out and attached to the strong back. I need to fair them out and line everything up. For those who want to see the progress follow the link.

Building female mold

Making great progress proving it is easier to build than repair.

Thanks Craig.

I'm trying to keep with the schedule I've set. When are the rains coming?
The next steps are to fair out the stations, align everything, and fasten everything down.
Then I'll begin to cut the foam and strip out the hull.

So far easier then repair work. Better work medium wood, paper, and foam better then grinding old fiber glass at this point.

Like you said I hope it doesn't take a year to paint this boat.

Very nice work, and I liked all the other projects as well. What are you going to use for Amas on the Tri? Are you going to use the SC 20 hulls?

That would be cool but Craig would not like it. I have plans for the ama's they come in two sizes. I'm going to use the larger size. On the first page of the TMS-20 it shows the ama lines. They are 14 inches at max beam and 24 inches deep at max depth with a slight rocker. The dagger and rudder are in each ama. The main hull does not have a dagger or rudder.

Make sure you're posting this stuff in the homebuilding forum as well.

Man, you make it look so easy....

Where did you get the plans for all of the hulls or did you design them? And what will they be made of? Foam cored glass like a regular production cat or wood or carbon, or something else? Looks great.

What rig (mast/sails) will you be using? I wonder about the side loads and twisting of the amas on the beams if you put the daggerboards out on the amas. Do you plan on flying the center hull when powered up like some of the 60 footers do? My observation of many comercial production tri's (vs. one-off full out racing tri's) is the never use a big enough ama. The ama's seem to bury underwater before the boat has a chance to really get up and going. I'm talking mostly of the Weta, all the Corsairs, and that Hobie pedal kayak-tri.

I emailed Ian Farrier about this some years ago, he said he designed them small on purpose (on the Corsairs), for safety reasons, to discourage people from trying to lift the center hull out of the water where they would likely flip it. He said when the lee ama is going under, you need to reef. I said, how about just putting a bigger ama on it, and when the center hull comes out, then you need to reef. He said most Corsair buyers are new to sailing and would crash instead. So for safety, or maybe liability? reasons, smaller amas are on them. If it were my boat, I would want big amas that don't go under water too soon.

I think Ian's position on the matter is well supported by the Reynolds 30 catamaran experiences.

A large part of the reason for the size of the farrier floats is due to the need to fold and trailer the boats. I understand the theory about them perhaps not being bigger for safety reasons, but seems like an odd argument to me. Smaller so they bury quicker and risk instability early as opposed to instability later? I am not a designer so I can't say much more.
I sailed on a Multi23 the other day and the floats on it were more substantial than on the corsairs. They did not bury nearly as quickly as on corsairs. That being said, the wind wasn't crazy. The owner has experience on a sprint750 and he says the floats on the multi23 are much better for pushing things further. The trade off is that there is no folding system on the multi23 so the set up/take down part of the deal is much more labor intensive going from trailer to water and back.

http://issuu.com/seacart30/docs/sc30rw08_recap_39pages

Hey all,

I’ve got a few years of boat build experience back in the 70’s. I worked for a couple of boat builders. Nasty work it’s better if your name is above the doors. Also I have many years of repair work on boats, cars, and trucks. I like to take old stuff apart and restore it. I have a few trophies from my show car days. I crewed on a SCCA race car for a short time. The plans are from Kurt Hughes http://www.multihulldesigns.com/. The design was for the Worrell 1000 when it was an all out race non-stop. I had the plans modified for more cabin space and a drier ride.

The boat will be foam/glass. Right now I’m thinking DIAB DIVINYCELL H-60 cut into strips bead and coved a lay-up of 6oz x 2-cloth vacuum bagged on each side. My budget will call for an aluminum spar and I may use my G-Cat rig at first until I figure how much I can power it up. The plans come with standing rigging and sail plan with a main, jib, spi, and reacher. There are sea stays for the ama’s and I may put a cross bars to hang rigging and tramps.

Kurt Hughes claims it will fly on one hull the ama’s are 19’ long 2 feet tall and max beam of 14 inches. I was told the boat would flip so I’ll add more sail so I can push it to the limit. I can always have larger volume ama’s designed if the current design is not adequate. The 17-foot beam should help with that.

You sit about 6 inches above the water line so there is a lower center of gravity. I’m thinking about rigging the steering so it can be piloted from the ama’s and the ****. At least get the crew out on the side.

I spent an afternoon last year with Randy and he explained his thought on the narrow beamed boats.I was thinking or building or buying a 33-35 cat. Market and stocks went to hell so I'm working my way up. Right now I’m going with Kurt’s design but perhaps a little more rig and sail. The boat does not fold-up but it comes apart to trailer.

I bought a new air belt-sander looks like just the tool to sand and fair the concave curve of the female molds.

Later,

Mike Shappell

Mike,

I'm really enjoying watching your progress - thanks for keeping us updated here!

With regards to powering up the design (and pardon me if you have already considered this), but beam is not going to be your 1st enemy when powering up this animal. Having worked with some RC multihulls and sailed my fair share of various tris and cats, the limits to the power really comes to play in the bows when maneuvering and not so much hull flying. I had a very lightweight one meter catamaran with tons of beam and it had so much righting moment that flying a hull was actually difficult...but it would pitchpole in a skinny second even sailing upwind. There is such a thing as too much righting leverage. I can't wait to see your progress every week!

Mike,

Am I to presume you're retired? Your progress looks steady, and I can't imagine this is just a part-time, few hours a day thing....

But it looks great. I did a little surf/windsurf work, but never something that big. I like how much detail you document on the web. Good luck!

Jay,

Not retired just plain tired. I work full time and travel some with business across the US. I'm spend several hours a night out in the shop, it's in the backyard. The work so far has been two week-end of actual work, a handfull of nights, and several months of planning.

Jake - I plan to carry of couple of small hand held pony tanks in case of pitch pole, like the firemen use. Still trying to figure how to right a tri. Hans Giesler use to say if you don't flip once in awhile your not sailing hard enough.

With outside help you right them by pulling the front over the rear, aka front to back instead of side to side with a "normal" boat. The rear usually have less buoyancy than the front, especially if the amas are not going all the way back. You need a safety boat with a big engine and quick reactions to keep everything inline while pulling.

Without outside help on a small tri you flood an amas, so it sinks but keep some buoyancy, right the boat side to side so it is right way up but with a partially sunk amas, and then empty the water by sailing as quick as possible. Works on a Weta, a 14' tri, not sure if it is really applicable to something 20' long.

Thanks Pepin

I figured you hade to flip it pot over tea kettle. The breathing pony tanks are to get out of the ****. I hope i never find out but I'll go out and try it under controlled circumstances so I know how when or if the time comes. That is how I started sailing with my NACRA 5.2 went out and flipped it a few times then started racing. On the 5.2 it was easy I left the sheets tight got out on the boards spun it to wind and hang on.

leaving sheets tight is a good way to lose the boat after its righted.

Don't ask me how I know.

You should start a separate thread titled

"Don't ask me how I know"

I think there are a good number of comments most of us could post, all of which end in "... Don't ask me how I know"



Here's one:

The old card sound bridge was less than 32 feet off the water. Don't ask me how I know.

That actually made me really chuckle.

Your boat was one of the test subjects. I use to have the pic,I think Mike Krantz took it. Capt. Kirk doing wheelies with undecided,with the mast stuck between girders.THAT made me chuckle.

That actually explains a lot of things with that mast :P

Says alot that it's still in one piece, it's a goodie.

Its heavy.

Depends on the wind. But good point I usually have ahold of main sheet. I never lost a boat that way.....but go to "Don't Ask Me How I Know" I did lose a boat once of off Captiva Island with two ladies on it. I was able to catch it for very good reasons. They were buying drinks for the captain.

I think righting it nose over stern has a lot do with the sails (assuming that the rig is intact). If the boat is inverted and you tow it forward, the boat will just move forward in the water. If you tow it backwards, the sails will have a lot of traction in the water and help the boat rotate.

On the scale we're talking about here, however, I think having some permanent buoyancy in the rig, sinking, and refloating an ama would be more achievable and less violent to the boat in this case.