F85SR Concept Boat

Folks,
Check out the link and see what Farrier is thinking about next.
F85SR

He has mentioned there may be a tall rig option too
which could be used if not sailing under the NZ 8.5m rule.

Either way it looks like it would be a great addition to his current stable of designs.
He just needs enough people interested to justify turning the concept into a reality.

Regards,
Phill

I see that F85SR stands for Super Racer.
The way I see it, if you omit the curved board option and keep the larger cabin, you could have a cruiser that would put most racing craft to shame.
Just something to ponder over a rum or two.

Anyone interested in turning this concept into reality should let Ian know.
It would be a fun project.

Folks,
I just couldn't resist the attraction of this "concept" craft. F-85SR

So I've bitten the bullet and started to build the (F-85SR) Farrier 8.5metre Super Racer.

I have found personally that armed with the right attitude building can be nearly as much fun as sailing.
Well not quite but it can be a lot of fun and good quality and highly detailed plans make it so much easier to enjoy the build.
You can't get better plans than the ones Ian Farrier draws up.

A photo album has been created on Catsailor to file away pics of the build for anyone who may be interested.
I hope to keep adding pics as I go along.

So far the float frames have been cut out and the float bulkheads have been made.

I hope to get the strong back down next week so I can start on the floats.

Fun times ahead.
Regards,
Phill

Farriers just became sexy! I want one too..

Rolf,
I always try to build good looking boats. From the plans that I have received the F85SR really is a great looking boat.

All I have to do is build it and......

Regards,
Phill

Don't you need to finish your current project

And also needs to build a couple of smaller boats as pay for his daughters kitchen
Hi Phill, Can you email me my computer died(insert swear words in any lanuage here)
Thanks Richard

I have not been able to get near the F85SR for several months because of some pressing issues of more importance. I know that is hard to believe.
Anyway I have posted a couple more pics and now hope to start making some real progress. My next step is to make an oven 600mm x 1200mm x 2400mm. I don't really need it to build the boat but it would be handy to have when heating large quantities of resin, post curing smaller components and heating foam so it can be shaped to the batten mould. The F85 is a good excuse to build toys that I can use in later projects.

I quickly threw an oven together today with the help of a couple of friends who dropped around to see what I was up to.
This is not the "all singing all dancing" oven that I want to build to post cure and rapid cure of components but something that will heat both sides of foam up to 1200mm x 450mm so I can start planking the floats. The oven has 3 configurations that will deliver either 78degC, 103degC or 120degC. I put a couple of test pieces of foam through it today and while the foam can be bent at 78 it is easier and has a much better memory at 103 deg C and above. So I'll go with the 103 deg C config and this should help the planking go smoothly and quickly.

I started planking the float hull with foam today. Started late this arvo because it was a great day for bike riding , 1 metre planked and 7 to go. .
I went down to the local supermarket and bought 3 x 5kg bags of rice. I'm using the rice as weights instead of point loading the foam with clamps.
The foam goes into the oven, comes out and goes onto the mould and the bags of rice go on top to hold the foam into shape while the screws are screwed in from the back.
It cost me $37 for the 15kg of rice but it seems to work rather well and we can eat the rice when done so it really didn't cost anything.

I'm rebating the foam with a rebate 10mm wide in each sheet and 5mm deep. Cutting the rebate is taking a bit of extra time but this helps to ensure the level of the adjacent sheets is the same and will hopefully help reduce the fairing.

I'm assembling dry and leaving a 5 to 7mm slot and will force bog into the gap to form the seal that will be needed when I'm applying a vacuum for the glassing.
I will probably take some more pics tomorrow.

Phill how about a post with some pictures on the design of the oven?

Les,
The oven is very simple. I ordered some fan heater from an electronics store a couple years back,. The were offerring 2kw heater for $15 ea. I ordered 5 of them and they sent me 10.
Each heater has 3 heating elements and a fan all wired separately.
I'm using 2 elements in each heater and the fans.
The oven is simply a box made from 33mm mdf on the top of a steel frame. (Normally used as a table.) Ply sides and a 9mm MDF botton. The are two timber rails inside to slide the foam in on.
The hot air is blown along the lower surface of the foam and then turns around and runs across the upper surface before it can exit out a slot just blow the 33mm mdf table.
A baffel is made up to help the heaters grab the already preheated air- heat it some more and it is driven back in. When the heaters are operating with out the baffel and only two elements running you get 78 deg C.
Insert the baffel and you get a bit over 100deg C - around 103 to 106.
Switch in the third element and you go over 120 dg C.
I have added some pics of the heaters used and the oven itself with others to my photo albumn.

Thanks Phill

The Float half is laminated with foam and will probably get its inside laminated next Monday. I've added a pic of the float and the left over foam to my albumn.

Hi Phill, The link http://www.geocities.com/phillbrander takes me to what seem to be a "404" page. Do you have a current link to your album?

Thanks
les

Les,
That is a blast from the past.
I put that stuff up back in the late 90s. Yahoo made changes and most of it went into the ether.
I had to move the pics to flickr. I don't even know if they are still there.

The album I was referring to was my album on catsailor.

F85SR Building

I hope this helps.
Regards,
Phill

PS- how does one become a member of the - "Royal Society for Making Cool Stuff "

I laminated the inside of the float half today. Managed to pull 22.5 inches of mercury using the foam itself as one side of the vacuum membrane. I've added a couple pics. It did some maths and that is something like 53 tons of pressure over the surface on the hull. Nothing like a good vacuum.

It doesn't look like you used peel ply, bleeder, or breather.
Any reason why?
Did you put the sticky s*** on the outside?

Les,
The absorption fabric is black. Maybe that is misleading as the order of layers is foam screwed to the frame battens from the outside (screws miss penetrating through the foam by 3mm), bi-di glass(0/90), peel ply, perforated film to release the absorption fabric and then the black absorption fabric and then vacuum film.

I used slow hardener and given our temp at the time I would have had to run the vacuum pump for 15 hours so I covered the structure in black plastic , stuck a fan eater up one end and after 30 mins the temp of the structure stabilised at 40deg C. So with that temp I ran the vacuum for a little over 5 hours.
I have just started to strip the layers off and the laminate is looking great. After peeling all the layers off except the peel ply I took some pics and put them in my photo albumn.



Regards,
Phill

Folks,
I've been off on a holiday up the coast with extended family. Bike riding, Kayaking and bush walking. Camped on the grass just above the beach. It's a damn hard life but someone has to do it- well I suppose I should get some more boat building done. I'll probably pull the first float half out of the mould on monday,if I can get around to it. I'll post some some more pics beforehand.
It's all fun and games.
Regards,
Phill

A couple more pics have been added to my F85SR building Albumn.
Below is just a pic of the bulkheads and stringer forward of the main beam.

The first float half is out of the mould. I'm very happy with how fair it has come out. Just the tougue of the rebates are pushed up a little but this will get fixed very quickly with a long board. Then I'll fill the rebate gaps and it will be ready to glass after it is joined to another float half.

I've put more pics in my albumn as per below:-

The first float half has been hoisted to the ceiling out of the way and yesterday I spent 2 hours cutting and cutting rebates in the foam for the next float half.

Today I planked the second float half in 4 hours. The oven we made makes it so easy. Each foam plank needs 5 mins in the oven and when it comes out you can make almost any shape out of it, but you have to be quick because it cools very quickly.
The time taken to make the oven was well worth it.
I was helped with my 3 x 5kg bags of rice. They hold the foam down really well while I screw the foam to the mould.
I will probably apply the inside laminate later in the week when I can get some friends together to help. It's not so much that I need help but extra hands really make a difference when chasing the smallest of details to get everything just right.

Hi Phill. I see the trimmer is still working, More butt than class,hopefully it'll last the whole process. Then it might be time to retire it??
Richard

Richard,
You missed out on a fun day today laminating the second float half. It must have taken us around 30 mins to find all the leaks when we turned the vacuum pump on but it was worth it. We managed to pull 25 inches of mercury,12 pounds of pressure on every square inch of the laminate.

I'll fit the bulkheads later in the week and then the lifting foil center cases that arrived a couple of days ago.



They forecast rain for the rest of the week so that should give me more time to work on the boat.

Regards,
Phill

Hi Phill,
I sent you a pm but as a new member perhaps it didn't go through. If you could send me some blade plans I'd like to send you some money.
Thanks.
pat

Hi Phill
A fun day laminating, Is probably better than a night shift. I'll catch up again when you are ready to join the two halves, Sing out when

Richard,
I don't think I've touched the Tri in the last two weeks. Too busy taking advantage of the good weather, after all that rain and renovating our kitchen. Hopefully the kitchen will be finished by the end of the week and I'll get stuck into the third float half. I'll give you a call when I'm about to join them together.

Regards,
Phill

I've glassed in the first Lifting foil case and added some pics to my album.

A couple of them shown below.

I've hoisted the second float half to the roof.
Backed off the screws holding the battens to the mould (after numbering them so I know where each one goes). Lifted the battens up and reversed all the frames and then screwed the battens back in the mirrored position. So now I can start cutting foam to make the other side of the two floats.
Leaving all the screws in and keeping the battens in the same relative position saved me a heap of work.

Richard,
I foam planked the third half Friday. If the rain stops I'll laminate the inside tomorrow and join them together Sunday. So if you are out and about drop in.

Hi Phill You are joking if it stops raining, I hope you can fit two of each animals in side the tri. I'm busy Sunday and going into nights next week, I'll PM you . Might catch up Tuesday
Richard

Richard,
There was a break in the rain for a while so the third float half got laminated. Again pulling a really good vacuum. (25" once again)

I used slow hardener and to save having to run the vacuum for 15 hours I brought the laminate temp from the teens up into the 30s with the simple setup using a fan heater in the transom. The setup is shown below.

BTW:- is Monday any better for you?

I pulled all the vacuum layers off the hull yesterday including the peel ply. The laminate looks perfect. I've been right over it and there are no pin holes in the weave and the fibres all look properly wet out.
When doing the laminating I have some friends that come around and help so I have the luxury of being able to keep accurate records when mixing the resin. The weight of the hardener and resin for each mix is recorded.

We used 5.7kg of resin mix to wet out approx 7 sq metres of 400gm E glass.When the absorption fabric was removed I weighed it and weighed samples to work out how heavy it was before it went in.
This allowed me to work out how much of that 5.7kg was absorbed and how much left in the laminate. So it looks like the laminate took up 3.2kg of resin to properly wet out both the laminate and foam.

Now the interesting fact is that people have been talking about 250 to 300gms of resin per sq metre being needed just to wet the foam. Assuming a 50/50 glass resin ratio,it seems that with a really good vacuum and a little heat at the right time it may be less than 100gms per square metre needed for the foam.
Only one more float half to go. I'll probably do the same measurements on that one to see if I get the same results.

Glued the starboard float sides together today.
I posted some pics in my albumn like below.

It's time to get started on the 4th and last float side.
I have suspended the joined stbd float from the ceiling and cut and rebated the foam. I've taken a pic of all the foam required to make one of the float sides. See below.

I managed to place all the foam in the float mould before lunch today
however due to other commitments I won't be able to apply the
inside laminate for nearly a week.
Hopefully I'll be able to get to it next Thursday.

I laminated the inside of the 4th float half a couple of days ago and glassed in the lifting foil case today. Over the weekend I hope to join the two halves of the second float together.
I'll post some more pics once that is done.

I joined the second float over the weekend.
I screwed a batten to the top of the mould along the keel and deck C/Ls which makes the top half captive when it is being glued. The ratchet straps apply pressure and the top half tries to spread but the extra battens limit the movement and this effectively aligns the two edges. Pick below of the sides strapped together.




Once the resin has cure the hull come out and I fill the rebates in the foam for the newest side. The reflection of the flash on the different surfaces fails to show how incredible fair the hull is given the construction method.
I will still take my time preparing the external surface as best I can before the outside laminate is vacuumed on.

When you look at the amount of buoyancy in these floats it is quite impressive.

Right now both the bow and transom look a bit funny because foam extends past what they have
to be so I have a surface to prepare for the vacuum seal when I laminate the outside.

The float will look really cool when the ends are trimmed and the solid foam bow goes on.

I forgot to mention that I now have a set of CNC machines F85SR float frames and bulkhead templates that are surplus to my requirements. Anyone interested in a kick start on this exciting project should let me know.

Hi Phil,

Your project looks very nice.
I have one question about your bowfloats. They are vert slim on top. Is this your own design or according to plan. I like the small topsite because this makes it less funerable to flip the boat when the bow is submerged.

Arno

I'm building to plan and intend to continue to build to plan.
BTW:- I also really like the shape Ian has for the floats.

are the SR bowfloats different from the normal one's on the topsite?

Arno,
I'm building the F85SR. The closest to this design is the F82R.
Towards the bow there appears to be a difference in deck shape as you have noticed in the photos of my F85SR floats.

Ian would be the best person to direct questions to about the design if you want more detail.

Regards,
Phill

I've not had much chance to work on the boat lately but I have taken some more pics of the stuff I have had a chance to do.

Suspending the floats with webbing straps on lines makes it easy to both rotate the floats and vary how high they are off the ground depending on the task at hand.



Below I'm preparing the area around where the foil case comes out of the deck to take a high density filler.
The plastic is taped to the foam to ensure the only place the filler goes is where it is needed.



After the deck I did the keel and in both cases removing the foam is much harder than I expected.
It has a pretty strong bond with the internal laminate.


Most of the foam has been removed but still more work to do. I'm glad it is so hard to separate the foam.
Bodes well for the integrity of the final structure.

I wanted to glass the first 1200mm or 4ft of the keel and deck joins from the openings still in the ends of the floats.
Being able to adjust the distance of the floats off the ground allowed me to stand in a comfortable position for the work. I made up a brush screwed and glued perpendicular to the axis of a 1/2 inch by 1/2inch 6ft long stick. I also made up a device to apply a small fillet on the join.
In the case of the bow I had to get 4 inch wide glass tape and peel ply trough a 2 inch wide slot. I expected this to be quite difficult but it wasn't that hard after all. Below is a pic of the final product after the peel ply has been removed.



When I went to glass the first 4 ft of the transom end joins I used the same method as the bow because it worked to well.



I'd just put a coat of resin on the area the tape is about to be placed and apply the fillet. Wet the tape and peel ply out together on a bench and then place the combination on 2 lengths of dowel with a 3rd length on top over the centerline.
Sandwiching the tape like this holds it in place with the center stick showing where the center line is to help positioning.
Put the lot inside the hull and roll the two underneath lengths out from under the tape. The rolling action ensures the glass tape lays flat on the work area. Then just go over it all with my brush on a stick to remove any air bubbles and bed it all down.
I could have just rolled the tape and peel ply onto a roller and unrolled it for the transom but the openning in the bow was too narrow for the roller method.
Anyway I'm pretty happy with the result.

looks great phill!

Thanks for the compliment.

Its great how when building your own boat you can get enjoyment from the smallest of achievements.

I made a glass tube yesterday which I needed for a part of a fitting that I'm making.
I wanted a tube with an internal dia of 35mm and around a 4mm wall thickness. I only need two sections of around 75mm so I made one 220mm section that I will cut up.
I used some 33mm al tube as a male mandrel, coated it in candle wax and then black plastic to keep the candlewax away from the end product. I wound 1250mm of 400gm BD cloth (220mm wide) onto the mandrel and spun it with a power drill while gripping it to compress the laminate. Then I wound 60mm strips of peel ply to form two layers which helped to further compress the layup and then two layer of PVC tape.
When cured I used my heat gun to warm it all up. The wax melted and the mandrel is released. Before I had a heat gun I would just pour boiling water down the tube.
Now the good bit is the final product contained 60/40 glass/resin ratio with a 4.5mm wall.
I've made lots of tubes this way before but never bothered to weigh and measure the components to work out the glass/resin ratio.
Half the fun in a project like this is taking pleasure from small achievements.

Folks,
When setting up a vacuum session it is always a challenge to find all the leaks to get good vacuum pressure.
I understand that you can buy untrasonic leak detectors but that are a bit pricey for the home builder.
Well a friend who was helping me suggested that I buy a stethescope as they were on sale at a local store for $10 ea.

Well I tried it and if you are looking at vacuuming and can get a stethescope to help find leaks give it a go - it works great.

Regards,
Phill

Hi Phill,

photos looks great and thanks for all the tips included!

Are you able to move the floats around by yourself?

Rolf,
I can spin the floats around and move them back and forth in the workshop easily by myself. Having them suspended on slings from the ceiling makes this very quick and easy.
It's not the weight but their girth, it is too big to get a good enough grip to carry one outside alone. With another person each picking up an end where it is easy to grip carrying them around is no problem. The F85SR has enough volume in the floats to fly 2 of the 3 hulls.
Given the size and volume of the floats they are surprising light.

Flying two out of three hulls sounds good. If you get all three hulls airborne, you need bigger foils and a license

Rolf,
A few days back I dropped the glass tube that I made on the concrete floor of my workshop. It sounded just like the ringing chink of a glass bottle , the sound they make when they bounce rather than break. The tube has been cut up and part of the hulls now.
One step at a time.
Regards,
Phill

I have added a few more picks of the work I have been doing.


The nose has been added to the floats and the glass tube included which is part of the fitting to take the brace for the spinnaker pole.



A 6mm long shank shackle is glued into the glass tube.





A 10mm silicon tube is used to ensure a path is maintained for the brace once the shackle is embedded into the resin.


A clamp is used to ensure the shackle finishes at or below the hull exterior surface. Giving a very clean look with just a couple of small holes. So there is an added benefit that the fitting does not interfere with fairing, painting or later on polishing.

[img]http://www.catsailor.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10302/normal_Bow%20work29.JPG[/img]

The silicon tube pulled out quite easily after and I could double up a 5mm line and slide it through the smooth path left around the shackle. Therefore I can now pass a line with an eye splice through making it very easy to attach and detach the brace line.

Gee Phill That's a bit shackle, Aren't you worried about the boat nose diving with that amount of weight on the bow??? LOL

Richard,
What do you think the lifting foils are for?

The shackle weighs 31 grams. The whole fitting including glass tube and resin to bog the shackle into the tube weighed 151 grams.

Damn good thing I have those foils.

More pics in the photo albumn as per below.
I prepared a surface to bond the vacuum film to in order to ensure a good seal. Layer of filler on the foam followed by coat of resin. (I later found two coats of resin, allowing cure between coats, appear to do the same job.)


Float laminated with peel ply on.



Managed to again pull a vacuum of 25 inches. (Around 12 pounds of pressure per sq inch.)
My $10 stethescope was very handy at finding the small leaks. The big leaks don't make a noise but you can usually see them.
Also I found out that the tacky tape does not stick well to resin with amine blush on it. Had to clean the amine blush off with acetone. In the past I had used a resin for the seal that does not blush. In future I'll stick with the blush free epoxy that I have when making sealing surfaces on the foam.


Using plastic and fan heaters to bring the temp up to 25 degC as the day cools.



Weighing everything that goes in and comes out I determined that 6.4 kgs of resin went in before vacuum and after pulled around 1 kg out in the wadding and peel ply.
I was pretty happy leaving only 5.5kg of resin in the hull side given the heavier weight of the external laminate. The resin content of the laminate looks just right.



An interesting point in the process was the need to get the glass to wrap around the keel by 50mm and stay up against the foam while we prepared for the vacuum. Gravity would be trying to work against this so I applied a layer of resin with fast hardener on the foam and did not try to wrap the glass around until it went tacky. The tacky resin easily did the job of holding the glass up against the foam while I wet out the glass with slow resin and prepared the vacuum.

I just had another thought Phill, If the lifting foils don't work, Just put extra lead in the stern(you could always carry the bottles of rum back there). The floats is looking really good.

Richard,
What a good idea, with a bit of plumbing we could run rum ballast instead of water ballast.

Something I first tried years back and is proving to be very useful on this build is using a scraper
in some circumstances that would otherwise involve sanding.
One example would be if you accidentally get a run of resin over a surface of paint, timber or even foam. Sanding that run away will not only take quite a bit of effort but it also damages the surface around the run.

On the other hand a scraper with a nice sharp tungsten blade and light pressure will remove the run with
little or no damage to the surrounding area (depending on how careful you are.)

I had some runs on the foam which I easily removed with the scraper without marking the foam and I also
used the scraper to taper the edge of the glass in preparation for the overlap when the other side is
glassed. It can be an amazingly handy tool and can save quite a bit of elbow grease.

Below is a pic of the scraper that I'm using.

Vacuuming the external laminate for the lifting foil side of the float posed the problem of sealing for a vacuum without the risk of crushing the case. I've added some pics as per below.


Before the glass was wet out the openning for the case was cut in it. After the perforated film, peel ply and wadding were also cut for the case openning and packing tape was used to make sure no parts of these layers could interfere with a vacuum seal around the case openning.



The pic below just shows the vacuum has been applied (again getting 25 inches or 12 lbs per sq inch). You can see dark patches where the wadding is taking up some resin.


I've been using household irrigation supplies for the vacuum plumbing. Here you can see a hose (that I punched small holes in) wrapped in wadding distributing the vacuum along the length of the hull.



Not only did I seal around the case opennings I also put a breather hole in the film covering the case openning as an added precaution to make sure I did not pull a vacuum on the case. The cases are very strong but still not worth risking crushing them.



All cured, peeling away the layers to see the results.

The plan today was to laminate the stbd side of the stbd float.
I had organised a friend to come along and lend a hand.
He told another friend who is also building a boat and they both turned up.
All went extremely well and it is currently under a vacuum of 26 inches = 12.77lpounds per sq inch.
Below are some pics of the hull side under vacuum.

Finished laminating the outside of the floats today.
The last side is currently under vacuum and due to the cold temp I will run the vacuum most of the night.
It is currently pulling 25 inches once again. I'm very happy with the way they are turning out, they seem very stiff
and have a ring to them when you tap them.
I'll take some pics of the two floats together over the next day or two.

I haven't got around to taking the pics of the hulls together but i have a few other pics that I'll post as I find the time.
Once the outside has been laminated I need to gain access to do some work on the inside.
This is simply done by cutting holes in the deck. Doing the work and then repairing the hole.

The pic below shows a hole I cut in the foredeck to install a compression strut and glass the inside seems.


In order to repair the hole a glass plate is made using the deck as a mould. The plate is then glued to the section of deck.


With the floats suspended from above i thought of a novel way of clamping the glue joint when making the repair.

Below are a couple of other pics or the Transom an bow.


I've installed a transom strong enough to take rudders and stay in one piece if the rudder hits an object.


The transom is in two parts allowing easy access to ensure the part that takes the rudder is well glassed in. Above is a pic of the final shape.

Below is a shot of the bow. Once faired and painted you probably won't even notice the two small holes that provide a strong point to attach the spinnaker pole brace.

Thanks Phill!

You mentioned "cold". I thought it was heating up as summer approaced?

Rolf,
Summer is approaching but it's not that warm just yet.
I went for a short 40km ride today and it was only 12 deg C.

Speaking of cold you reminded me of a little experiment I thought I'd try a week or so back. I tried making a glass tube over a solid aluminum mandrel for a part of my Carbon Chain plate.
Rather than coating the mandrel in candle wax that I'd melt later to release I got this bright idea of freezing the final tube and mandrel to shrink the mandrel for release.
Just in case your thinking of trying something like this don't bother, go with the candle wax. I did finally get the glass tube and mandrel apart undamaged but it took a winch and some snap straps to do it. The glass tube has an inside dia of 12.5mm an outside dia of 18.5mm, 190mm long and weighs 47gms. and it took a 1metre length of 200gm plain weave glass to make.

Below is just a couple of pics of my setup. I spun the mandrel with the drill slowly to wrap the glass around it and then quickly while gripping the glass to compact the layup and remove excess resin. Then applied the peel ply and finally tape.



Once cured the peel ply and tape is removed. This is a good time to sand it if required, while the drill can still spin it.

Bump

For over a week now I've been getting a "Critical Error" when trying to access the photo album so I'm unable to upload more pics. My carbon chain plates are built and installed and I'm very happy with the result. It's time to put a finish on the outside of the floats.
So I've diverted to excavating under my front verandah and will put in a 20 plus metre long path 1600mm wide and brick retaining wall where I can store the floats end to end and work on putting a finish on them while working on the beams and main hull. Having them out of the way like this will allow me to work on the finish at my leisure and I can keep at it until it is spot on.
This excavation is taking a while and I can't wait to get back to working on the boat.

BTW:- Mark Hastings is just about finish machining the folding mech on his CNC machine and it is really top notch work. I can't post a pic of it on catsailor with the "critical error problem" but he did post one on Multihull Sailing Anarchy. If the Catsailor photo album starts working I'll stick a pic there.

Take care with your back when working under your veranda!

Phill, very interesting project... what are the beams like? I am needing some F-24 beams and wondering if they are the same dimensions?

Scott,
The best bet would be to shoot an email to Ian Farrier.
There is a slight difference between the F85 and F82 beams but I have no idea how that compares to the F24. A question to the designer would most likely get you the info that you need.
Regards,
Phill

Hi Phil
Thanks for putting in the effort to do the web page for the world to see.
I am considering a F85SR Build in Western Australia.
What size vac pump are you using?
Did you compile a composite purchase list? I am trying to get a handle on the cost for a simple F85SR but mostly to determine what I need to spend to get started?
It is great to see you weight data for the areas where you show how much resin used and how much saved by the bagging.

What epoxy are you using? Supplier?

What head height do you think is the minimum? I dont think it is going to fit my garage so I am considering a temp shed.
Any other people considering a build in western Australia?
Thanks
David

David,
I'll answer below:-

>I am considering a F85SR Build in Western Australia.
>What size vac pump are you using?

The pump I'm using has a 1hp motor. I don't have any other info as it was a gift from a friend.

>Did you compile a composite purchase list?
A comprehensive list comes with the plans so I used that.

>I am trying to get a handle on the cost for a simple F85SR >but mostly to determine what I need to spend to get started?

That depends if you want to buy all your materials first or just a bit at a time. I bought all the resin, glass, foam, uni carbon, vacuum consumeables (release film, vac film and absorption fabric) as well resin additives (filler, glue mix etc). Basically all the composite materials that I need to make the floats, beams and main hull for around $14,000

I had to shop around to get it at this price but if you do decide to build I'm happy to share my supplier info offline.
That would at least give you something to start working from.

>What epoxy are you using? Supplier?

Over the years I've built up a rather strong allergy to most brands of epoxy. So when I went looking for epoxy I wanted something that was not only a good quality but also one that would not affect me too badly. I ended up buying my epoxy from Gurit. So I'm using Ampreg 21. I really like this epoxy but it is one of the more expensive. If cost is an issue I can tell you of other epoxies that are cheaper. The extra cost was worth it to me because of my allergy.

>What head height do you think is the minimum?

This is also specified in the plans. Farrier leaves nothing out. The height to be able to join the main hull is 2750mm. But this is on a strong back with legs. (The legs specified are there to make the work easy on your back. Not too much bending.)
I have 2700mm and will cut the legs down on the strong back when I want to join the main hull.

I hope that info is of some help.

Regards,
Phill

Thanks Phil
This gives me a some things to think about.
I will research about Ampreg 21, I have mostly used West System (by the 4 lt pack) Work height is an issue for me at home for the hull joining.

I have had a win on the home front and the "Honey do list" before I start is less than a months work

Regards
David

David the WA agent for SP_gurit is Summit Chemicals in Bibra Lake, they should be able to help you with Ampreg and other associated materials. If you talk to Chris at Boating Hardware and he will probably be able to point you to a Vacuum Pump you could borrow and help sort ou your other needs.

David,
The height issue will most likely not raise its head until joining the main hull. I know one F85SR builder who does not have legs on his strong back from the start which would save between 250- 300mm.
Please let me know how it goes if you do decide to build I'd like to keep in touch. I'm talking to other F85SR builders and we try to help each other.
Also the plans are quite extensive. When you first get them many take a back step because of the detail that Farrier includes.
His name depends on builders like us building to a certain standard and so he leaves nothing out and the detail really helps with the build. All you have to do is follow the plans and tick the boxes as you go.
If you decide to build get the plans as soon as you can so you have time to digest the detail.

Good luck,
Regards,
Phill

Hello David. For building my F-85SR I am using 2 pumps, both 3/4 hp. Theoreticaly they can handle 226 Liters/minute each. The exra pump helps if you have a small leak, so you still can have a reasonable pressure. One of the pumps runs via a pressure switch. It switches off when a pressure of around 0.7 bar / 21"HG is reached. My pumps are of chinese manufacture and use quite a bit of oil, to the point that I have made exhaust tubing to lead the oil outside. But it works well.

Phill is a great source of information. I can't match his building pace but it is nice to exchange information and profit from his extensive building experience and knowledge.

As to building costs: Some builders have gone to cheaper foams to keep the cost down. My advise is to not go this route, but use the best there is: Corecell M ( IMHO ... ) I spoke to several F-82 builders here in the netherlands who went this route, but in hindsight they now say they would have done otherwise.

Regards
Nico

Thanks Phil and Nico
Great to find some builders of the F85SR Online.
I have sent off for a set of plans. My list of things before I decide is getting shorter. (Short enough to buy the plans)

Cant wait to see how the hydrofoils angle of attack is set. The ways I could think of doing this would not be easy..

Thanks for the Corecell M comment, I will do some more reading on the subject as I know little about foam core.
Did other people have delamination issues? Weight issues?

I have done smaller things with honeycomb composites with carbon fibre and got thousands of pinholes that had to be sealed. Only other foam core work I have done was all specified by someone else using vacuum bag and high pressure hot water on the outside.. Far too much work to do for fun!
I know you are vac bagging, did you do a time/cost benefit of hand layup?
Initial thoughts are to do lots of the small parts first rather than the floats due to limited space. What do you think?
I have a homebuilt CNC machine, MechMate, that I need to sort Y axis alignment on (it is about a mm in a m out of square on X versus Y before I can consider cutting forms and parts (Or would you consider this accuracy adequate?

I am expecting this to be a five year build.

Cheers
David

Ian gets you to make the bulkheads first so that is a good warm-up on vac bagging.
Most of the time, the build only involves one layer of laminate so it is quite easy to do a decent hand lay-up without vac bagging, especially if you use epoxy. Use peel-ply on everything though.
Whilst your vac-bagged bulkheads will have a nice laminate finish, I think that the main benefit of bagging them is that they will be absolutely flat and true.

David,
There is an F85SR builder who lives only a few kms from me who is building without vacuum bagging and many F82s and other size F-boats have been built without vacuum. I would not be surprised if more were built without vacuum than with vacuum. There is no doubt about it, it's quicker and cheaper to not vacuum.

I'm vacuuming because I wanted to build the best boat that I could build and over the years I've acquired 3 vacuum pumps.

As far as accuracy of your CNC Mark Hastings did our CNC work. He designed and built his own machine and does excellent work. I expect he would be a good person to answer your CNC question. I'll drop him a line and see what he has to say.

Regards,
Phill

Welkom to the club



Bagging a floathalf is a bit more complicated than bagging the bulkheads, I find. It's not really a black art, but there are a few things that have to be done exactly right. I did not compare costs. Hand layup is cheaper and faster. Bagging is stronger and lighter. I chose to go for the latter ( and also because I thought it would be fun ) When bagging, the layup is a little bit less critical. If there are a few air bubbles, they will be sucked out. I still try to get a good layup though, just in case the vacuum goes bust.... For hand layup, a wet layup seems to be the best method. For bagging, I don't think that's neccessary and a dry layup is easier.

Doing the small parts first is a good idea. As for the floats, these are my lessons learned:

- use a foam toaster/oven to heat the foam. 100C seems to be ideal. A bit lower temperature works as well, but you will have to apply a heatgun in the tight radii of the deck. If you do this the foam will fit in the mold with minimal stress.
- To avoid leakage along the screws it is important that they don't penetrate more than 7mm into the foam. Side effect is that the holding power of the screws in minimal. That is why the pre-heating of the foam is so important.
- I chose to rebate the foam strips. Advantage is that you won't have to cut the foam to size and the bog can't sag through. When bogging the seams, I do that in 2 steps. The first step is with a thin bog, that I work into the seam with a small popsicle. Before that is completely hardened I add a second layer with thicker bog to fair the joint. This assures a leak free joint between the strips.
- Tacky tape and wet epoxy don't mix. I take the easy road: I use two layers, one on the bag, and one pre-applied on the foam edge that that is left sticking out of the mold. You can also protect the foam edge with tape. The tacky tape doesn't stick to foam very well, so I apply a very thin layer of bog on the edge.


I'd try to get the mistake out, if it's not too dificult. My CNC router has the same setup as the MechMate. Because I have a rack and pinion drive, my machine is only accurate within 1 mm ( the X- axis is a bit better than the Y- axis. I should have gone for 2 stepmotors on that axis too in hindsight ) This is enough though.


That's what I expect as well. 5 - 6 years.
Regards
Nico

ps: feel free to contact me on info at nyker dot nl. I've learned a lot in the last year, not in the least because Phill was so kind to share his experience.

Hi David

The Mechmates are a really good looking design and I would have gone that way if I hadn't got most of my build out of decommissioned gear at work which dictated the design by the components I had.

Being dual slave drive rack and pinion (thats right?) dialing out any skew should be a breeze. What I would suggest you do is put two thin DF of other scrap sheets down an cut thru both a big square. Then flip the boards face to face along the X axis this will double your skew error that you can measure between the two pieces and use this value to rack the gantry. Loosen the gantry to drive sides and adjust your home sensors accordingly.

Now rotate the top test piece 90 degrees and compare the X and Y dimension and adjust you tuning as needed.

But first...check that everything on the machine and drive are snug with minimal backlash etc.

Probably telling you how to suck eggs.. I 'm sure if you built the machine you can tweak it to get it right and probably to within a fraction of a mm accurate. Just don't loose sight of what it is your cutting and the processes afterwards to the part .. lots of small variances disappear in the end product but getting stuff square is importatnt because of the doubling effect when you flip parts (think forms and mirrored sides of the floats)

PM me if you need any help.
Cheers
Mark

Thanks for the input guys.
The Mech mate has a slave on the x axis with two rack and pinion stepper motors. I used the cutting of two boards and turning one over technique to determine trueness of the straight cuts (within0.2mm) and squareness (approx 0.8mm per m out but plus or minus half depending where it is switched on. I can adjust most of that out, just take another couple of days...as it will require reseting the Z squareness and resurfacing the table.

The way I am thinking if I cut all formblocks from the same side no issue with fairness and the part must move a mm, anyway should do the correction in a couple of weeks.
It is very hard to prove these home make machines are better than a mm accuracy in their length. When I started the testing they were about five percent out because the chinese gearboxes were not the ratio advertised, That took a while to prove...

Thanks for the hints about working with quality foam and the heat it can handle. It is so much easier to follow than lead.

Plans should be here in a couple of weeks so on with the "honey do list"

Cheers
David

David,
Welcome to the F85SR club. I hope you enjoy the building as much as I am.
On another topic I still can't post pics on the catsailor photo albumn so can't show anymore pics of my build. I sent a message to Rick a while back and he said he will look into the problem.

Currently I'm sanding the folding Mech that Mark Hastings has made for me using his CNC machine. He has done a wonderful job so I'm removing the machine marks to make it perfect before it gets anodized.

I'm using 180, and 600 wet and dry. The 180 is used dry. It is quite surprising when I brush off the dust that builds up with my bare hand it takes half a dozen strokes of the 180 before the oil deposited by my fingers is removed. I can feel the 180 slide back and forth before it starts to cut again.
To me this illustrates the folly of touching sanded glass when you are about to bond something to it. No wonder Farrier is so adamant that you must not touch the areas the beams are to bond to in the floats after they are prepared.

I was quite surprised how such a small amount of contact can make such a big difference.This project is not only enjoyable it is also full of interesting observations.

Regards,
Phill

Phil, did you make the daggerboard cases yourself or get them from Ian?

Also I'm thinking about a F85 build, how much would you want for the frames and what are they made out of??

ed,
Cases came from Farrier Marine. When you see them you will realise they are really very good value.
Frames are made from MDF sealed with clear lacquer on the faces and 2 coats of epoxy along the edges.
Where are you located? I'm on the NSW Central Coast .
If you are not too far away you can send me a PM with your number we can talk about frames and any general questions that you may have re building etc.

Folks,
I have been back working on the boat for a couple weeks now after finishing the work required to make a storage space for them under my front verandah.
The chain plates are made and fitted and I'll take the folding mechanism to the anodisers later in the month when they come back from their christmas break.
Currently I'm in the process of fairing the floats.
I've made 5mmx5mm notches in 250mm long heavy duty plastic trowel with 30mm between each notch. The trowel is held at an angle when applying the filler to the hull which makes the beads of filler only 2mm high. It takes 0.95 litres of resin to bead one half of one hull. Once cured it then takes 1.5 hours to sand most of it off with a 4 ft longboard with 40 grit paper. That is working hard and sweating a lot it ends up being a full body workout but it gets good results.
It takes a similar amount of resin to fill the hollows marked by the beads remaining after the long boarding.
At this stage I'm really glad that I was so careful in placing the foam as the fairness of the hull is much better than it otherwise would be resulting in less work and less added weight in the form of fairing compound.
I'm pretty happy with the way the fairing is going.

I'd post some pics but I still cant upload pics to the catsailor.com photo albumn.

Hello everyone!

Bullit has been bit.

I'm a beginner in this boat building malarky so have a couple of questions:

What are the real world advantages of vac bagging the hulls, how much weight do you really save and what strength gain is there?

What about carbon... pro and cons, I guess you save a bunch of weight in using a lighter cloth(much more than vac bagging by my estimate). Whats the down side, I've seen something about poorer collision durability, a little bit more egg shell like, would this be fair? Would you use carbon for the hulls and not vac bag?

I've got a lot of reading to do!

So you purchased the plans? good show



Hello Ed, I can't give you any figures and it depends probably on the laminating skills as well. It might save up to 25% in weight compared to a really wet layup.


As for Carbon fibre, you will not find consensus on it. Some people swear by carbon. Others say it's not worth the cost. It certainly is lighter. But the laminate is also thinner and more prone to dents. For a racer the first point is important. For a cruiser you might be concerned about the second. I know one F-32 builder who uses carbon without vacuumbagging. It is more difficult to see if you have the laminate saturated with epoxy though.

For my boat the hulls are in (E)glass. Rudder, daggerboard and beams will be in carbon. For the mast and the wingnet beams I am thinking about carbon iso aluminium.



Handlayup (glass) F-22 Menno
Vacuum bagging and infusion (glass) F-82R Martin
Vacuumbagging (carbon) F-22 Andrew
Vacuumbagging (carbon) F-22 Tor
Handlayup (glass) F-22 Jay
Handlayup (glass) F-44SC Allen
Infusion (glass) F-39 Henny

Ed,
It is very good news that you have taken the plunge.
I hope you enjoy the building as much as I am.

As to you questions re vacuum and carbon.

I will give you my persective on these points but yours may
finally vary depending on what your intended primary use.

First vacuum- the weight that you will save will depend on how
skilled you are at hand laminating.
An unskilled person will save more weight by vacuuming than a
skilled laminator. In my case I have given figures in previous
posts in this thread as to the amount of resin used to wet out the
laminate and then how much came out in the vacuum comsumeables.
From that you can work out the weight savings. With some calculations
you could probably break that down to an average per sq metre
saving and with info in the plans work out how much I would save
given my skill level.
You may save more or less but it will put you in the ballpark.

I will use my boat in coastal sailing so my primary reason for
vacuuming is strength. The bond between the foam and laminate under
vacuum is as good as can be achieved.

The other considerations when vacuuming is the added cost and the
added time. There is the cost of the vacuum consumeables vaccum film,
tacky tape, wadding and bleeder.

It may be as much as $1,000 say 1/15 the cost of the hull materials.
Then there is time.
Once you have a structure ready to laminate you can roughly treble
the time it takes. To get a good vacuum you have to prepare a surface
that the tacky tape can form a really good seal to, laminate, apply
the vacuum consumeables and film and chase any leaks. I've managed
to get a vacuum of around 25 inches of mercury on most of my sessions
which is quite a good vacuum but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I considered using carbon instead of glass. From the plans you could
work out the weight savings.
Three things influenced my decision.
1) Cost, I did a rough calculation on he added cost of carbon and it nearly
doubled the cost of building the basic structure. If you are seriously
considering carbon get some prices and see how it comes out for you.

2) I don't like cutting and grinding carbon. I've found nothing as sharp
as fibres of cut cured carbon. Using carbon in the beams and boards
will be enough for me.

3) Resale value- I did not think if I sold the boat in years to come that
I would get the added cost of the carbon back.

This is just the way that i see it.

Regards,
Phill

Thanks for the opinions guys.

I've got a couple of months of building bulkheads and bits before I move house and can start on the main hulls proper so will give me chance to have a bit of an experiment with materials and techniques before have to get cloth and foam in large quantities.

I'm mostly going to be racing in and out of the harbour with maybe 5 or 6 coastal races a year, plus a bit of cruising when time permits.

In a few years time there may be some mileage in organising an unofficial world champs somewhere

Cheers

And then there were 8!

As you are only dealing with a single layer of glass for the lay-up, vacuum bagging doesn't seem worth the agro. You can still batch out your resin and make sure that the lay-up is the right ratio. Peel ply everything though.

Carbon saves about 10% in total weight and can make the hull more prone to impact damage. Not worth the money in my mind.

Paul,
I'm vacuuming not so much for weight saving (as a bit more effort with a squeegee can get similar weights) but more to get the best possible bond between the layup and the foam.
If I planned on only sailing in lakes and not up and down the coast I probably wouldn't bother.
I got my folding mechanism back from the anodiser a couple days back. I'm very happy with the way it has come up.
I'd post a pic only it's been over 3 months since I could upload any photo to the photo albumn on this site.

I'm still enjoying working on the F85. The fairing was much easier than I thought it would be having faired 32ft cedar strip hulls in the past. The hulls are all faired with just 6 hours of long boarding all up. Now I'm getting the beam jig CNC cut so I can get to work on the beams.

Phil, have you got a handle on what the all up weight of the boat is going to be yet?

The class rule for the 8.5 has a minimum weight of 900kg so I'm keen to try to get close.

Ed,
Its a bit early for me to know for sure but I do
expect if built with care 900kg would be achievable.
I expect my floats beamed and painted will be well under 100kg each and that leaves over 700kg for main hull rig and sailing gear.

Phill-

I would be interested on how your numbers compare to my F25c...

See info from Bill Adams Jr who built all 48 F25c below:

"Thom,

If I remember right the main deck and hull were about 600#, the beams with hardware were about 100# each and the ama's were about 150# each. For a total of about 1300#. I remember that 2 guys could lift the hull and carry it around the shop before it had bulkheads etc!(The main deck was heavier than the hull). All of these weights were before paint and hardware and all the other add-ons.

The way we flipped them was to remove the ama's and then support the bow using the spinnaker pole in a cradle that allows it to turn. Support the pole close to the bow, not at the tip. Then pick up the back of the boat with as many friends as you can find and roll it over. We used to do it all the time with 6 guys. When it is upside down support it under the beam pads front and back. (Don't let it hang on the pole for a long time)

thommerrill
F25c 009
Charisma
Have a nice Thanksgiving
Bill"

Thom,
I have been taking weights but not lately and currently held up working on it by a broken collar bone so I can't do much with the boat except give you estimates from what I've measured so far. Bear in mind that I'm building using the heavier glass laminate option and carbon beams built under vacuum.

The floats were around 130 each with the lifting foil cases installed but still some internals and fairing which has already been done but not weighed since. I expect it to be less than the 150. and the floats are much more bouyant , ie- larger, than the F82.

The beams and hardware should come out quite a bit lighter. Maybe as low as half. The folding mech only weighs around 5kg 11pounds plus bolts per beam.
I don't know about the main hull as I have not started it yet.

I will be able to provide more info when I am a little more mobile and can do some more work.

Regards,
Phill

Sorry to hear about your injury.

I wanted to ask you if you had seen Tor Rabe's mast for his F22R? Its a custom shape and similar to some CST shapes.

Take care of yourself,

thommerrill
F25c 009
Charisma

I have been following this thread for a while now and finally took the plunge yesterday to get a F-85SR built. I wish I had the time and patience to build one of these trimarans myself, but I don't.

Instead, I have commissioned Michael Mallory of Multihullsdirect in the Philippines to build the boat. I have been assigned Sail No. 10 and I hope to launch the boat around the 1st October this year.

I have decided to get a standard F-85 built, with following modifications:
- centreboard option (so that it will kick back if I hit a rock)
- reinforcement for the lifting foil cases, so that I can fit them in the future
- all the necessary attachments so that I can race in Category 3 passage races.
- It is an epoxy foam boat with carbon reinforcement only as specified in the plans

Initially I will be racing in the Philippines, but will probably take it back to Perth once my current assignment is over, maybe in 2015.

I am very excited to see how this trimaran performs and will keep you updated with photos. According to Michael, by the end of April, the hull should be well and truly taking shape.

Michael is looking for more customers, so if you want his contact details, please PM me. I think it is a pretty competitive build price, compared to what second Farriers are currently priced at in Australia.

Have just received the first F-85SR main hull photo, which is hopefully attached?

Edit - Seems it is attached, but how do I make it display in the message itself?

Ian Farrier
Farrier Marine

BTW:- this is not my boat however this F85SR builder only lives a few kms from me.
Always handy to have someone to compare notes. Especially when it is someone who has built a Farrier Tri before.


Regards,
Phill

Hello Ian-

I am always amazed to see these photos from builders around the globe.. The surfaces appear to have come from a mold.

Have you heard from Fiat about his F32SRX?

How is the new factory coming along? When do you think the manufacturing of the F22s will start??

thommerrill
F25c 0009
Charisma

I managed to put my folding mechanism together and pinned it up on the back wall for storage.
Mark Hastings machined the mechanism for me on his CNC and then offered to put a 10mm drill
through the centre of the pins so I could use a tool to remove them easily should I ever need to once
the boat is finished. Interestingly that hole through the pins reduced the weight of all the pins by 1kg.

Small savings add up.

I have just finished the internal laminate of all 4 beams.
My broken collar bone really slowed me down for around 3 months but that is finally coming good so it is all ahead full again.

On the last beam ,which was a front beam, I took some notes.
I noted the quantity of resin in each mix, the time of the mix and the temp in the workshop at the time of the mix.

The reason I noted down the temp & time was because the day was supposed to get quite hot but at the time I started it was quite cool. I just wanted to make sure that I stayed inside the vacuum window prescribed for the resin I was using.

I found that the combined weight of glass and uni carbon was 1.17kg. All up I mixed 1.45kg of resin. 80gms of this was used to mix up a bog for fillets along the beam side/bottom join, leaving 1.37kg of resin to wet out the 1.17kg of laminate.
Following wetting out the laminate I pulled a good vacuum of 25 inches. Upon cure I weighed the peel ply and absorption fabric as it was removed to work out how much resin came out in the fabrics. I found that around 200 gms of resin came out leaving 1.17kg of resin in the laminate.
I was very happy with these results.

I must say it is a relief to get this work done, it is fiddly working inside the beams because of the flanges.
Since then most of the internal beam B/Hs have been fitted so after a bit of work to install the UFS recess and some reinforcing around the inner beam end I will be able to start laminating the outside of the beams which should be much easier work.

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

sounds great. One of these I days I am going to do some stuff like this, though I don't know if I have the attention to detail to get it all right

Ian Farrier will not be selling plans anymore after September 25 2012.
If you think that there is any chance that you may want to build a Farrier design in the near future you are better off buying the plans now while you still can.

I would think that if you change your mind there will probably be people out there that decide after the end date and desperate to source plans.

BTW:- I still love working on this project. I just vacuumed the laminate on the underside of all 4 beams. I'm very happy with how it worked out. I'm taking plenty of photos of all the work.
Damn shame Ian has decided to stop selling plans I think I'd like to build another one when this one is finished.

Regards,
Phill

Cool down Phill,

if you want to build another one, Ian will sell you the plans for it. You are a good boat builder. With all your knowledge you have now and will learn during your built, you don't need the full support.

I think the real reason is that Ian is bored and frustrated by answering the same questions on the telephone over and over again.

And if not??? Ian Farrier is not the Messias of Boatdesign. There are other good Designers drwawing wonderful boats.

Best Regards, Michel

Hi Phill, do you have a larger break in your build or did you decide to stop just reporting here? I would like to read about the next steps of your project.

Best Regards, Michel

Michel,
I'm still working away. All 4 beams are ready for painting.
I've built nearly all aspects of the beams under a good vacuum of between 25 and 27 inches or mercury.

Building the beams is a very long process and doing it under vacuum has made the job much much longer than I expected.

This has also probably made more work in one beam than both floats. I'm happy that I've done it this way but would not recommend it just because of the amount of work involved.

Also I got side tracked organising and helping a group of 6 friends build some kayaks.

My next step is to paint the beams and floats including top coat prior to building the main hull. I figure that it will be easier to touch up the area where the beams and floats join than do the full paint job once they are joined. Just because they will be more difficult to move around once joined.

Regards,
Phill

Just downloading a few pics, with a forecast of 42 deg C, its too hot to do much else.

IN the first pic I applied the glue with a caulking gun. Just went to hardware store and bought a water solluble gap filler cartridge for $1.98. Squeezed the gap filler out and washed it out. Put glue in, insert cartridge in gun and away you go.It is also a great way of applying bog for fillets and was a great help when joining the float halves together.




Clamping the tops on with flat sections of wood rather than screwing gave me a very fair top on the beams. Only downside is it took 40 clamps to do it.

A couple more

Finally some paint. Well hi build primer.

Mark Hasting has done an excellent job of machining a plug to make a mould for my F85 rudder.
Hand shaping doesn't hold a candle to the accuracy of his CNC machine.
I'm in the process of putting a finish on the plug.
After spraying with two pack the foil section has been cut back.
Once I've done the same to the back board I'll start waxing it to make sure we get a good release.

I undercoated the floats a couple weeks back.
I add some pics below.

Undercoated Floats



Carbon Fibre Chainplate still needs some attention.


Flush Hatch.

I've sprayed a duster coat over the floats and beams.
Sanding this off will help identify any areas that need further attention prior to top coating.

Not much happening on the boat building front lately as I've been taking care of a few other projects. One of these was converting a rusty old mangle into an etching press. I finished that last week and I am now setting up the frames to start the main hull.

Currently foam planking the first side of the main hull.
It seems 300mm wide strips will do the job. Note I have gone overboard with both battens and screws. My reasoning is that it is much more pleasant carefully screwing on the foam as opposed to filling and sanding. I went this way with the floats and there was very little fairing needed to get a nice straight and fair set of hulls.

The planking is almost done for the port side of the main hull.
Its getting a bit tricky at the bow because the foam won't take the tight curve even after being heated in the oven.
I'll try kerfing the foam in this very tight curve and see how that goes.

I'm laminating just the hull first because leaving the battens for the cabin side and deck off gives better access and keeps the hull surface within reach for the laminating.
The cabin side and deck will be done before moving onto the stbd side.

The kefring worked great. I only had to kerf the keel from the bow back 1200mm.
This gave a very smooth curve. I'm currently busy preparing the foam to take a vacuum for the laminate. I'll post some pics when I get a chance.

I finished laminating the inside of the port side of the main hull today.
Yesterday we laminated transom to frame 9 and today we completed the job up to the bow. In each operation I managed to apply the vacuum well inside the vacuum window specified for the resin and achieve a vacuum of 22 to 25 inches of mercury. This is around the same as the floats and if this continues it should make a pretty good boat.
I'll post some more pics soon.

The kerfing worked as a means of forming the tight curve near the bow.
I used a 4mm circular saw blade to cut 5mm deep slots in the 10mm foam/.
As a precaution I still heated the foam in the oven before shaping.
This is much easier than than correcting a bad shape later.

Just a couple pics of the port side of the main hull.
Note I've not yet installed the battens for the cabin side or deck battens.
Leaving them off until the hull has been laminated allows much easier access.
I'll now go ahead and do the same for the cabin side and deck.



The vacuum bag etc has been removed but the peel ply will stay and just remove
sections as needed as leaving it in place keeps the laminate clean avoiding possible
contamination of area that I may need to bond bulkheads to.

Hi Phill,

whouw great progress and very good work as always.

I like your flush hatches. Would you explain how you made the invisible parts to get them watertight? Are there any drainage channels?

Best Regards, Michel

Michel,
The parts to make them watertight will not be installed until after the floats and beams are joined. Only because it will be easier to do the glassing of the fwd beam to the bulkhead without them being in place.
They are nothing fancy just straight out of the plans.
They are not complete yet but I'll try to remember to take a pic of where they are at and post it so you can see. I will be drilling drainage holes so any water that get past the hatch seal will be caught in a channel and leave via the drainage holes.

Regards,
Phill

Hi Phill,

thanks for this! I have a slight idea how this will work, nut would like to see some pictures. If you allow I will remember you so you don't have to think about it any more and can concentrate on your project.

Many thanks and best regards, Michel

Michel,
Thanks for the reminder.
The pic is of the partially made fitting that will eventually go inside the hatch. The insert sitting on top is made from 2 layers of 5mm corecell foam with a rebate to ensure it is located at exact height in final fitting. It still needs to be sanded and top shaped to match the underside of the hatchand looks pretty poor at this stage but will look right when finished.
Once this is done it needs glassing and this will be done in two steps. Glass the outside while it is in place in the lower fitting with packing tape being used to afford a release so I can make a flange for later glueing together. Then glass the inside. A neoprene seal will be fitted to the top edge.
Keeping it in two parts until fitting beacuse this allows me to tape the lower fitting in place before adding the insert. This is the only way to get access where the flat section meets the hull. Prior to adding the insert would also be the best time to drill the drainage holes.
Any water that comes in the hatch will go into the channel formed by the fitting and exit via drainage holes.

I've laminated the cabin side using 16mm foam so it was thick enough to rebate the windows later. Having the windows fitting near flush would look so much better than them sitting proud of the side.


I've also continued on with the 16mm foam for the cabin top.
The pics show the foam in place. I hope to get to laminating it in the next day or so as I'm looking forward to fitting bulkheads. I may take some time out to further upgrade my vacuum table for the laminating of the bulkheads. It works well but an upgrade should give me a better duty cycle of the vac pump on/off.

Today I laminated the cabin roof and foredeck of the port half of the hull.
I weighed the glass beforehand @ 1775gm and the carbon uni used @ 100gm. So you would expect to use around 1900gm of resin. I managed to wet out the laminate with around 1900gm of resin but by the tine I'd properly wet out the peel ply I had used 2500gms of resin. However the peel ply tends to show any dry areas in the laminate beneath and correction requires more resin. The vacuum and absorption fabric help to correct any areas where there is excess resin.
IT is currently under a vacuum of 25 inches of mercury and with the vacuum pump only coming on for 20 secs every 30mins to maintain the vacuum, leaving the pump on overnight is not a problem.

I pulled all the vacuum consumeables off yesterday and the laminate looks great. Towards the end of the week I should
have a few domestic chores out of the way and be working on the bulkheadS.

It was rather interesting the fun I had laminating the underside of the cabin roof.Leaving the peel ply keeps the laminate clean and there for easy to bond to for the installation of bulkheads etc but the surface is just a little slippery. When setting up to laminate the roof I had to get inside the hull and up near the bow kept sliding into the surface I wanted to laminate. I set up a series of ropes to help avoid this.




Well I just pulled the second half of the companion way bulkhead off the vac table.





That was the last Bulkhead that I needed to make.
BTW:-Looks a bit out of proportion because I make them slightly oversize and use the CNC cut template and a router to trim them to the exact size once laminated.

Now I have to make the **** seat and floor but the vac table is not quite big enough.
Next week I'll drop into the local hardware store for an oversize sheet of MDF. and rig something up temporarily for these.

I'm currently fitting the bulkheads into the port half of the man hull while in the mould.
I'm taking my time and checking they are exactly right.
The other half B/H in the other half of the main hull will have to line up.
Note b/hs are screwed to timber bracing to make sure they don't move while being filleted and glassed in place.
Peel ply still on B/hs and just enough removed from the hull to bed the b/hs in epoxy bog.
Once cured enough peel ply will be removed to fillet and glass in place.

When I built my first boat back in the 80s my attempt to
fillet and glass in the bulkheads was woeful. I took a
piece of 4mm ply and shaped the end of it and then commenced
to try and coax the filleting compound into the joint.
Of course I ended up with a right mess.
I read how it is wise to tape either side of the fillet so you
can remove the tape and the mess prior to glassing.
The other problem that I had was the filleting compound would
squash out of shape.One could wait until cured but that would mean
sanding the fillet to get it smooth enough to take the glass tape
with no air gaps between the two.

These days a very simple and effective method has evolved.

If using 100mm tape I coat 50mm either side of the joint to be
filleted and glassed with resin mixed with slow hardener.

Then I make up the filleting compound with resin with fast hardener.

I deposit the filleting compound in blobs along the joint and run
a bit of rubber 4mm thick and 2.5 inches by 2.5inches with a rounded
corner. The round on the corner is the shape of the fillet that I want.
This rubber tool distributes the compound into the joint and cleans up
the work in the one operation. I then wet out the glass tape on a separate
board and use it to glass the joint.I also apply peel ply an inch or so wider
than the glass used. If doing a few joints by the time I get to glassing
the first one the filleting compound has gelled enough to hold its shape
but still soft enough to take the glass.
Below is a pick of a joint done this way.
The joint is very smooth if you run your hand along it and
very little effort required to fair the edge of the glass tape as the peel ply has done most of the fairing already .
It's a pity my photographic skills didn't also improve along the way.

Yeah your right your photographic skills suck! :P Seriously these fillets are absolutely perfect (better than my cornices!) and I think this is the first boat I've seen where I would have no issue running my hand inside hidden recesses with zero fear of getting snagged on a sharp glass needle.
Keep up the good work...just work faster

Mark,
I understand your comments about the cornices. But then I hate putting them up so not surprised they are not perfect.
Building boats on the other hand I really enjoy.

Recently I have been making the flat panels for the **** floor and **** seat.
I seems like it is taking up a lot of resin and concerned the panels may be heavier than optimal because of this.

Once again I took detailed notes when making the panels and decided to analyse the outcome of the **** seat panel.

The **** seat all laminated but with peel ply still on weighs 5800gms.

It was made in two sections and joined after because my vacuum table is not long enough to do it in one piece.
It took 120grams of resin to glue them together and glass tape the join with 60gms of glass tape..
Not concerned about this weight as the joined section will be cut out and discarded
when the CMM is fitted but the numbers are needed in the analysis.

So 180gms all up to join to two halves.

Making the panels the glass required to laminate the upper surface 896gms and lower surface 614gms.
Total 1510gms. And I used 2051gms of resin.
The foam weighed a total of 2328gms.

With the finish panel weighing 5.8kg but still covered in resin soaked peel ply.

I weighed a section of peel ply that I removed to do the join and this allowed me to calculate that there is still
approx 318gm to come off the 5800 when the peel ply is removed. leaving 5482gms for the panel.
When you subtract 180gms (joining) 2328gms (foam) and
1510 gms (glass)

So 5482-180(join)-2328(foam)-1368(glass) = 1464 of resin in the laminate to wet out 1510gms of cloth and fill the 1.5mm holes drilled every 30mm.
The laminate on close inspection looks perfect so my concern about resin consumption resulting in a heavier than optimum panel is not something to worry about.

My resin allergy has been causing me some problems so I thought I'd take a break from working on the boat for a couple of days and analysed some weights to pass the
time and cross check what I'm doing.

Crazy waste of time?

Most certainly!

But I found it entertaining.


BTW:- below is a couple of pics of how I have approached the installation of the **** floor.
The extra timbers are set up to align the **** floor exactly and will be removed before I can install the **** seat.





Under the floor.

Thanks for the Pics Phill. Great to see your progress. I hope you can contain the allergy problems.

regards
Nico

PS: I have a few weeks off later this month, so I hope to put some valuable building time in.

Phil,

a boatbuilder I used to do a lot of work with in NZ had resin "sensitivity issues", he found that if he changed brands with every project that it minimised the issue. If you're still after some help with your mast I should have some time at the end of the week to look at it.

Chris,
Sounds like very good advice.
I have used 4 or 5 diff makes of resin over the years and find they seem to affect me in two different ways depending on the ratio of hardener required.
5:1 cause me to blister where ever they contact my skin.
The 2:1/3:1 resins affect my breathing and airways.

With this project I'm using one brand of resin for the building and a two different brands for the fairing.
One for the rougher fairing and one for superfinefairing.

Your friend makes a good point but I think I've exhausted most of my options.
Now I have to be very careful to limit my exposure and I take a break as well as anti - histamines to help when exposed.

I would certainly appreciate help with the mast if you can spare the time.

Thanks,
Phill

I have now finished installing both the floor and **** seat.



Using some pulleys attached to the **** floor and going to an over head beam
I managed to break the hull free of the mould while some friends threaded a webbing strap between the hull and mould battens.



I bought a couple trailer winches off ebay and made up some steelwork
that will allow me to clip them on the 1 ft deep RSJs running down each side of the hull.
This should allowme to pick the hull up and rotate it to work on at any angle right up until it's time to join the foats on.

I pulled the mould apart last night and today a couple friends came around to help roll the hull over. I asked them around just in case the winching system didn't work as expected.
Turns out everything went off smoothly.
One of us wound webbing out of one winch while the other wound the opposite winch in. The hull rolled over and then we just wound both winches out so the hull could settle down on the supports that it will sit on until the outside is glassed.

I am thrilled with how straight and fair the hull half is. At this stage it looks like a light sand prior to glassing is all that will be required.
I must say taking my time heating the foam evenly in an oven and placing the foam with care has really paid off.
I just hope I can replicate these results on the next half.
Below are a couple of pics.

As we are going into summer and the weather is getting warmer I asked some friends around yesterday to help laminate the outside of the hull. I wanted to make sure it could be done and a vacuum achieved within the resin's specified vacuum window.
The previous week I managed to laminate the deck and side down to the gunwale.
As usual I weighed everything that went into both and everything that came out. Just to keep track of how things are going. I managed 21 inches of mercury vacuum on the hull and 25 for the deck.
The end result was a 43% resin content in the deck and a 44.27% resin content in the hull laminate. Both laminates look perfect. I'll post some pics later on when I get them off my camera.

I managed to glass the deck with 3 sections of glass.
An overlap across the deck at a point where and extra piece of glass was required for additional reinforcing.So the join does two jobs at once. The cloth wasn't quite wide enough and so another section had to be added near the gunwale. That area will have to be faired once the wingnet lacing tube is added anyway.
I used drawing pins to hold the glass in place until I had enough resin on the cloth to keep it there. Then the drawing pins were removed. Some pics are below.





Here is a pic of the hull under a vacuum. Unfortunately I didn't take a pick of the deck under vacuum.

I took some time off from boat building and restored a rusty old Mangle and turned it into an Etching Press.
They say a change is as good as a holiday and quite enjoyed the break playing with the welder and lathe in place of glass foam and resin.

I can't wait to get back to the boat now.

Now it is time to start the second half of the main hull.
A pic of setting up the frames to build the stbd half of the main hull. I made up a measuring stick and transferred the Keel to deck measurements for the frames so I could check them as the could splay out given how thin some are in the middle.



I've finished setting up the frames , installed the battens for the hull and started placing the foam. Just haven't taken any pics of that yet.

Foam in stbd side of main hull and filling rebates.
Feels like deja vu.

I have now laminated the inside of the stbd side of the main hull. I still have to foam plank and laminate the side and deck before joining.
I performed the lamination in two phases. The rear 3rd and then the fwd 2/3rds. Given the warmer temps at this time of year this gave me more time to get the vacuum in place during the vacuum window. I'm still keeping detailed notes of the resin used and removed from the hull in the vacuum consumeables. I also record the time of each mix and the temperature. The time and temp allows me to confirm that I get the vacuum on inside the window.
The resin content of the laminate is running at 45%.
Interestingly after wetting out the glass it is 55%, after adding the peel ply and applying a thin layer of resin to wet the peel ply. This allows the squeegee to move easily over the peel ply and shows up any dry spots the resin content is at 64%. After the vacuum and resin is taken out with the absorption fabric it ends up at 45%.
And yes to work stuff like this out I must have too much time on my hands.

First I did the rear section as per pic still under vacuum.



Pic of fwd section the day after as the vacuum was turned of at 10pm the previous evening.

I got up at 5am this morning to laminated the side panel in the stbd side of the main hull while it was still relatively cool.
I wanted make sure that I made the vacuum window while using fast hardener as running low on the slow hardener.
The data sheet show the viscosity of the resin with fast hardener to be much higher than slow and I found that and even with a lot of squeegey work the 922gms of glass plus the peel ply took 1600gms of resin. Hopefully vacuum will pull the excess resin out. I'll weigh the absorption fabric when it comes off to see how well it does this.
The vacuum pump is set to turn off when it reaches 25 "/hg and back on when it hits 22"/hg.

I managed a particularly good seal for the vacuum on this job demonstrated by the duty cycle- running around 20 secs every 43 minutes. By far the best so far. Not that it matters, the control circuitry ensures the vacuum is maintained it's just the amount the pump runs which affects the electricity consumption.
The resin would be hard by now but I will probably wait until tomorrow to unwrap and start installing the battens to take the deck foam.

Phill, looks like it is going well.

What vacumn switch are you using, I've not really found ( other than pretty expensive commercial products ) a switch that can release the vacuum to let the pump spin up.

Wayne,
Mark (Try Flying) would be the better person to answer your question, he gave me the vacuum pump and lent me the control circuitry as well as a spare pump in case I had any problems during a session.
I looked at using the milking machine that I have but the startup current without a delay on closing the vacuum would be just too much and my two other vacuum pumps, while great for small jobs, are really too small for big hulls.

Hi Wayne

Phill told me about your question so far from being an expert here is what I setup for Phill and how i would go about putting in a delay if it was necessary for a piston pump.....

Phill's setup uses Gast rotary vane oil-less pumps so spin up is not an issue. The control circuit is a 24vdc vacuum switch with built in hysteresis that is set to the desired pressure and triggers the AC contractor for the pump (single phase). The vacumm circuit incorporates a old compressor tank and the none return valve is used to stop bleed back via the pump when it is off.

On a piston pump I'd put a two way air solenoid inline with the vacuum side of the pump that was normally open to atmosphere and control it with a delay timer (say 5 sec) that would allow the pump to spin up prior to being switched to the load side.

I threw the gear for Phill together using some scrap parts I had at hand so cost was zero. (Yes Phill is very lucky to have me as a close neighbor... I should get a few free sails in though )

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Mark

My pump is a piston pump and to date the hulls I have pulled have been just big enough ( F16 ) to have just enough air leaks that I could leave them running. But I have to layup 2 carbon ski bikes which at this time of year I get hooked into and the moulds are quite small volume with very good edges to seal onto, hence the question.

Phill, yes I did buy a set of plans but work has been so continuos that I have not had a chance to start. Maybe this year.

Wayne,
Did you get the F85 plans?
I use plastic domestic irrigation hose and fittings. They are cheap as chips and work great. The hose slides over the bayonet fittings and seals.If ever in doubt I wrap a bit of tacky tape around the join.
I was surprised to find that even the taps are air tight and will hold a vacuum for many hours. I was just thinking that you could do it quick and dirty by putting in a "T" piece and a tap. Leave the piston pump running and regulate the vacuum with the amount you open the tap. I suppose it all depends on how much you are going to use it. The system Mark has put together works great for me as I'm doing quite a lot.

Yup updated my F82 plans to F85, as you know I always wanted the extra length and larger amas which Ian duly penned. Work commitments have been pretty relentless over the last few years and it's getting to the stage where I may have to simply take 6 months off and get building.

Funny you mention irrigation pipe, I may try to "infuse" these bikes, and the small pin holes every few centimetres may be just the answer. Still enjoying the building of things with composites and these little beasts are good winter fun.

Wayne you mention air leaks helping with your setup on larger projects....IMHO air leaks are bad. This means you will continue to draw out epoxy and also "infuse" your laminate with air = not good.

I'd suggest you make a large air receiver tank prior to your pump and also have an inline filter otherwise you will be drawing epoxy vapour into you piston pump.

Yup had a large receiver and inline filter in the line, by air leaks I meant minimum that we could find, the pump was really working hard. The new project is in a mould with very flat surfaces to seal and I think we could almost get to the stage where there is no leaks( if that is really possible ) And I worry that we may almost lock the pump hence my question of introducing some form of electrics to control the pump.

Thanks for advice though and I will look up your recommendations

I've finished laminating the inside of the stbd hull side.
I have worked out that if I can remove the strong back and set the frames directly on the concrete floor I will have just enough room
to get the port side back into the work area and set it on top of the stbd side ready for joining.
The concrete floor is very flat and very level but I will check the level of the frames prior to joining.
Once the port side is sitting on top, in that position I will be able to lift it high enough to create a 300mm gap
with the winch setup mentioned earlier.
Hopefully the capacity to lift the side up and down will help me align the second half of the Bulkheads that are yet to be fitted to the stbd side.
This should be a very interesting phase of the build.
BTW:- I'm still enjoying the work as much or even more than when I first started.

After carefully removing the strong back and lowering the frames down onto the concrete floor
I got some friends around to help me move the port side of the main hull into the work area and
place it on top of the stbd side so I can prepare the two for joining.
Now I have them both in place my winching system should enable me to do all the rest myself.
A couple pics below. Note I only remove the peel ply when I have to. It doesn't look much but sure
keeps the surface beneath clean and free from contaminants.

I got myself a water level to check all the frame levels to make sure everything was straight and without twist.
It turns out the concrete floor was not quite as true and flat as I expected over its full length. So I made up a simple means of adjustment.


Now each frame is set up so it is the correct level with the greatest variation being under 2mm.

PIc shows the winch lifting the port side up so I can easily work on B/Hs that I bogged into place when the two sides were together.


The only exception being the B/H that goes in under the **** floor.
I made up a couple of spacers when fitting the b/h half in the port side. Using them should ensure the two halves line up when joined.

I decided to paint the bottom of the hull before installing the
second half of the **** floor.


When the last half of the floor went in I made sure it lined up perfectly.
The wooden cleats ensured this.

Time to get rid of the mould frames.
I used 2 x2inch webbing straps.
The black one on the trailer winches in the middle of the hull took nearly all he load. The orange one up front allowed the hull to slide over it as it rolled.



Mark came round to give me a hand. He is in the pic below.
This is the guy that machined the folding mech on the back wall, mould frames and the rudder plug. It's good to know people who take real pride in what they do.


Once upright the air powered in line sander is a must.
It takes off any flairing towards the edges of the foam to make a really fair surface.

With the main hull out of the frames and upright its time to get the stbd half ready to be laminated.
The plan is to do the cabin top, foredeck and side first. to this end I just filled these rebates.



I'm keeping the sharp corners between the cabin top, sides and hull.
My reasoning is if I can make it look fair along these sharp corner by sanding the flat panels leading up to them once I round off the corners it will look spot on.

Just a theory I have- see below. Should look even better once I round the corners.



Here is a shot over the ****. I have made the longest cabin allowed for and the **** it still huge.
Note I still have to finish trimming the cabin roof and side back to the companionway bulkhead.


I forgot to mention that I have peel ply in several diff colours. I don't take it off until I have to .
This makes it look a bit shabby until removed but it has saved me twice big time.
Once inside taping in bulkheads I tipped over a pot of resin not noticing until it was emptied all through the hull.
I mopped up what I could and the rest will come out with the peel ply.
The other was when painting the hull under the **** I tipped over the paint onto a section of the hull that I needed to glass tape.
I just pulled up the peel ply to give a clean surface for bonding.
Both saving a lot of time sanding.

The stbd hull side has been laminated in two parts.
The end of **** forward and then back.
In both cases I weighed everything that went in and out and in both cases
the resin content worked out at 46.5% of the total laminate weight. Below are a couple of pics.

Stbd side forward section under vacuum.



In this pic I'm removing the absorption fabric and excess resin. The peel ply is left in place for now.

A couple days back I laminated some uni and plain weave along the keel for added protection for beaching and trailering.
My original intention was to do this without a vacuum until I realised there was 3.5kg of glass involved.
With that much I decided it was probably worth vacuuming.
Once again I did the maths after the work and again got a 46.5% resin content in the laminate.
Pic below.

Hi Phil,

How do you get the asorbption fabric to lift off of the peel ply, do you have another layerof perforated release film, or is it due to the fabric itself?
The fluffy I'm using is pretty well stuck to the peel ply, and it all comes off as one.

Ed,
There is a layer of perforated film between.
The holes must have been poked through by a machine, very small and very close together, but one side is just a little more rough than the other side.
It can be very hard to tell which is the smooth and rough side because can't always feel it with your fingers tips.
When it is like this I rub it against my lips to work it out.

Right near the end of the project I found out that if it is laid on the peel ply with the smoother side down it will stick to the wet resin really well and the rougher side will be enough to hold the absorption fabric in place on vertical surfaces.
Also this way around the perforated film comes off the peel ply after cure very easily with the absorption fabric. The other way around and it won't stick and hold he absorption fabric so I had to come up with other ways of getting everything to stay in place. Also it stays with the peel ply
when the absorption fabric is removed.
Had me going for a while trying to work out why some sessions were just so much easier than others when it came to placing the consumable layers and removing them after. When I bought the laminating materials I had to buy a full roll of this perforated film and that was 1000 metres. Luckily it was quite cheap.
Regards,
Phill

For those that are interested here are some videos of my F85SR sailing.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrBsmeznqOvzKiAz4qFy3j5F7qXo9VbTF

This boat is for sale if you are interested. Can be shipped anywhere.

Cheers
Glynn Thomas
Subic Bay, Philippines
glynnthomas72(at)yahoo(dot)com

Glynn,
The boats that I have seen made by Multihulls Direct have an outstanding, and I mean outstanding, quality of finish.
At that price it should be snapped up in a heartbeat.

All the best ,
Phill

I cut the anchor well, then two coats of resin into the section that would be out of sight once the floor went in. When I was building the hull halves I built into them a couple of supports on the sides for the anchor well floor. I just used some glass tape and foam left over from the beam flanges.
The pics below pretty much show how it is.





I made sure I put in really good fillets in the corners to make sure mud does not sit in them and is easily flushed out.

The foam where the drain holes have been drilled was first removed and replaced with a glue mix (resin and microfibre).

The holes then drilled through the glue mix and outer laminate. You can just see them in the corners in this pic.

.

My grand plan is to work from the bow back doing the little projects required to finish the main hull. to this end I really need to work out what I'm doing about the spinnaker pole and the socket it fits into.
The spec for the pole is a min dia of 90mm. This is a bit of a problem given the way that I wanted to make the pole. It is even more of a problem for the socket the pole has to fit into. To solve the socket problem I thought I'd have a go at making a collapsible mandrel and make the socket around it.

The only tube that was around 90mm was storm water at 88.9mm.
I decided I could use this to make a collapsible mandrel for the socket and also the mould for the actual pole itself (talk about pole mould later)

The mandrel was made by turning up some 20mm thick ply wood to fit neatly inside the stormwater pipe. 4 discs of ply were made. A section 600mm long of pipe was split lengthways with my multitool. This was so I could pass one side of the split inside the other to help the mandrel collapse. The ply discs were to stop this from happening until they get removed at the end.
Another section of pipe was split so it could be fitted over the first split section. This created a gap of around 13mm between each side of the split. A section of pipe was cut to fill the gap but there was still a gap the same as the width of the cutting blade in my multi tool. This small gap was filled by lighting a candel and letting the melting wax do the job. The excess was cut away with a box cutter. Se pic.

Some threaded rod was used an an axle through the ply discs
to help rotate the mandrel. A nut was welded on the rod and a plate to screw to one of the ply discs to help while the carbon was wound on , (ratchet spanner) and later to spin to help consolidate the layup (with cordless drill).

Some pics follow that may help.

A couple pics of the socket after it has been removed from the mandrel.





You can see the beginnings of the mould for the spinnaker pole in the background. I'll explain what I'm up to with that when I'm a little further along the track.

Curious minds are interested in learning what is currently going on in your workshop Phil

Rolf,
I've been busy just haven't done much updating.

The spinnaker pole socket now has the carbon fore stay fitting in place.
I won't fit it to the main hull until the pole is made as this will help me line it up along the centerline and get the right angle to the WL.
The landing has been made for the foredeck hatch to give a flat surface to mount it in the curved foredeck. I didn't like the hatch I bought so have ordered a lower profile hatch from NZ. I hope to use the original hatch as an escape hatch. So the foredeck now has a hole in it that I can pass stuff through when working inside.
The mould for the spinnaker pole and boom is finished and I have sourced a roll of Lay Flat Tubing (polypropylene) and a device to seal the ends so I can make the cylindrical bag to inflate to compact the layup in the mould. I'm just waiting on the delivery of some carbon that I want to include in the layup.
I have just had a delivery of some parts that I need to make the carbon anchors for the screacher and spinnaker on the pole when it is made.
Mark has machined the foam blanks for my rudder and I have one complete layer of uni and twill on each foam half to make them really stiff . All done vacuumed to plate glass to ensure they are true.
All had a 200gm layer of glass laminated on C/L before machining to hold the foam when it get really thin and give a really good trailing edge. They have been glued together and the HD insert glued in place.

I have made a glass flange in the main hull to support the forward bunk. First went in some formwork to make a mould all covered in packing tape so it would release the glass.
Today I cut out the foam for the forward berth and it has been laminated and currently under vacuum.
I do have some pics and will post them when projects are getting close to being finished.
Still much to do and having fun along the way.
Regards,
Phill

You are really putting the hours into this project!

Was the Lay Flat Tubing expensive, and do you have any leads on where to get those? I tried the same thing with both vinyl plastic and old firehoses put both had their issues

Thanks a lot for the update!

Sourcing the Lay Flat Tubing can be problematic because it usually comes in 800 meters rolls. I just got lucky as they found a roll with only 200 meters on it for me. Quite a bit more than I need so I can send you some if the size suits. The stuff I got gives a 360mm circumference which is Ok for the 90mm tubes I need to make. It comes in all sizes and thicknesses and this has got me thinking again- (this is not necessarily a good thing). The chap I dealt with said he would try to help out if I needed any other sizes in small quantities but I have to drive 85km to pick it up. He wouldn't ship it.
Still making the spinnaker pole and carbon boom this way will be fun projects.

I'll pass on it for now and rather see what I can find here on the other side of the planet when the time comes. Thanks for the offer Phill!

I have been busy the last month restoring a timber winch. Lots of rust and stuff. Your project looks much cleaner than my current workshop

Oh gelcoat masters, is this anything to be concerned about? Noticed it on my F24. Only on one side. Interesting zig-zag pattern

[img]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k245/jronline13/RudderCloseup_zps61dbe59b.jpg?t=1400866545[/img]

Here's a close up (don't know why it won't show up here)

Jay,
The question may be better put to the f-boat egroup where you may find some F24 guys who have experienced the same problem.

Agreed, although I have a much tougher time navigating that site (and don't know all the street cred of the posters)

Love the progress you're making on yours!

Jay,
All I can tell you is that my rudder is designed with two layers of double bias carbon wrapped around it over the leading edge with an extra one on the head. But this is a daggerboard rudders and doesn't have the cut out your swing rudder has.
If your rudder is built along the same lines where the core is cut out of the leading edge in the head (to make sure it kicks forward enough when down) they would most likely have to cut the Double Bias carbon and wrap each end of the cut fabric over itself.

The stress fractures that you see in the gelcoat are the same pattern as the DB carbon and may indicate the core is trying to shear. However if built the same as mine there are measures taken in the design in the high load areas to prevent this and the cracking may only be superficial.
I have my own view on which one but it's a guess.
An F24 owner that has experienced the same problem should know and therefore be more helpful.
If you are being led astray on the f-boat egroup it is likely that Ian will chime in and set it straight.

Thank you for your insight, Phill. I also emailed my local Corsair dealer for thoughts.

I'll poke around to see if this is something to worry about, as well as potential fixes if it ends up being an issue.

Perhaps buy a spare to keep on the boat (mostly daysailing in light conditions these days) in case something happens.

Phil, Wow! I can't believe I didn't know this thread existed. What a find! Thanks for the updates - enjoying reading through your progress!

I saw some questions about vacuum pump setups. I have a decent resource for plans at http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/welcome.htm

I built a vacuum pump system that has every bell and whistle you could ever imagine. I've pieced it together with spare parts and items bought from ebay - it's controlled by an Allen-Bradley PLC, has a ambient pressure chamber (so the pump doesn't startup with a vacuum on it's inlet), adjustable pressure switch that controls the cycling of the pump, small reservoir (PVC tubes), and a vacuum regulator so I can dial in exactly how much vacuum I'm after. I've also incorporated four spdt switches that trigger inputs on the PLC so I can set a crude timer in binary logic. 0001 is one hour, 0010 is two hours, 0011 is three hours, etc. Those will start an onboard timer that, once expired, will not cycle the pump anymore....like I said, overkill.

Vacuum pump controller (no, it's not a bomb) by Green Room Graphics, on Flickr

yeah, try telling that to Homeland Security...

Jake,
Thanks for the compliment.
It's a pity that Rick has taken down the photo album for catsailor because most of my earlier progress posts
presented pics that I had stored in the photo album.
Now the posts talk about photos that you can't see.

I still have the pics and in fact a quick check on the pics that I've taken shows around 2,000 photos of the work stored on my laptop.


It has been very useful. I work out a technique of doing something and sometime later want to replicate it,
I just find the relevant photos and it all comes back.

As far as vacuum pumps you have a pretty cool setup. It never occurred to me to put a timer on my setup.
I guess I'm not that bright as it would have saved me getting up in the early hours of the morning to turn it off
quite a few times.
All my really big vacuuming jobs are now done but I think I'll still get the timer setup for the many small ones
left to do.
I currently have the forward berth under vacuum. After that goes in I'll get back to making my carbon spinnaker pole and boom.

I have a number of different projects on the go right now but with the fwd berth finally coming to a close I'll post a couple pics.

The first pic is taken down through the fwd hatch showing the molding that i put in place to form the glass flanges to sit the berth on.
Ian has a much simpler way outlined in the plans but I didn't think I could get the results that I wanted that way.



The second pic shows the glass flange with the form work removed and the hull under the berth all painted.



The third pic shows the berth all glued in.
With such a large area beneath the berth I want to make max use of it to store bulky lightweight items and so I put in two access hatches
to make sure that I could easily get to everything in storage. Along with a third round one fwd of the watertight bulkhead under.

I'm currently working at fitting the CMMs (Central Mounting Modules).
Its hard to bring one self to cut big holes in a hull that I've put so much work into but it has to be done.
The CMMS are what the folding mechanism bolts too and the beam fold down onto. So they are quite an important part of the boat.

In order to get the fwd CMM level I made up two simple timber frames and used threaded rod so I could make fine adjustments
to the heights of each of the 4 corners.
Prior to this I set the boat up level. The gunwales were made level with water levels and once the boat was level at the gunwale a plumb bob confirmed the bow was perfectly aligned vertically and when the plumb bob was set from the cabin centreline it went do to the keel C/L. I was pretty happy about this as it indicates the boat couldn't have much twist.

The following pics show some of the setup.

Once I had the fwd CMM held in place with bog I removed my timber frame and cut it down so I could use it to level the Aft CMM.
I put straight edges though the hull and used a tape to set the spacing. Then I braced the position of the Aft CMM by clamping a length of alloy box section two the two CMMs.
A friend brought around his engineers level to check my work leveling the beam pads. This level is extremely sensitive and it worked out my greatest error was only 0.35mm.
This was basically 3 thicknesses of peel ply under one end to make it perfectly level on the worst beam landing. I was very surprised it worked out so well.
A few more pics below.

Phill,

do you know if this level of accuracy is the norm with homebuilders of Farrier designs?

Rolf,
I don't know what others do.
It may depend on how much they enjoy building.
I enjoy what I'm doing and look at each task as a challenge to do the best I can.

Hi Phil.
just joined this forum. I'm the guy who bought Glynn's F85SR in Subic Bay and shipped her to Vancouver Island where we are now sailing her and making her our own. Lots of changes. We have re-named her "Mail Order Bride". Having built my previous ultra light F 9AR Redshift I can appreciate what you are accomplishing with your build. Looks like you are doing a great job. Will be happy to share our experiences with the boat as we make changes and get to know her.
Wayne

Wayne,
Congrats on the new boat.
It would be great to hear about Mail Order Bride along with any changes.

I haven't touched the boat in over 2 months . I've been busy making etching presses.
Just converting 100 yr old dissused washing mangles.
Given the time it takes it's a lot like boat building in as much as it is a labour of love.
Anyway now 4 more artists will have the opportunity to explore the many varied and creative
facets of the art of printmaking. Before my wife getting hooked on it I had no idea of how
involved and creative this art can be.
Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have made some more progress on the boat.

Hi Phill,

do you happen to have som "before" pictures of the mangles?

I notice some new looking brackets and bearings, but it would be fun to see your starting point.

I bet there are four happy artists now..

Rolf,
I forgot to take before pics. There is around 64 hours work in each one.
I hope to get back to the boat now.

I'm finally back working on the F85.
After some laminating I managed to cut out the centre of the forward "Central Mounting Module" today.
At last I can work in the front section of the main hull without climbing in through the forward hatch.

Cutting out the centre of the CMM just leads to more work in that area. But I don't have to climb in the fwd hatch anymore to do it now. The pics will tell the story.






It turns out the section I cut out of the CMM was big enough to make the cover panels.

Still more work in this area.
Formwork is required to build a glass flange.


The Glass flange is created so Uni can be laminated over it.


In this case I used Uni Carbon over the flange.
This pretty much concludes work in this area for a while.
I have made 4 little cubbie holes, two either side. So with a crew of 4 each person has a place for valuables while sailing
or other items like a torch that one may want to keep at hand while cruising with my better half.

I'm currently working on the outside of the main hull.
Starting at the bow I installed the carbon socket for the spinnaker pole and fore stay.



Main the anchor well hatch rim and glassed it to the top of the deck with some 400gm B/D.



Then I did the fairing needed for the the fwd hatch.

The glass tube to take the forward net has been glued and glassed to the foredeck. I have cut a slot thru the hull under the tube for the fwd 200mm. This allowed me to take 2 layers of 400gm glass over the top of the deck around the tube and to the under side of the deck. Now any load will be transferred to the deck and not trying to delaminate the hull. The slot was filled and glassed over on the inside of the anchor well and then also covered in 2 layers of glass as the tube was glass over it's full length. I have designed a fitting that will insert in the glass tube to take the dyneema line the fwd net will be laced to hence the need to strengthen the end section of the tube.





I have made up a fairing for the fwd flat edge of the fwd cmm.
This will be faired into the hull further when the mainhull is faired for painting later.

I had some laminating to do between the rear beam mount (CMM) and the **** floor.
Normally this is probably just done by kneeling down in the ****.
A few days earlier I came off my bike again.
At least I didn't break my collar bone this time, but with cracked ribs and no skin on both my knees kneeling
to do it this way would be an adventure in pain that I could do without.
The boat was winched onto its side enabling me to do the work sitting on a chair next to it.

I had some laminating to do around the main beam bulkhead on the underside of the cabin roof.
Mark came around to help roll the hull over for this. One person winding a winch out and one winding a winch in and hey presto its done.
I supported the hull with a couple of out of date gas bottles under the main beam pads and a plank and ladders at the rear.
Then I could just roll under on an office chair and do the work while seated through the forward hatch. Very easy and comfortable.
I think I'll do this when it comes to painting the underside of the cabin roof too.
Here are some pics of the setup.

It has been around 6 weeks since my last update.

In the interim I have managed to get a few things done.

I've made the carbon beam for the traveler.
I've installed it just behind the CMM.



Quite a bit of thought went into its positioning as a part of how the carbon mast and boom are going to work.
I finally decided against roller furling. (BTW:-I hope to take delivery of the carbon mast in a couple of weeks.)

I had already purchased the traveler when a local chandlery was going bust.
The only problem being I couldn't source M6 bolts long enough to attach it to the carbon beam.
Instead I bought the longest M6 countersunk bolts that I could source and some M10 hex head bolts.
I put the M10 in the lathe , cut the treads off and bored a hole right through them and tapped an
M6 thread. I get around 20mm of thread engagement which is more than enough.



I've made the seat side panels and like the carbon traveller beam and most other things all under a vacuum.

I kept the cut outs in the side panels and made doors. I was quite surprised at how heavy
the stainless hinges are for 6 doors. I think I'll replace the stainless hinges for white plastic ones that I have
managed to source locally. If I decide I don't like the doors I will just take them off.

I have installed the port seat side panels and was taping in the stbd side earlier today.



I looked at sourcing the watertight hatches required to house the emergency gear, EPIRB flares etc but
couldn't source the ones I wanted in the size I wanted so I made my own.
Here is a pic of the hatch to be accessed from inside the ****.


Below is the hatch that would be accessed from the nets if the boat has flipped.



Once the seals have been installed they will both be perfectly flush so I'll paint the cylinder the "T"
handle is in red for contrast so it can be easily found.

Over the next couple of days I hope to flip the main hull upside down and elevate it with the winch system
sufficiently that I can either sit or stand beneath and start the internal taping of the installed seat panels.

Hi Phil
I'm assuming you bought your mast from C Tech in NZ. I've been in touch with them. I'd be interested to know what you think when it arrives. Racing Mail OrderBride to Alaska this June in the R2AK. She rows really well!
Wayne

Wayne,
That is correct.
It is scheduled to be shipped tomorrow so I would think that I'd have it within the next couple of weeks.

Wayne just checking out that R2AK ...wow awesome idea. That's another one for my bucket list like the everglades challenge.
Is a F85 eligable? would have thought it would be just small boats...not read the SA's yet.

I'm currently making the daggerboard case. This should have been done and installed before the main hull halves were joined
but I wanted to experiment with the cabin space before committing to the dagger board.
Having mocked up the inside with both the C/B and D/B I have decided the space actually feels more open with the D/B.
Go figure as I really didn't think this would be the outcome.

So I have made the D/B mould and made both sides. Weighing all that went in and out I got a 43% resin content.
The weight of the stbd side is 3.8kg and the port side came out at 4.2kg.
The port side is a little heavier because of the extra glass that goes into it to reinforce the channel for the pull up/down lines.
Below are pics of the port side just before and just after demoulding.

Another piece of the puzzle arrived today.
Mast , carbon with all carbon fittings and 5 constrictor clutches fitted for all 5 halyards.
Set up so each halyard can go to either cabin top winch once I add 4 more turning blocks on the mast base.




The sheaves are already fitted for the 2:1 halyards.
The mast base is built into the mast with a socket to take the gin pole out front for raising and rotation and raising web out back.
Just need to add the halyards and stays.
It is just over 12.6 metres long and weighs 57.01kg. Once the synthetic stays are added I expect it to be still under 60kg. I think that is very good going for a mast of that length. I asked for hi mod carbon in the side walls which should result in the mast being 35% stiffer than Farrier's minimum specs, at least through the minor axis. Hopefully improving what I see as one of the main weaknesses of a wing mast. Time will tell.

Yup F85 is eligible and we are in. No limits on boat size or type just no motor at all. I am working on the rowing systems but as it is with one simple station in the **** I can maintain 2.5 kts rowing alone. I am putting a sweep on each float and am convinced that 3.5 /4 will be realistic. We will be sailing with three crew. Wish I had your rig!

Just working on some more pieces to the puzzle.

A pic that shows just how long the Dagger board is. Makes me look short but I'm just 1/2 inch under 6ft.
These look like great boards, many thanks to help from Mark H and his CNC work.

They are nice looking boards, What happened to the 6ft swim suit model, That i hired to hold them for you ?
Is your email working i haven't heard from you for a while

Richard

Hi Phil have just sent email,let me know if you get it.

"What happened to the 6ft swim suit model, That i hired to hold them for you smile smile ?"

Hey Richard,

Are you sure that you sent that model to my place? Didn't get the directions confused with your abode?

Here are a couple more pics.
I trial fitted the board in the case before fitting the case to the hull but just wanted to double check
to make sure the case remained straight and true after fitting.

You will note that this is going to draw quite a lot with this board down.


Here is a pic from the stern with the board all the way up.


I was quite surprised at how long it took to cut the foil shape in the keel.
But that is OK as it all fits with just the right amount of clearance to ensure trouble free operation.

Hi Phill, That is going to draw a bit of water, No she didn't come here. Someone has got a nice surprise

I got to thinking that painting the cabin roof and sides would be easier with the hull upside down.
I also figured installing the mast compression post and all the carbon would be easier as well as the D/B control.
So here are a couple pics.


The mast compression work can be seen as well as the start of the up/down lines for the D/B.That is some plastic tubing with a line inside.
The line is in plastic to make sure I don't accidentally glue the line in when the cover is glued on.
I will use it to pull the up/down lines through later.



I made the cover big in the hope that I can get my hand in to re thread the lines from an inspection hatch in the deck.
I preferred this to an inspection port inside the cabin, although one can still be fitted if my plan does not work.

I've done all the fairing that is needed to paint the cabin top inside gunwale to gunwale and it took less than 500gms of resin.
The foam is so straight I just had to fair in the tapes and the companionway. I was expecting have to use a lot more resin but my system of taping has worked a treat.
All 100mm tapes have 150mm of peel ply over them. When the peel ply was removed I went over the edge of the tapes with a scraper with sharp tungsten blade feathering just the ends. Put the faiing compound on with a spring steel fairing knife and scraped most of it off at the same time. This just leaves the hollows filled. Once cured I went over the tapes again with the tungsten bladed scraper, you can see the shavings as I haven't vacuumed yet.I may light sand so the paint has a key but that is all. I can currently see where the tapes are but I can't feel them. Can't feel so once painted won't see.
If the weather is OK tomorrow I'll start painting.
Here are pics.





Looking aft in the cabin.
If this thing ever flips I want the top seat.

Several days ago I made up some non structural panels to go in as dividers beneath the settees.
I used 8mm M80 core cell foam and 200gm glass. Up until now all panels have been made under vacuum but thought I'd do these without.
The reasoning is that temps are running around 10deg and even below over night and the vacuum would need to be applied for nearly a full day
and the panels were just dividers and non structural.
I weighed out the resin to give a 50/50 resin glass ratio and applied with a roller.
Followed this with peel ply etc and put between to panes of plate glass with 3 layers of bricks on top.
Once fully cure the laminate just peeled off the foam as I took the peel ply off.
This is in stark contrast to when I have separate foam from laminate (to put in HD core) in panels made under vacuum.
Then I have had to resorts to a hammer and very sharp chisel to get the M80 foam out to put HD in.
Needless to say I ditched the panels and went back to the vacuum method that has served me so well up until now.

I am so glad that I have used vacuum on the hulls, bulkheads and all other panels on the boat.
This little experiment has convinced me that the added expense and increase in time it takes is worth using a vacuum.
(Although I think had I primed the foam with resin before the galss was added and/or been warmer it would have made it less likely to delaminate so easily.)

BTW:-
Had I wanted to get the same pressure as a vacuum by putting bricks on top I'd need the bricks to be something like 30ft high.
Quite surprising how much pressure the vacuum applies.

Not really hard to see the problem here in hind sight Phill.

you mixed 50:50 resin.

Lost 10-20% of that into the peel ply
another 10-20% into the foam.

That left you with a resin:cloth ratio of about 30:70.

Scarecrow,
You have a good point.
The peel ply that I'm using absorbs 40gm per sq metre.
Weighing the glass that came off reveals it only has a 30% resin content.
An interesting point about foam. I have a small quantity of foam other than the Core cell and it absorbs quite a lot more resin.
So I find the final weight of a structure will depend on the brand of foam used as well as the type of resin used in addition to the designed laminate.
Even diff between using fast and slow hardener of the same manufacturer. I find it strange that a comparison has not been properly documented on the net somewhere.
Best bet as far as resin goes is to go off the data sheets regarding viscosity. No doco that I know of regarding the foam.

I've got some data on it I'll dig up when I finish building/moving into the new office. When building cored structures out of pre-preg you always use a resin film between the laminate and the core, so you don't wick all the resin out of the inner layers.

If you read the "gumf" from most of the foam suppliers they make a big deal about reduced resin absorption, particularly with new products.

If you're really interested talk to the guys at Gurit I'm sure they'll be able to point you in the right direction.

Reliable info on resin absorption by the foam at the beginning of the project would have been handy and of considerable interest
given I have weighed everything going in and coming out.
As I bought the foam and resin from Gurit I phoned them up before I started the project and one of the questions I asked
was how much resin I should allow for absorption into the foam. The answer provided was 250gm per sq metre.
They qualified this figure with saying that is what they advise people doing resin infusion and could give me no other info on the subject.
I proved on the first laminating session that 250gm was way over the top when hand laminating with vacuum.
I think it was closer to 50gms per sq metre. (detailed this in one of my early posts.)

It also surprises me that so far Gurit are the only ones to my knowledge that provide data sheets that specify a vacuum window
given the hardener and ambient temperature. This has been just so handy to ensure I can run a high vacuum without pulling too much resin out of the laminate.
I'm nearing the end of the laminating now, only got the settee backs and a few small things to go.

I've been working away slowly.
Here is a pic or the window shape that I have finally decided upon.

After a great deal of procrastination I have finally worked out how I want the interior set up.
No doubt once sailing I'll find it is all wrong but at least I have a starting point.

Here is a couple of pics.

The fdw port compartment will hold a water bladder and will pack fruit and veg on top.
Between that and the D/B case will be the battery and depth sounder.
The battery will be on a small false floor.
On the other side of the case will be esky/car fridge but not when racing. (also on small false floor)



I intend to make some in fill panels between the seat and D/B case to widen the seats for sleeping.

I made the seat backs from 8mm corcell M80under vacuum with 200gm plain weave glass each side.
The edge has a strip of the panel doubled up and a layer of 300gm uni carbon to each side to strengthen.




There is a recess made into the edge that will house LED strip lighting.
There will be a coloured night setting to not affect night vision as well as a white light for when at anchour.
So the main lighting in the cabin will be indirect.
It will also have a light above the dining/chart table for use when reading charts.




The seat backs were not taken down to the seats but join the hull further up.
This was done by applying a 100mm wide layer of glass, 50mm on the edge.
This was wet out with fast hardener and once cured but still green, put in place and the other half wet out against the hull.
When cured any gap was filled and glassed over.

I decided that I woudn't have cushions on the seat backs.
This allowed me to bring the seats backs fwd the width of the cushions, providing more storage space behind and allows both the sink and cooker to be installed behind the seat backs.
When installed they will be made to come fwd for use in a similar manner to the production F22.



The seats tops will be divided for the storage compartments.
This will provide a place to hang the foul weather gear on the stbd side of the D/B. when the seat top is open.

Currently the hull is upside down and I'm working through it with paint.
Here is a pic with the ceiling above the fwd berth undercoated.
I could do this standing up through the fwd hatch.



Here is a pic of my first instalment of sails.

That made my day

Thank you for sharing all the pics and info on your decisions during the build. I am certain this will be a masterpiece when done (if a boat is ever "done").

Thanks Rolf,
It's good to see that someone is checking up on the build now and then.

Your posts about your F85 build is the main reason I check in here.

Hi Phil,

I want to agree with Rolf. Your building blog is a inspiration for many detail solutions, even if Iam no Farrier Fan. I have copied a lot of posts for my own building project (just in case the site will shut down). I like to read your posts and return regularly. Please keep on!

Best Regards, Michel

Michel and Rolf,Thanks.
I used to have a site on geocities for boat building and I could see the stats. That was interesting. It was lost when geocities changed. I have been thinking of setting something up similar that I would control so stuff doesn't get lost. All the early pics have been lost from this site when the photo album feature was scrapped. . I just need to find time to redo everything elsewhere. Right now I have to get this on the water.
It is quite surprising how the inside of the boat feels like it is getting bigger as it is painted. I think I have it worked out so everything will be stored with very easy access so the inside can be kept uncluttered. Only time will tell if I'm having myself on. Here is a pic with some parts painted.

Nearly finished painting the inside.
I just have the seat tops and the cabin floor to go.
I'm quite keen to get this behind me so I can start putting a finish on the outside .
Unlike most, I quite enjoy fairing.

I have finally finish painting the inside.
No more having to twist myself into all kinds of awkward shapes to get to places without messing up wet painted surfaces.

It has never taken me that long to paint the inside of a house.
After I get back from a bike ride around some of the midwest towns of NSW I can get to work on the outside.

Hi,

its looking like the inside of a fridge. *smile*

Sorry, cant resist this joke ... great paint job.

Best Regards, Michel

Michel,
I feel ill at easy in small spaces so my aim was to make the interior feel as big as possible. This has worked quite well. It feels very spacious when sitting inside. This feeling of openness will further improve when I cut the windows and can look out, however I may lose some of this feeling when the cushions go in. All in all for the length and type of boat I'm very happy with the way it is working out so far.

Just completed the second last task before I can start fairing the main hull.
I have just made a second forestay attachment to attach a dacron jib on a continuous line furler.
This is only for cruising and twilight racing so I wanted the fitting out of the way when racing.

The pics basically tell the story.

Last couple of pics.

Hi Phill

is that the Farrier design or your own design?

I have seen something similar on kayaks and the rail lines there. Nice way to do this! :-)

Rolf,
This fitting was in addition to what is in the plans.
M12 shackle with 12mm dia ss rod.
It is not intended to take the full rig load although I think it strong enough. It will always have the forestay as per the plans holding the mast up. This will just have the cruising jib on the furler that can go up or down without taking the mast down. It will be vary handy negotiating all the twists and turns to get from the local waterway to the open sea. Being able to unfurl when the wind is in your favour and furl up when not. I'd even use it when sailing down to Pittwater for a race. It will help save the race sails for actual racing.

I have just started the process of fairing the outside of the main hull.
When looking along the hull all that I can see out of place is the joins in the glass due to the overlaps. It is very straight, even better than the floats were at this stage.
But one never really knows until the paint is on. Rather than take the risk I decided to just do what I did with the floats.
There are a couple pics below that show the first 4.5hrs work. It really pays to be very neat and methodical when applying the beading and this takes time, in fact if done right, it takes more time than sanding it off.
I've applied beading to the port side of the hull from the gunwale to approx W/L. I used 1.5kg of resin and around 500gms of filler.
Later today I will rotate the hull some more and do the rest to the C/L.

I'm fairly certain that nearly all of this will be sanded off , time will tell.

Rolled her over some more and pulled the skirt off.
(Note the chair in the pic, if you value your back it is an essential boat building tool.)


Then I applied the beading.


Now I have to sand it all off.

Fairing is the zen og boatbuilding I think.

Rolf,
I think you are right.
I even enjoyed the fairing of the floats. It took me 4 hours to get the beading on each side of each float and only 1.5 hours to long board it off each side. I then applied filler with spring steel blade in such thin coats that it took 4 applications until any remaining beading could not to be seen. I'd alternate the application between plus and minus 45 deg angle between coats when putting it on. This worked great at getting a very flat finish. This meant almost no sanding. Just a light rub between coats with orbital sander to take off any dags. The floats are undercoated and they look perfect. (The top coat will tell the full story.) The main hull will be a lot more work but only because it has much greater surface area. I realised when fairing the floats how much work I saved by taking my time in placing the foam in the mould so I was even more careful with the main hull. The real secret in getting the foam right was the building of the oven to evenly heat the foam. I tried the hot air gun method and could not get the foam to bend as evenly through the curves as I'd like. A couple of friends dropped around and decided to build the simple oven with stuff I had lying around and some ceramic heaters that I'd bought years before. Then I experimented with temperature and found the Corecell M80 foam formed its shape best at around 105 deg C. Lower and it would not bend evenly and higher , say 112 deg C, and it would tend to cup along the edges. The supplier had told me to heat it to 80 -90 deg C. It will bend at that temp but not evenly. You end up with a lot of flats and sharp curves on what should be a smooth radius. It really pays to get the foam stage right. It is so much more pleasant than filling and sanding later. I suppose it is all a part of the Zen of boat building.

I finished fairing the port side of the main hull today.

This is the way it went:-
First I ran a random orbital sander with 120grit over it and that removed any marks left in the resin by creases in the vacuum film and tapered the taping along the gunwale. Then I covered the hull with beading (resin + Q cells). That took 2kg of resin. I sanded the beading off with a long board. That took a total of 5 hours. Beading was left in the hollows, maybe 500gms. The first pass of fairing compound took 1250gms of resin and the second around 350gms of resin. I followed this with a skim coat of "S Fair" as it is good at filling any pin holes. It is now ready for painting. I'll start on the stbd side tomorrow.

...and the only reason I check in here.

Luiz S

Luiz- that is great that you also check in to see what I'm up to. I'm enjoying the task and if others can benefit that is just an added bonus.

I put the beading on the stbd side yesterday.



The forecast today is for a temp of 38deg C (100F). Sounds like a good day to let the resin in the beading cure. A bit hot to be on the end of a long board- tomorrow however with 23degC sounds more like a long boarding day. The pic shows one of several longboards. I used this one to fair a set of 32ft cedar strip hulls that I built back in 89. Since then I have also acquire an air sander that is very handy to get things down a bit when starting the long boarding.



I've almost finihed needing my notched trowel. I made it when I had to fair the foats. Easy to notch a plastic trowel. It has notches 5mmx5mm with 30mm between centres. Due to the angle it has to be held to make the fairing compound stick it makes a notch 5mm wide and approx 2mm high. Does not sound like much but with all the frames CNC cut and careful placing of the foam has proven to be sufficient.

Hi Phill,

on the last pic with the trowel I noticed no gloves? Are you using some ester based compound here instead of the infamous epoxy?

Rolf,
That pic was made just for illustration as the resin had already cured and the trowel cleaned off with vinegar. I have a friend that had been at me for years to use vinegar but I assumed it wouldn't work. Turns out vinegar is a great cleaning agent for epoxy and at $1 per litre at the local supermarket it won't break the bank and much safer to use than a solvent, especially if you get epoxy on your skin. You can also stand your brushes in vinegar and the epoxy won't go off but you do need to wash all the vinegar out before reusing them so I use acetone just for this. I have a tall jar with a lid and acetone and stand my brushes in that. The lid stops the acetone from evaporating and I can just remove excess acetone by wiping them before reusing.
I'm using bote-cote epoxy for fairing and some other applications but not laminating (too thick). The standard bote-cote does not develop amine blush and this is just so convenient. I have used Gurit resin for all the laminating and structural work. Over the years I have used a number of diff resins and much prefer this as a laminating resin. I'm also using disposable Nitrile gloves . $10 for 100 pair at the local hardware store.

Hi Phill Any chance of sending me an email, I've changed computers and lost yours. i'm needing to borrow a bit of carbon mat. Thanks Richard

I'm getting close to finishing the fairing of the outside of the main hull.
I'm really happy with the way it is turning out and the amount of resin I have used.
I just need to longboard the stbd side lower section to the keel and do the skim coats of filler.
See pic below.





One of the things about fairing that does annoy me is the cleaning out of containers to mix up the fairing compound.
Ice cream containers are good to use, but we don't eat enough ice cream to have an endless supply.
To avoid having to clean one out for every fairing session I have been putting the one I just used in a plastic bag and into the freezer at the end of the session.
The cold temp stops the residue in the container from curing.
So when I need it I just take it out and mix another batch. By the time the batch is mixed the old residue has warmed up enough to be workable and goes on with the new mix.
Some people also do this when they mix too much resin and don't want to throw the excess away. The only catch is that you can't leave it too long before it goes into the freezer.

Sounds as if you do the same they do to make pre-preg cloths.
What does the missus say about epoxy containers in the freezer? :-D

Rolf,
I put it in the bottom draw of the freezer. Not sure if she even knows as it has not been discussed, hopefully it will stay that way.

Anyway this phase is now finished.






My next step is to flip the main hull onto its roof and use the bottom as a mould to make a cradle (bucket) that it is going to sit in when on the trailer.
It is all a part of the fun,believe it or not, it is good fun.

Mark dropped around to help roll the boat yesterday. It is much quicker and easier if you have one person winding a winch in and one winding the other winch out so the boat just rolls.

It went off like clockwork as usual and the hull is now upside down with bricks and blocks under the beam landings.

Before going much further I wanted to see where the waterline is on the hull. However my laser level is on the blink so the hull has been set up so the W/L is parallel to the ceiling. (The ceiling was true 20yrs ago, when I built it. Pre stressed concrete flooring panels on 12 inch thick steel beams.) All I had to do was cut a stick to the required length, taped a couple of levels to it so I could keep it exactly vertical and mark off the hull. (BTW:- I have ordered another laser to double check before making it permanent. I will most likely resort to the fishing line method of permanently marking the W/L. Hold the line against the hull with tabs of tape and paint resin over it. When the resin has cured pull the line off and its indent showing the W/L remains for the life of the boat.)

My plan is to make the cradle now but I am tempted to put a coat of high build undercoat on it first.





Here is a pic showing the O/B motor mount and emergency hatch from below.

I ended up putting the epoxy high build undercoat on.
The undercoat weighs more than all the fairing.
I'll spray a duster coat of black on it and then wet and dry it back.
Looking at it in real life the wet and dry should take almost all of the minor blemishes out before top coating.
Any that remain will be identified by remnants of the duster coat.
Here is a pic.

Looking good Phill!

I just finished the last major lamination of the hull, so I'm way behind

regards
Nico

Nico,
And I'm way behind Clive who has just launched. We will all get there eventually.
I was invited out for a sail today. The sail today confirmed that I'm definitely building the right boat.

Here is a pic taken before we set off.

That must have been fun !

Nice looking boat Phill, how was the wind and how did it sail?

How deep is the dagger board, and what's it made of?

Tim,
It was very light and variable with the max no more than 7 or 8 knots. Top speed of the day was 14.5knots under main and jib.
I was very impressed at the speed upwind in particular, given the conditions.
Clive only launched the boat the previous day so it still has a load of potential to tap into.

My D/B is carbon and foam CNC cut and laminated under vacuum. It sticks out the case around 1700mm. There are a couple pics below showing the size of the D/B.

Wow, that is a nice looking board! I'll bet it's pretty light too? And I'm guessing that's also the rudder in the top picture, and the bow sprit?

I wonder how hard it would be to build a 'new' dagger for a F24MII that is both lighter and deeper than the original board, and thinner, like that dagger above. That sure looks sweet!

Tim,
There is a bit or work in it but it was made a lot easier by having a mate with a CNC machine to cut the foam blank. It weighs around 12kg because, with it being that long (nearly 9ft) and thin, you need quite a lot of carbon to make it strong enough. The mast is over 40ft tall so there is a lot of horsepower in the sail plan.

We also made a plug for the rudder. (Pic Below.) Mark cut it and I finished it. But I never made the mould. I decided I wanted a slightly longer rudder for the main hull. So Mark was good enough to cut the foam blank of the rudder in the pic above. Once launched I'll probably go ahead and make the mould and use that to make some float rudders. I'd like the redundancy of the 3 rudders when coastal sailing.

Black duster coat applied and wet sanded off. That black paint is a harsh critic.
However it looks worse than it is because most of the black spots remaining can be seen but not felt,
so another coat of hi build should fix them. Others I can just feel so these will be filled first.
Given the black exposes all the imperfections, this approach should ensure a near perfect surface for a top coat.
Now if I was even crazier I'd duster coat it again after next hi build. However given it took me 12 hours to wet sand that coat off
I think I'll pass on the second duster coat. I do want to get the boat finished.

Below are a couple of pics after the duster coat has been wet sanded.

The second coat of hi build has been applied.

So far all up I've sprayed 8.5 litres of hi build primer over 2 coats and spent 18 hours wet sanding.
Up close the hi build is now so thin it is almost translucent and the shop floor is covered in white powder.
It did screw with my head just a little, all that money and time to put the primer on
just to spend a lot more time to rub it off. However the hull is now nice and smooth and fair.
Next is to spend some time cleaning up the mess so I can apply the top coat.

That is incredible work, thank you for sharing.

But, seeing all the effort going in to this build, I feel better that I bought a factory boat... there is no way on earth I have the skills/time/space needed for this level of construction...

Jay,
Thank you for your comments.
Unless one really enjoys building and I mean really enjoy building boats, then buying a factory boat is a very smart move.

I really enjoy building but this is the last boat that I will build (due to my ever increasing sensitivity to resins) so I'm taking my time.

I have been waiting for the weather to clear up so I could spray the top coat on the main hull.
Finally after a week it all came together and it now has the top coat.








An interesting bit of trivia- To spray two pack polyurethane one should have a relative humidity of less than 85% and at least 3 deg C between the Ambient Temp of the surface one is spraying and the Dew Point Temp. This is because when the paint hits the surface the evaporation of the thinners cools the surface by around 3 deg C. If the surface temp goes below the Dew Point Temp moisture will settle on the surface and this moisture will affect the hardener in the paint. The drop in surface temp is the same as if you get acetone on your hands. It makes your hand cold because its evaporation is fueled by energy it takes from your hand thus making it colder. The same thing happens when you spray paint. I had to wait a week for a wet spell to pass and finally ended up with a relative humidity of 58% and Ambient Temp 8deg C above the Dew Point.

Ultimately I would like to qualify for Cat 2 coastal racing. From what I can make out to meet the safety regs I will need a bright colour with a min area of 1m2 that can be seen when the boat is upside down. The boat would be rather slow upside down for that and several other reasons I hope that I never find myself in that position. Given that I will be keeping the boat at home under cover rather than on a mooring I have decided that I will not anti foul the bottom so I thought this may do the job. It has an area of just over 1m2. I will also paint the lower section of the dagger board with this colour.

I think I happen to have enough surplus materials to make a cradle for the main hull so thought I'd just give it a go.

First I covered the hull with 3 layers of plastic and one layer of vacuum film. I don't want to damage the paint.
Then 2 layers of a fairly heavy triaxial glass. I was given a couple rolls of this stuff a few years back along with some really out of date epoxy.
But it is only a cradle- wouldn't use the ood epoxy in the boat itself.

I also happen to have several sheets of 3.5mm pacific maple marine ply. So here s a couple of pics of the work to date.







The ribs will be trimmed back by up to 6 inched each side and there is more timber to be glued in place length ways along the keel and sides to make more of a frame.
The timber will be acting as a high density core and it will all have at least 2 layers of the triaxial glass over it.
Frames will also go under the ribs and be bolted to gal angle that is then bolted to the trailer.

Hint for people looking to copy Phill's idea here. If you don't have Phill's experience be really careful. I've seen people get carried away building cradles throw too much glass on in one go and generate so much heat that they damage the boat's foam core. Like anything lamination wise, take your time a do just a few layers at a time.

Scarecrow, Interesting that you mention that, a very good point. I had this originally planned with some friends coming around to help. When I found out the forecast temp was going to be 37 deg C I became concerned re thermal runnaway and I put it off until I got a day in the low 20s. Then still used slow hardener and only 2 layers of glass. Once the frame is built around this skin I'll do a bit more possibly with a 5mm core cell as core, I have a heap of this 5mm M80 foam. I have no other immediate use for it, picked it up super cheap many years ago.

I haven't been able to touch the boat for the last week and it looks like it will be a few more weeks before I can get back to the boat. I did get to snap a couple of pics of where I'm up to earlier this arvo.



I got out my laser level to mark the frames so they can be trimmed and all support the boat evenly when on the trailer. I have a couple pics below. One time exposure showing the laser line. Held by hand so no super clear. But then photography was never my strong point.


The cradle will now be lifted off and all the excess timber and glass will be trimmed before all the bare timber is laminated with triax glass & epoxy.

Then the cradle will be lined with marine carpet, the hull set in it and work will commence on the cabin top and windows etc.

The cradle is off the hull and now trimmed.



Starting to look the part, but still needs the timber encased in the triax.

Looks awesome. How does the water drain away from the hull once situated on the cradle?

Jay , good question.
The plan is to have a layer of 3/4 inch rubber 8 inches wide down the centre of the cradle with the rubber and the rest of the cradle covered in marine carpet. Either side of the rubber will be 3/8 inch drain holes every 8 inches.
I do have concerns about the hull discolouring because of water trapped in the carpet and hopefully this will do the trick.

Unable to get much done over the last 5 weeks too busy working on a house building project but still I have a couple of pics below.
To ensure the thickness of the lining of the cradle did not cause a problem I have left some space for expansion.
Once the hull is in it with the lining these gaps will be filled and glassed in place.



The cradle only needed one more layer of triaxial for it to become bullet proof. As I peel plied the glass this took me around 8 hours to laminate. I was happy for that to be behind me.

Before putting the right way up for the rest of the project I thought it prudent to double check that the D/B still fitted without problm. Good thing because I found that fairing compound had gone into the case right at D/B the trailing edge. IT was easy to remove in this position and now the D/B is running just right.



I used 1/2 inch thick felt to temporarily line the cradle just because I had it available. It will eventually be used to make cases for the rudder and D/B.




Once in the cradle Mark came around with some templates he cut for me on his CNC machine when he cut my windows. The templates were to make a 6mm rebate so the windows will be flush when fitted. I made the cabin side 16mm thick to allow for this. I'll vacuum 3 layers of 200gm glass around the edge before the hole for the window is cut.

Those windows will look amazing! I was surprised to see the deck un-painted with the hull looking completely finished. It much be easy for you to "switch gears" in your shop. I have to completely finish the work and fairing before making a large transformation of the shop to a paint booth.

F-25c,
For me this approach should be the easiest way and give me the best result. A simple plastic shirt taped just under the gunwale net tube should eliminate any over spray.
The top is even more straight and fair than the hull so I just need to fair in the taping. (the way I do it is very quick and easy.)
Once the shop is tidy changing it into a spray booth takes around 5 mins.

This might work for me too. How do you vent out the overspray? I have a HVLP turbine system but still get some mist in the air if I don't have air flow. I can still see the part but not as well as I'd like without airflow. I have a positive air mask. How will you paint the deck, hang sheeting from above, turn upside down, or move the boat outside?

F-25c,
I'll just tell you what I did and see if it is of any use.
One end on the shop is open. I set the boat upside down supported by bricks under the beam landings so I could take down my winching system as it would get in the way.
I put planks on milk creates down both sides of the hull. This enabled me reach far enough to spray from the keel to the waterline on each side.
I did 3 passes. Alternating from side to side, always spraying from the back of the shop to 7ft x 8ft opening.
Then I took the planks away and 3 passes from the gunwale to the waterline. Same again. A friend came around and mixed while I sprayed in an effort to keep a wet edge. I expected to get over spray from the waterline to the keel but that didn't happen. The 2 pack paint I'm using stayed wet enough to absorb the over spray.
I had a 13cfm compressor driving my positive pressure full face mask and a 15cfm on the HPLV gun. When I undercoated I only used the 13cfm on both and I had to stop intermittently for the compressor to catch up.

I also have a very large fan that I could have used to help vent the shop had it been necessary.

That worked for me.
Hope it helps.

If you have too much mist in the air look at you pressure at the gun. Too much could do that. I did not have that problem. Overspray on the hull now will be avoided by taping plastic sheeting from just under the gunwale down to the cradle the hull is in. I have a heap of cheap plastic sheeting left over from when I made the cradle and it will only take a couple mins to tape in place.
This has all worked great for me with the paint I have chosen to use.

Thanks for the write up. Thats a nice looking cradle.

Another step closer.
I still have to paint on the non skid. I'm going to use light grey Kiwi Grip. Then I can pernamently bolt on the fittings.

I pulled the floats out from under the front verandah and started rubbing off the guide coat to ready them for top coating.
I top coated the beams yesterday, they are in the background.
Not long now and should start putting the pieces together.

Top coated the floats a couple days back.



Then took the cradle out and glued in foam to give the main hull a soft ride.



And last thing today managed to paint the non kid onto the main hull.

Come on Phill hurry up and post some pics of the luverly windows in the sunshine.

Was looking good last night in the car park.

Looking good

Hey Phill you know what would look really good?.....

Black folding struts! ;P

OK only 6 more I told you so's to go

The floats are now on. Just need the rain to stop so the taping and fairing can be finished.

Looks good Phil.
It should win a few looks good in the carpark awards
Richard

Richard,
Thanks.

Glass taping the front beam on the inside is a real challenge as the foil cases are in the way.
A friend offerred to climb inside the float and work around the foil case to do the job.
That was a good thing because I just don't bend like that anymore. Here is a couple of pics.

We put the cradle of a couple of planks to make a sled to move the boat around,
then jacked the sled up and winched it onto the trailer.
All we had to do then was remove the planks and bolt the cradle to the trailer.

The standard wingnet rail is 50mm alloy tube with a 3mm wall.
I decided to make a wing shape for the rail so it would be more comfortable to sit on.
I drew up a modified wing mast shape, laminated some corecell foam and Mark was good enough to machine it to the shape on his CNC machine.
It was then sheaved in 4 layers of carbon and a light layer of glass.(All under vacuum).
I was very happy with the result as it came out the same weight the alloy would have been.
Below are a couple of pics.

I forgot to point out that I moved the rear bulkhead, ie- the one imediately in front of the transom below the **** floor, forward a little and put in a hatch.
This is to provide plenty of room to stowe a stern anchour when in cruising mode and make fitting that compartment out for water ballast, for racing, a little easier later on.

Florin, a friend of many years, flew in from Europe 7 weeks ago to help me with work on the boat.
He has made a huge difference, with the two of us, working 8am to 7pm 7 days a week to get the boat to the stage it is at now.

In addition to that, at night he and my wife Terri have been working on a name and graphics.
So getting the graphics on the boat was a big step forward for all of us. Below is a pic of the graphics being put on.




BTW:- this was the boats first outing and a chance to see how it handles on the road.

Also below is a pic of a couple of blocks that Florin made for my down haul system that will run inside the boom.



The last pic is the first standing of the mast.

Hi Phill
The boat looks fantastic, Pity about he East Coast Low, this weekend to take it out for a ride. At least you win the boat park award again.

Richard

Folks,
It has been a long but enjoyable journey from the purchase of the plans.
Lots of friends have been there to help me along the way.
First mention has to be Ian Farrier for supplying such detailed plans and endless support over the years.
My wife Terri who does not even sail. I could not have built this boat without her support along the way, and with significant input regarding the aesthetics.
Mark with his CNC machining, laminating and radical ideas to push the envelope to produce a more refined end result.
Jack was always available when I needed a hand laminating and offering practical advice based on experience from his own boat build.
Peter, along with many of the guys that I ride with, when a big job was on or I needed to move hulls around.
Richard, either by lending me specialised tools or borrowing them from someone.
Florin, with his CAD skills to help work stuff out just to make things easier, not to mention flying 19,000km to work for 6 weeks, 7 days a week, 10 and 11 hour days to get the boat on the water. All just to see it sail.

Yes, the boat is now on the water. Still lots to do to finish her off but she does float and does sail.
Following next couple of posts are just going to be pics.

more pics

Well done Phill, The finished boat looks great. When you emailed me and said that you where doing 7 knots in glassy conditions, I thought it was under sail not motor

Richard

I have no idea what it does under motor.

Sorry Phill
From the angle you are sitting and the angle that the photo is taken from it looked like a motor wake out the port side of the boat.
I have now seen the error of my last post.

Sorry
Richard

To get the boat on the water I didn't have much in the way of sail tuning and setup. I'll now go through and fine tune all the control setups. My first little project was the main halyard. I have a 2:1 main halyard but only ran a 1:1.
The preferred fitting between the sail and halyard these days for this type of boat and 2:1 seems to be the Tylaska H8 halyard shackle with a breaking load around 3600kg and a cost of up to 178 dollars. I am going to make my own halyard shackle from a low friction ring by Ronstan RF8090-16 for $23 and soft shackle that I will make from 4mm dyneema with a total cost of around $25 and a breaking load of over 5,700 kg.
My first attempt used 1250mm of 4mm SK78 dyneema with a 250mm bury . The length of the bury was to ensure there were 4 thicknesses of dyneema through the eyelet in the sail. (this link will show how to do this type of soft shackle- http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/improvedsoftshackle.pdf ) . The through hole in the dyneema to form the noose in the shackle was made 12mm past the centre between the eyes made in the end. This is the left most soft shackle in the pic. It proved to be long enough to work but not long enough to fix permanently to the LFR as per the soft shackle in the centre. The soft shackle in the centre was made the same but used 1400mm of dyneema. This seems long enough to meet my requirements with 105mm between bearing surfaces and a total weight of 33g as opposed to the H8 at 87.7gms. The soft shackle on the right was made from 800mm of 3mm sk75 dyneema with a 150mm bury and could have been strong enough with a BS of around 3400kg but I felt more comfortable with the thicker line . The size of the knots change quite a lot for only 1mm thicker line. As the noose has to open up enough to get the knot through it affects the distance between bearing surfaces because I want to be able to release the shackle without difficulty.

When I started this project my objective was to build a strong stiff boat because I mainly want to do coastal sailing as opposed to closed waters. I chose to build in the heavy glass option for strength knowing that it would end up being heavier than if I used the same methods in the lighter glass option or even carbon.
I knew that the day would come that I would have to come to terms with the consequences of that decision and get the boat weighed. Well that has happened. I bit the bullet a couple of days back and weighed the "Mad Hatter". It has come in at 920kg. I just missed my target of 900kg. Still if you compare this weight with similar boats it is a pretty good weight.

Anyway we took the Hatter out during the week and I checked how fast it would go under motor. At 3/4 throttle (being a new motor I didn't want to go above that until run in) it sits on 8.5knots in flat calm conditions. Just above idle its 4.7knots.

Below is a pic of The Mad Hatter patiently waiting on the Gosford waterfront while her crew had a coffee before the day's sail. The sea breese started at 5 knots and slowly built to 10.The warm sunny day gave a further glimpse of what is in store with summer just around the corner. It all made for a most enjoyable day with the boat feeling light and lively. The Hatter sat on 13 to 14knots once the breese filled in and hit a top speed of 16 knots for the day with just main and jib. I can't wait to get the screecher rigged and really wind it up.



I thought I'd add the pic below just because I like it.
A top sunset to finish off a great afternoon's sail .
The Mad Hatter and friend's cruising cat sitting on moorings as the sun falls below the hills.

So Phill,

how is life and the boat now that you have had the time to enjoy the fruits of your work?

Rolf,
Life and the boat are great but as far as having "time to enjoy the fruits of my work". If only it were that simple.

Apart from the occasional sail, my time is mostly taken up with finishing little details so I can really enjoy the fruits of my work during summer.

It will all be worth it in the long run. This is by far the nicest boat that I've sailed. It is fast and comfortable and light to steer. It accelerates like a sports car and seems to handle like one too. It tacs like a laser, not only with full rig but even when sailing upwind under jib alone. It's all so easy and bodes well for the summer ahead.

Great to hear!

And you even have a shelter for the stradivarius. Much better to have the boat there rather than the car

It sounds as if you already enjoy the boat - and is ready for more once spring is there. (I forgot that you have "winter" in Australia at this time of year.. )


I know Ian Farrier used to have some kind of trend chart on his site for how many working hours each "personality" needed to complete their building projects. From the very fast carpenter who went saling after a year in a basic boat to the cabinet maker who spent the rest of his life in the boatbuilding workshop. Have you considered where you placed in between those extremes?

Rolf,
I decided before I started this project that it would be the last boat that I build so I planned on taking my time.

Time wise I've been much closer to the cabinet maker than the carpenter. I rarely considered the time a task would take only the method versus the result.

So it has been a massive investment of time but I'm happy with that investment.

That graph is a bit optimistic. I can't see a person building an F-85SR in 2000 hrs. Especially the beams and the folding mechanisme, including the reinforcements in the hull, are very time consuming. I've allready put in more than 2500 hrs @450/year and I still have about two years to go.

I know vacuum bagging takes more time, but still...

Phill,

I guesstimated that you would tend towards the cabinet maker from how I know you

Doing things properly takes the time it takes. I still have a mini-tractor in my garage with from 1 to 10ish hours spent every week. Once it is out - I have some more boatbuilding to do etc. As we discussed several times before - the journey is the goal and the real experience.

Unfortunately - not everybody understands or accept this. Especially friends and family tends to shake their heads at my priorities.


Nico - I dont know, but if a rough finish is accepted, quick and dirty methods, buying pre-fab materials , very basic fitout and one have experience from similar projects - It is surprising what can be done.

Hi Rolf, yeah you're probably right.
I'm probably too much of a cabinet maker myself as well.
You are absolutely right about other people shaking their heads

Nico and Rolf,
Re "other people shaking their heads" - my better half came up with the name "Mad Hatter". That says a lot, but I like it and now it looks finished, she appreciates the result.

Well then, Phill, "nice Hat"

The results definitely show the effort was worth it.

Thanks Jay.

The actual build time serves to calculate the cost, but it is the passing of the years that remain in our memory.

This thread started in 2010, so it took you 6 years to build the "Mad Hatter".

It took me six years to build a boat of comparable dimensions and features with the aid of a shipyard and a professional.

You did great! Congratulations!

Luiz

Luiz,
Thanks. It was a long haul but I had some good friends help out, when needed, along the way. I enjoyed the work and the challenge. People who complain about the cost of boats like this would get a real wake up call if they tried to build one.

The Mad Hatter sailed in its first regatta last weekend. The 21st Lock Crowther Memorial Regatta hosted by Royal Motor Yacht Club Pittwater. As I only have the boat up to Cat 7 safety standard I could only sail the in shore courses scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday wasn't only blowing dogs off chains, the chains also blew away,with winds gusting over 40 knots the racing was cancelled. The Sunday was a much better day for sailing and below is a report.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We just finished the Lock Crowther Memorial Regatta. This is the way racing unfolded as seen by Mad Hatter, my recently launched F85SR.

Being a new boat, we had not raced seriously before and had no idea what was ahead. Personally I just wanted to have fun, and hoped someone would take a good pic of the boat over the weekend.

In a light breeze we started the first race in the pack with the fleet and soon pulled out a lead that made our jaws drop, working up the eastern shore. We had noticed some boats started tacking to the other side, and figured they were looking for a fresher wind line but they kept going. When we finally checked the map we found we had completely misjudged the position of the first mark. Post race analysis of the tracker showed that we had sail for 6 mins past our lay line. Once the light was turned on, we pulled the screecher up and kicked up our heels to get across from the eastern shore to the western shore where the mark was actually located. We still rounded third boat just behind Quickstep (a 40ft racing cat) and a Sprint 750 with Evil Gnome (F85) very close behind, also having overlayed the mark. As the breeze started to fill in a bit more we managed to pull away and kept building the lead as the race progressed. This is where the 'but' usually comes into the conversation 'but' not this time. We finished 6 mins 22 secs ahead of the second boat, Evil Gnome.

The second race was in a freshening breeze. We got boxed in at the start by some big boats, with both Quickstep and Evil Gnome getting off the line much better. By the time we got to Lion Island we had managed to reel Evil Gnome in, but not Quickstep.

Rounding the island we hoisted the masthead A0 and even though Quickstep had several hundred metres on us we pulled her in and flew past. Rounding the bottom mark well ahead, we started cranking everything on to work back towards Lion Island but the sound of carbon cracking alerted us to the fact the main sheet pressure had started crushing the boom. When we worked out what was happening, the boom was in a state that was still easy to repair in my workshop so we decided to just nurse it to the finish. Without the required main sheet tension, Quickstep started to pull some ground back on us and it looked like they were going to get us. As we rounded the point to go back into Pittwater, we could come off the breeze enough to get the screecher up and honking. We held Quickstep off to cross the line 43 secs ahead.

The sail maker, Rob Meizer, from Ullman Sails was good enough to sail with us to show what the boat should be able to do, and he steered and called the shots. At the end of the day he said- "don't change anything, this thing goes like it's on rails."

No doubt the boat will be much slower if I'm steering, but I now know what is possible.

Mad Hatter passes the first test.

Wow Phill, the event sounds like a blast - but the boat even more so!

Pics are fantastic - conditions look like a dream - and the sails look very very nice.


What is there to not like - except some cracked carbon?

Rolf,

The sails were designed and built by Rob Meizer of Ullman Sails and they are fantastic. The combination of Rob's sails and Ctech mast just works so well together.

I'm glad that i got the carbon mast from Ctech. I got them to put in Hi mod carbon to stiffen the mast through the minor axis.
This would have allowed a 3kg weight reduction however I choose to keep the weight and increase the safety factor.
Still the weight of the mast with 5 x 8mm halyards (including 2:1 for main, jib and screecher) and stays plus all fittings and clutches for the halyards, still weighs less than 65kg.

Hi Phill,

What kind of sailcloth is used for the main and the jib.

Arno

Arno,
The link below will take you to the cloth used.

Fibrepath Phantom

The building never stops.
I have been trying to find someone to make a pullpit to a specific design but the engineering places around here all seem swamped with work.
Finally I gave up chasing someone else to make it, borrowed a pipe bender and got to work myself.
I filled the stainless tube with sand, made plugs for each end of the tube and applied some heat while I made the bends.



Once everything was bent,the parts cut and notched to fit neatly, I did some tac welds and timber bracing to hold it just right.

I found a chap who makes alloy wheels to weld it up properly. Ultimately this pullpit will carry the mast when trailering.
Carrying the mast on the pullpit will reduce the time taken to get the boat off the trailer, I always raise my mast on the water.

The pullpit will also take the nav lights. They will be mounted on the side plates and the wires will run down inside the stainless rear tubes.
The rear tubes fit into sockets in the deck that drain into the anchor well.


Now I have to polish it all up and fit it to the boat.

Hi Phill. did you use the bender?? They look really good. Another "Looks good in the car park award", coming your way. The boat is getting a reputation both on and off the water.
Richard

Richard,
As you well know, not knowing how the boat would sail, I had to try to make it look good in the car park.
The pullpit would have looked better if I could have made it only 450mm high instead of 600mm.
Had my boat been under 8.5m I could have. It's just the way it is in the Safety regs.

Thanks for the lend of the bender but following some experiments I was concerned how your bender would react to the heat I had to apply to get a really even bend without any kinks.
When Mark offered to borrow a 5 ton hydraulic bender from his neighbor with all heavy metal dies I took him up on it.
Thanks for the lend I'll get yours back to you ASAP.

During the Lock Crowther Regatta we ran lines out to the floats just to catch the furled head sails when they were brought down. Hopefully this pullpit will catch them and I will be able to get rid of those extra lines.
BTW:- I was amazed at how much carrying a furled headsail hoisted affects boat speed.
On one leg we kept the screecher up after furling for a short time in case we needed it. When we brought it down you could feel the boat jump ahead.
That convinced me that you can't sail with them up and furled when racing . Just too much drag.

All good Phill, The bender can come back anytime ,No rush. I think there's a line between screeher up vs down depending on what lengths of legs you are doing. And what number of crew are with you. Something to practice with. Chat with you later. Richard

Sailed the Mad Hatter down to Pittwater to get measured to establish an OMR rating. It was the first trial for the pull pit. Here is a pic of it in action. Note how the screecher is neatly contained in the "U"with the furling lines contained and running under. As an added bonus it does not interfere with the jib. (I still have to fit the Nav Lights.)

Just a pic that I like.

Bump

Bump

Bump with a pic.

That one didn't take long, have you started another build?

Jeff, no more building. I'm getting old and need to do some sailing while I can.

Another pic.

Another

Bump with another.

what is that line on the end of the sprit going to the top of the mast? A top-down furler on the spinnaker?

Jay,
Yes that is the torque rope for the top down furler for the masthead kite.

Another

I would be very interested in the effectiveness of that top-down furler.

Does it reduce the "cluster" takedown at C-gate? Can it be operated short-handed?

I often sail with noob or non-sailing crew (to get more folk on the water) and if that top-down furler helps I think it might be nice to add to my F-24

Jay,
The big advantage of the top down furler is the spi deployment at the top mark. The spi can already be hoisted and start unfurling it before you are round the mark such that by the time the rounding is complete you are off and running. This can amount to big gains against someone who has to wait until they have rounded to hoist.

At the bottom mark you need someone to load up the torque rope by pulling on the furling line well before the mark.
When you want to furl, let the sheet off and pull like crazy on the furling line, the sail starts furling at the top first and works its way down. When it gets to the bottom it needs some light pressure on the sheet to get a good tight furl.

I think 3 would be the ideal number of crew however it could be done with two (ie. skipper + 1) if the skipper controlled the sheet while the crew pulled like crazy on the furling line.

It probably gets more down to how energetic the crew is rather than how knowledgeable they are provided the person (skipper) controlling the sheet knows what they need to do.

You can leave the sail up and furled, but it is slower. We bring the furled sail down once we have rounded the bottom mark as the wind brings the sail back to the crew on the nets that can direct its drop as someone else controls the drop with the halyard. (If you tacked and then dropped you probably wouldn't need the crew on the net to catch it as the breeze would blow it more toward the mast and may come down on the cabin.) I have made my pulpit split at the front and the crew just flicks the furled sail inside the pulpit and then ties it down to the tramp so it does not go overboard on the upwind leg. This furler system is safer and ensures the spi does not become a sea anchor because of a bad drop. The attached pic shows the screecher in the dropped position. You can't see it but on the port side the spi is the same. Flicking it into the pulpit won't be such an issue when I get the forward nets on. I'll be fitting velcro straps each side on the main nets to hold down the head of the sails. Quick attach and release and keeps the sail on the nets and the swinging spi halyard away from the cabin top winches.
I hope this run down helps.

as you alluded to, you could move the spin from one side to the other (furled) slightly easier than moving a spin bag and all the lines...

I can somewhat handle the screecher on a roller furler by myself (tiller brake and good timing for halyard drop), so this spin furler sounds a great deal better than trying to douse a spin shorthanded

Jay,
There is velcro sewn around the reinforcing for the clew of the spinnaker. When its furled the velcro holds it furled and you can bring it down either side by pulling lightly on the appropriate sheet as it comes down. So if you wanted to change sides after a drop you would be best pulling it up sufficiently to pull it over the other side with the sheet.
I keep the spi one side and screecher the other side just to try and keep the tie down of the head to the nets simple.

that concept sounds better every time you post

"There is no such thing as a free lunch". Furling is hard work, but it is a neat way of handling the sail.

I still need to order my 3/4 spinnaker and tempted to get it without the furler (given the cost) but probably won't.
Below is another pic.



BTW:- A company down the road from me makes shirts locally. My better half is concerned regarding the harmful affects of the sun and ordered 5 for the boat.
I was impressed. They look even better in real life but all I can post is a pic.

I have a list of project to make the boat easier to handle with limited crew.
I'm currently working on roller furling my main sail around the 50x150mm boom.Rather than a hole through the mast with a handle I have a fitting on the rear of the boom that can be driven by the tool that does up the beam bolts. I had to make my own goose neck fitting to suit the carbon fitting on the mast. I need to get some pics.

sounds neat. I was thinking some sort of continuous line furler at the gooseneck with the lines led back to the **** to avoid having to go up there to reef..

But my rope clutches are mounted on the mast, so I'd have to relocate the halyard clutch...

Jay,
If you have the room on the mast you could just replace the standard halyard clutch with a constrictor clutch and run the trigger line back to the ****. I have 5 constrictor clutches on my mast (main, jib, screecher, 3/4 spi and masthead spi)and plan on running the trigger lines back.
The constrictor clutch won't slip under extreme load and will release as easily under extreme load as it will under light load. They take a bit of tuning at first but they would negate the need to leave the **** to operate.



In the pic the blue is the 2:1 main halyard, red is masthead spi and the green is 3/4 but I haven't got that one yet so the turning has not yet been installed.

very nice. I will give that some serious thought...

Something to watch. I have never raised or lowered the mast with the trailer winch,only cabin top winch.
In the pic the mast has just been raised. You can see the ginny pole needs to be around 300mm longer to make sure the raising line always goes in when lowering. If it does not go in when lowering, the mast will come down much quicker than expected.
In my case I use the extra fitting I have put in the foredeck to attach my cruising jib furler to pull on to raise the mast. This fitting is 250mm behind the forestay attachment point. Others may need the ginny pole even longer as they will be pulling from further fwd. In the pic the crusing jib is rolled up on the fore deck without the furler. I like the cruising jib on a continuous line furler but it does tend to pull the forestay in when furling. I have a plan to stop this which I will post once tested.

I purchased the carbon Ginny pole with the mast. It is already too long to easily store on the boat. So the process of lengthening it by 300mm will involve making it a two piece pole.I'll use the pole as a mould to make the needed sleeve.

I'd be interested to hear from F82 or F28 owners regarding where they have installed their toilet. Any pics would be good too.

can you just strap the ginny pole to the boom while storing/sailing? Do the "ears" obstruct free movement of the boom?

Hey Phil, I'm researching DIY CNC router tables. Can you make any recommendations? The purpose of the table would be for my F-85 build.

Your best bet would be to talk to Mark. He built his own CNC machine and did all my CNC work.I'll send you a message with his email address.

I have sent you a message with Mark's email address.

Thanks. I got the PM. A question on your hull paint. Did you end up covering the 2 pack paint with an epoxy barrier coat below the water line? I'm trying to determine if I will apply barrier coat on top of my paint. My boat is trailer sailed, but may end up in the water for up to a week at a time.

No I didn't. A week in the water isn't a problem if you give the bottom a scrub before you pull it out of the water. Not much boat in the water so it is pretty easy.

That's music to my ears. I determined I'd be OK, but there are a lot of "experts" on the forums that spoke otherwise.

Phill,

As I understand from the main forum, this catsailor site/board may soon close or become defunct as Rick's family has very little interest in continuing it.

Is all of this wonderful build information available elsewhere in case that happens? Your work on the boat (and documentation here) is a veritable gold mine (and eye candy) of information

Jay,

I have a backup of everything that I have posted including the missing photos that were lost when this site's photo albumn stopped working. I also have many hundreds of other photos.

If this site goes down I will most likely edit what I have adding in the missing photos plus any others that I think may help and put it all somewhere else.

You can save up to 7kg by using dyneema netting as opposed to vinyl coated fablock type of netting. You can also save a lot of money because it is very easy to finish the edges without sewing. I finished the edges of my nets and fitted them for a cost of around $100 ea. I got a really good deal on the dyneema netting from ebay. For anyone looking at replacing their nets it could be worth a check of ebay first. Look for Golf practice nets. Mine are dyneema SK75.

Here is a pic of the net. It still needs to be taken off so the wing net rail can be painted.
When I do that I'll redo the edges and trim the excess netting now it has stopped creeping.

[quote][/quote]

We sailed the Mad Hatter from Lake Macquarie to Gosford and back last weekend.
I finally had a chance to try out the Go Pro that the kids gave me.
The video goes for 5 mins. Take note it is 5mins you won't get back if you don't like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dUDIktAsCY&feature=youtu.be

Nice video Phill. Thanks for sharing

Hi Phil,
can you ,eave a little information about your nets? How thick (mm) are your strings and how wide are your mashes?

Thanks, Michel

Michel,
The mesh size is 22mm and the woven thread width is either 3mm or 3.5mm.
The edging is just the mesh wrapped around 8mm double braid polyester rope with a 3mm cord zig zagged through the squares in 3 rows.
This is then lashed on with 6mm double braid.
Initially I was concerned about the mesh size as I wanted it smaller but having used it I think it is perfect. I find it reasonably comfortable and even my better half says it is comfortable. The added bonus is it is just the right size to get a good hand hold when needed as ones fingers can fit through the mesh .
I hope this helps.

I've posted another video on youtube of last Sundays race.

https://youtu.be/pEiLQ4z8e8A