Typically my 42 cat does not have a full standing bridgedeck house. Nick did a good one down at SLO.
This unit is being built this winter in Sweden. It should give them a longer sailing season. It’s under snow now.
Category Archives: New Designs
My Recent Lecture
About a week and a half ago I was invited to give a lecture to the Bellingham Power Squadron on catamarans.
I figured that I would power through the images from the blog and talk story a bit on the informative ones. Not that easy.
My little laptop is only a few years old. Turns out it was too old. It did not have an HDMI port and nobody had an adaptor. So it couldn’t talk to the bigscreen. We did copy some pictures onto a thumbdrive for the bigscreen, but then the bigscreen crashed.
Luckily I had lots of composite construction samples to pass around, and put together a presentation from those. Improvise!
For me, the big take-away was from my host Alex who built one of my 45 cats with an aeroesque rig.
He noted that he joined the power squadron to be able to attend their classes on wiring and other technologies. I had not considered that before. Something for people to look into.
Fish Expo Time Again
They still now call it Pacific Marine Expo.
All the serious boating equipment.
Seattle . Thursday N 17 through Saturday N19.
http://www.pacificmarineexpo.com/
KHSD Hurricane Survivors
As far as I know, no KHSD multis were lost in Hurricane Matthew.
I did get some pictures of my survivors.
Pat’s 37 tri Sumo
The 56′ cruising cat Camarah Wind well secured.
and finally the orange one.
Sorry So Gone
Sorry that I have let the blog lapse a bit. There has been several deadlines, a lecture that I gave and an uptick in study plans.
Next week I will post more these, but :
Finished the 75 cat for customer in UK
Finished 78′ ferry cats for NCL except for confirmation on Volvo engines.
New 35′ tri design.
New 62′ cat design
Major upgrade for the 23′ tri
GPO-3
I got the GPO-3 fiberglass sheet from Online Metals dot com. I hoped to substitute it for the more expensive G-10. Looks like it worked. It is smooth like G-10 though in the picture above it looks rough.
This 2 foot by 2 foot sheet was $10. Picked it up myself. Compare to same size G-10 at McMaster Carr at $47 plus some $20 shipping.
The red probably means it is phenolic. Both of these are fire resistant.
The panel looks like it was made with chopper gun, but it will be used for low load applications, so no worry.
They did used to be a friendly neighborhood supplier. They have been bought by Thyssen Krupp and have a new corporate bureaucracy feel now. Good prices though.
When Not To Use VHB Tape
VHB tape is wonderful stuff to stick things together. It was created for attaching windows to things, with no fasteners. However, I just had an illustrative example of when not to use it.
I was very impressed with the VHB tape on the lunar lander dome. It had a steel frame to stick to. Straight and smooth.
Maybe out of inertia, I also put it on the little triangular windows of the lunar lander. Later I realized the tape looked too wide on those tiny windows and I vowed to trim it back when I bought a tall enough ladder to reach.
I got the ladder. It turned out that all I had to do was push a bit and the windows folded back in. So I could then remove the tape.
Two lessons. For VHB tape to work well, the contact surface must be both flat and smooth. Many of you can do that. I seem to not have that skill nor ability in hard to reach places.
The second lesson is the VHB tape must be kept dry. Due to no ladder, I could not protect it with my caulk.
My triangular windows are now stopped in and bedded with caulk. The caulk can span the sketchy surface and gaps.
If you can do and flat, fair and smooth contact surface, go for it. If not, use adhesive caulk, like the System 3, two part polyurethane.
In contrast, I have a solar powered motion light stuck above the front door. It was stuck on with a couple of strips of VHB tape. Turns out the light is defective and won’t work. I not only can’t remove it, I can hang from it. And swing. Gonna take a chisel maybe.
Mystery Cat
I got this picture that said it is one of my cats, for sale.
I can’t really tell what design it is. Maybe a 42 with dog house?
Anyone know?
Latitude 38 Magazine Sold
I always thought it was the best sailing magazine in the world. Even in newsprint, many issues were keepers. Especially Lee Helm.
Then Richard built one of my 63 cats and has sailed it more than any 10 normal people. And he does amazing things with it.
I understand that it will keep on much the same.
http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2016-10-17#.WAVmsdQrIQW
Congress and the USCG 2016
One of my customers in Hawaii has started a dialog with his senator about the recent pointless dificulties with the USCG MSC in Washington DC. If any of you in the biz have any suggestions-
Contact is:
Will Rogers
Military Legislative Assistant
Office of Senator Brian Schatz
722 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3934
Will_Rogers@schatz.senate.gov
www.schatz.senate.gov
I am a big believer in how a congressman can change the USCG after how in the early 90s I worked with Rep. John Miller to get the USCG to adopt a design rule. A few days later the second in command at the USCG MSC was in my office. We got a rule for catamarans. I think the story is here in the blog somewhere from long ago.