On Oct. 4th. Out sailing. Alex’s Aeroesque 45′ cruising cat. Those sails sure look carbony. Nice. I have not yet gotten to sail on it, but soon.
Category Archives: New Designs
Aero Rig Bearings at IBEX
These bearings seem like a big improvement over what we usually have to do for the unstayed rotating masts. In the past builders have had to machine a bearing out of a giant chunk of slick plastic. Most of the plastic was ground off and wasted and the cost ran into thousands. http://www.glidebearings.com/
Spherical bearings like the Tides units would have been perfect, but were not nearly large enough. Bendy materials like carbon fiber require spherical bearings to keep from binding under load, or as Rob Denny does, have a very loose fit.
These kind of are of the loose fit variety. I see the bearing having a fairly close fit to the round mast, but deflecting with the mast. I have not detailed this yet but will. The bearing will need a fiberglass sleeve around it to protect it and keep it round. I see this whole unit captured in a looser fit.
Contact Tim Creighton at Glidebearings tim@glidebearings.com
Goodby Ted Pike
We lost Ted Pike of Edensaw Woods and many other boatbuilding ventures, on the 24th. He was so enthusiastic and helpful on boat and even spaceship projects. He will be missed.
http://threesheetsnw.com/blog/2015/09/fair-winds-to-our-captain-ted-pike/
Non Metallic Plumbing Fittings
Non-Metallic PEX Fittings
Pex piping was one of the discoveries I made on the Lunar Lander project. It is used in place of PVC especially since it can survive freezing. The plumbers used metal joint fittings, which must be destroyed for the piping to be revised.
At the IBEX conference I found these non-metal pex clamps. www.flairit.com www.iplumb.tv .They can be installed with only pliers instead of a crimping machine that resembles bolt cutters. An improvement on an improvement. Made in Chile. There, better pic.
New Deck Plates
And other items.
From the IBEX again. 20 years ago there were maybe 3 deck plate makers. Now there are maybe a dozen. These from THMarine www.thmarine.com are lighter than the typical Beckson and I assume cost less. West Marine carries among others.
Last Ocean Navigator
I am so bored with this by now. Hopefully this is the last. I just came back to these gems.
Dude, get a life. I copied all your messages. I would be curious as to what you seem to think is libelous. Spend all this energy making your boat seaworthy.
“Love how Kurt leaves out half my message. This is not a Kurt Hughes. I used his shitty, incomplete plans to obtain proper connectives and hull skins. Nothing about this is a dated, ugly, undesirable Kurt Hughes shitbox.
One more thing, Kurt. I have begun the process. I highly suggest you think clearly and remove this professional libel from your site. This was the last warning. I am funded and will not back down until this is gone or you go bankrupt in the process.
You want to play hardball? Two can play at this game. Wait until you see the site I make that will appear at the top of the search engine rankings when looking up you, your designs and your business.”
Back From IBEX
I will post several of the other interesting finds at IBEX, along with the proper links soon.
I came back to cascading computer failures, so am running office off of cell phone mobile hotspot to the laptop.
Parts should arrive tomorrow. Crawling back to full strength.
Dire Warnings
For the first time, while travelling and using my elderly laptop workstation, I noticed the dire warnings that come up when navigating to this blog.
It’s fine. Matthew says it’s fine. We don’t want your card number nor anything. Am not sure why it does that, but ignore it.
Greg Lynn
I attended a great lecture by Greg Lynn, and architect, boat designer, thinker and one of Time magazine’s 100 most something one year. Influential people?
www.ted.com/talks/greg_lynn_on_organic_design?language=en
He was discussing 3D printed parts for boats, but he is also working on marine design informing architectural design.
He did discuss his trimaran, Girlfriend. I have declared in the past that the tri must have a lot of bog involved in building, as all parts are so organic and smooth. And thus add extra weight. I have to take it back a bit. The interior was light, and entirely built with molds. The interior alone cost some $100K, and weighed around 80 lbs. But due to print-through, it took an extra 100 lbs of bog.
Every part had a full size eps foam mold. Its a big deal. Its time and money that I could never imagine on a boat.
We swapped cards. I hope we get to talk more.
IBEX 2015
It was a very different IBEX from before for me. Few of the usual speakers attended, and I doubt if I recognized a half dozen people. I guess being in Kentucky I should have guessed so. Instead of sailboats and yachts, this was a bass-boat and pontoon event. It wasn’t always this way here though.
The big trend I noticed was fragmentation of vendors. It used to be for things like deck ports or core materials, there were only 3 or 4 vendors worth looking at. Now it is dozens. I will be updating the construction manual again to add the extra suppliers.
