One of my demountable tube/wire trimarans down under. Been so long since I grabbed the picture that I forget who builder is. Chime in here? Anyone?
Developed ply/epoxy. Looks great.
Out for a Few Days
Will be out of the office for a few days. Will have phone and laptop with me though.
VHB Tape Fail
Part of what I am doing on the lunar lander dwelling project; building a tiny house using boat construction, is to test the limits of many techniques and products. I took the VHB tape past its limit.
I tried to use it to attach an acrylic shower door without any fasteners; a worthy goal.
While the VHB tape is amazingly strong, it has limits. Its weakness as I understand it, is long duration loading, while depending on peel strength. The shower door provided that. It’s tepid resisting the energy of initiation, followed by energy of propagation, made it fail.
In the picture, the VHB tape attaches both the hinge and the angle brackets. Both failed after a while.
On a window, peel strength would not even enter into it. I’m always curious about where the real world limits are.
40 Foot Performance Shorthanded Trimaran for Owen
Use program:
Shorthanded sailing for both racing and cruising.
Demountable and able to fit into a tallboy container.
This design is the latest update to a design that I did several years ago for Phil Steggall.
It also has several features that I developed while sailing my own F40 Geko. First of these is the addition of an actual cabin from main hull flare. Any time a few people come aboard for a sail, their gear has to go somewhere, The 7 foot wide cabin also allows a canopy to hide under in bad weather. On the much narrower Geko, that space was taken up by winches.
The outboard is mounted beside the cockpit instead of back on the transom. When shorthanding having the motor right there without leaving the cockpit is important. On the Geko an 8 hp outboard would push it to 7 knots in chop and once did 11 knots on flat water.
It has a single board in the main hull. Vertical and aft of the mast a bit. In Marchaj we find that a vertical board has the most even stall characteristics and also less deflection for the span. Fully down, the board is a couple of feet below the cabin top. Downwind the boom can be lifted a couple of feet to reduce board draft. I don’t understand the trimarans that suffer the inefficiency of swept boards.
Board down, the draft is something like 10 feet.
As usual it has 200% buoyancy amas.
Presently the design has ama rudders.
Foils were not chosen as they work best with larger crews.
Construction is strip foam and unidirectional e-glass for the main hull. The amas could be the same or even a combination of developed plywood and carbon fiber.
Beams are core with carbon fiber.
Geometry is virtually square with the width almost a much as the length overall. Doesn’t that make it wider than a Rapido 60?
IBEX 2017
I did see that it did go on despite the exciting weather. Did anyone go and anything to report?
I was also pissy as I thought a house built almost entirely like a boat, and permitted, would be a great topic. Epoxy, foam, vacuum bagging, BS 1088 plywood, biaxial roving, glass gloth over everything, 12v electrics, stainless fittings, 2 part poly paint, Beckson ports. Technology transfer. IBEX powers were completely uninterested.
The Real Glow Switch Link.
JD pointed out to me that the Adafruit website is clunky and has no search engine. He couldn’t find the switches. I went back to my order and captured the link there. Odd that such a cool product and cool company has such a bad website.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1476#tutorials]
Back. What This Time?
I was a little scarce last week and the week before. The Seattle Times is doing a feature on the lunar lander dwelling. It had to get substantially finished for the photo shoot by last Thursday. Built like a boat with epoxy and vacuum bagging.
The usually away-team problems compounded by metal fabrication that didn’t fit made me run scared.
And a parent passed away so all kinds of cleaning up and organizing. Am back now and getting to everyone’s projects.
IBEX 2017 Tampa
Is it still on? I h ave not heard one way or the other. Did a search and found nothing.
I heard Tampa was not hit as bad as it could have been, but don’t know.
Glow In the Dark 12v Switches
On the lunar lander dwelling project one of my holy grails has been finding blow-your-mind glowing 12v switches. One company I saw at IBEX had some for what $30 each I think it was. An earlier one I bought online was only slightly cheaper and didn’t actually work.
These beauties look great. They glow in several colors. Sailors might want red to save the night vision. Buck 95 each. How cool is that. I have not used in marine environment yet. OK, I have not yet used at all, but they look right to me. I will soon.
www.adafruit.com
A woman owned company that quotes Bucky.
Cove Trimming Tool
John Jacques, building a very modified 43′ trimaran showed us the tool he uses. I can’t wait to try it. He runs the rotary wire brush along the coves to smooth them out.
