Piece of a 787 hull at Future of Flight. Visited with the kids Saturday. All carbon fiber. Compared to the thousands of rivets on the metal hull, I wondered what took them so long.
Probably if I had taken the Boeing tour I would know, but the stringers looked small compared to the hull thickness.
The hull is too large to co-cure, so the stringers probably help joining the sections. And help with global loads. I doubt if they help much with the pressure vessel.
This is interesting as my builders are facing rapidly increasing core costs, and decreasing shear strength. Stringers and frames are looking more attractive. Is interesting to see what unlimited funds for structure analysis came up with. My builder Terry Neilson uses glass over a pvc pipe half round.
I declared that a tri would win the R2AK. That a cat couldn’t beat a tri in short-tacking through the islands. And the kelp excluded the use of foils.
A elderly looking M32 daycat with foils won that race. I stand corrected.
I just got this picture of Joel’s stretched 37 cruising cat being built up at Betts’ shop. The plug is covered with aluminum foil prior to applying mold release and laminating inner face. I have not seen this before. Layups should start in a week or so. I want to see this.
It looks like my 44 powercat design in Estonia might actually get launched this summer. I see from the wheeled luggage note that it was 6 years ago when I was last there. Foam/glass. Steyr hybrid engines. I will get more reports from the guys.
Visited my 34 x 14 daycharter powercat on Kauai’s north shore today. He carries 16 passengers per trip. Everybody rides it both into the water and out, every trip, as there is no dock. It’s more narrow than I like, but he must launch down a 16′ wide ramp with lava sides every day. Overriding design requirement. http://napaliseabreezetours.com/
I got that great opportunity to see my Alii Nui side by side with a Constant Camber 65 last week. It was great to see the differences. Again, both were built by the same yard. Alii Nui is foam/glass and the CC 65 is constant camber. Except for butting all the plywood sheets instead of scarphs, and bagging the ply to a true mold, instead of itself, this boat’s hulls were built exactly like the CM system that I have been using for 30 years and that CC has been criticizing for almost as long. Cool. Oriented ply sheets. Stringers instead of mass. Thinner hull skin. Cool.
Alii Nui is 36′ wide. I cannot find the CC 65 data online, but I’m guessing it is 30′ or even 32′ wide. That makes a smaller playpen. First the Alii Nui. Both from the same distance on the dock.
Last week I got to take a great snorkel trip with Capt. Timothy on the 65′ x 36′ KHSD Alii Nui. It runs out of Maalaea Harbor on Maui.
It was a nice comparison to come back to the harbor and tie up right beside a Constant Camber 65 daycharter cat. Both were built by Schooner Creek out of Portland, OR.
“Stickless in Hawaii: Dragonfly was dismasted 400 miles south of Hawaii. The best we can determine is that a wave, significantly bigger than the others, broke beside us throwing us sideways toward the wind causing the mast to break because of the inertia of the mast and the force of the wind on the sail. The shrouds and headstays were still intact and we made an assessment that trying to save anything from the rig posed too great a risk to the crew considering the conditions of wind and waves, and the absence of safety lines which had been pulled over with the rigging. Al and Stephan cut loose the shrouds and control lines and let the mast go. Fortunately no one was hurt and we were able to make it to Hawaii 6 days later with 10 gallons of fuel to spare. Significant credit goes to the terrific crew for getting through this incredible event!”
It sounds like a shear failure or maybe too large a cutaway for some hardware? I’m trying to get a picture of the buckle before the mast was pushed overboard.
I will be in Hawaii this 17th through 27th. Anyone has anything I should see there, let me know.
I will have the workstation with me and most of the study plans, if anyone orders some.
it should also be a good chance to catch up on 3D modeling and drafting with no calls nor other interruptions.
