Sport sailboat, material and hull shape.

[jacquesmm]

I have always wondered whether the foam contributes any strength at all to the structure. If the boat were built by attaching the foam to a male batten strip mold couldn't one use up all the foam as long as it covered the mold surface? Very little waste. There is a fair amount of unused plywood in the taped seam method. Could the the foam method use up all this excess material by peicing it on the mold?

Do you mean strip planking with foam?
That method is used all over the place but is not given much publicity. I have that method in mind for this boat.

[wingnut]

Oops, yes, the sports boat jumped ahead fo the VG27.
Do not worry: we are on a roll with sailboats.
The SB18 will come out quickly and will be followed by the VG27.

and the Panga is 'bout how far away?

The Pangas are finsihed but it usually takes us around one week or more to calculate the kits, write the web pages etc.

Great Can't wait Could we get a preview as you did for the AD14 and CX series where you had the "Coming Soon" preview pics?

Great work and forum as always.

[tech_support]

Using strips of foam has been done many times. There is a book about this, I cant recall the name though

I have also seen pictures of a rounded chine boat built with foam where they used strips on the rounded chine and plain sheets on the size and bottom.

You can get curves using foam core, see this site where they build a 40 sport fishing boat by strip planking with foam. The strips are large, but you can get the idea


http://www.brooksboatworks.com/images/c ... tion19.jpg

[JimW]

I believe you have enough plywood choices in sailboats that a round chine foam boat would attact more interest than "another Plywood" boat filling in another size niche. Just one more opinion.

[jacquesmm]

I believe you have enough plywood choices in sailboats that a round chine foam boat would attact more interest than "another Plywood" boat filling in another size niche. Just one more opinion.

And that's just my opinion too

[JustRight]

I expect the strip plank method would be very economic of the use of expensive foam.

Actually, I was asking whether the foam core contributes very much to the foam sandwich strength. The foam core boats that I have seen in the literature seemed to usefairly large panels tied onto a male mold constructed with longtudinal battens. This would result in some left over odd shaped peices. Seems these could be tied to the mold to fill in some of the hull core. If the glass on the inside and out provide the strength, then the core doesn't have to be structurally very sound. I gathered that the foam keeps the outer glass structure from collapsing.

The foam strip plank idea sounds attractive.

[jacquesmm]

A foam sandwich is ligther and stringer than strip planking. The distance between the skins is a critical factor. The foam is thicker and that give stiffness with very little fiberglass. We'll solve the resistance to puncture with some Kevlar.
The type of foam is important: cheap foam will shear right away.
It is going to be more expensive than plywood but will still cost 4 times less than a Melges!

[Toni V]

What if you specify foam or several thin plywoods glued together? Thin plywoods could bend like foam.

[anonymous]

Now your talking about cold molding

[tech_support]

That was me above