Re: Hull construction, some ramblings while I pick the epoxy off my fingers.

["Greg Ryan" <gregoryrryan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Attracting more sailors to the class cant really be done just only by having 
a moulded hull. We really have a lot of other avenues we should be using as 
well as that. However, I really don't think there is a problem with 
inconsistent hulls. No body has complained about this issue to me. The swift 
solo is probably never going to be the class where it will be possible to 
have such minor variations make "any" differences what so ever to the 
outcome of "very" serious racing. OK, 49er yes, it is possible to tell 
between the extremely consistent Olympic level crews in all the boats on the 
course, maybe a difference in fineness of entry of 1/4 inch might be noticed 
under those circumstances. Do we have the American disease of obsessing 
about things like this before the obsessive actually becomes a class member, 
I think we might. You know, .... the water content of the wood... how much 
saw dust from the inside skins....  , shall we go on and on.  Basically 
these variations that some seem "concerned" about are meaningless and may 
not even exist. We already have a lot of male moulds out there in every 
builders garage. Unless you are talking about going to the huge expense of 
CNCing a plug for the mould then the mould would not be better than any one 
of the well made male jigs already in existence. The extremely minor 
variations of expand/contract, sand a bit more less wood here or there in 
the 1/4 inch skin are all just really non-issues and not worth getting 
exercised about.

So, is what you are really saying, that you want the price to be less?
you want the hulls to be made quicker?
I'd agree with those goals, but do we have a long line of buyers waiting to 
get boats that cant be made fast enough. Bram says he can strip a boat in 10 
hours. If he can come close to that, then any properly set up competent 
commercial builder can do it too, better than the old fart even.  If a hull 
could be produced in 2 days work then glassed in side and out the next 3 
days... OK,  the surface finish would take longer but  where is the 
imperative to pop the same out of the mould, which itself will also take a 
few days to prepare then a few days to make the boat as well,  except that 
the boat will be cheaper. Cheaper is something we should all want, and badly 
I think. Its the only sane reason to be contemplating a mould process to 
build the hull.

I think the class should investigate this but the stability of the class 
should be the over-riding obsession right now.

There are a lot of problems though. I think we have a consensus to ensure we 
get the very BEST fleet out there, I think that is refreshing and unique to 
the owner operated class compared to the profit driven approach. But I think 
working out how to BEST make the synthetic core or balsa core hulls the 
"same" as the cedar cores in performance and "WEIGHT" is going to take some 
time and a few experimental hulls to look at things like balsa block print 
through, fatigue of synthetic core, different material scantlings (that's 
the hard part there are many options and I bet many opinions none of which 
have any validity untill there are prototypes to compare) and the all up 
weight etc. will internal arrangements have to be made to accommodate the 
characteristics of the cores and the moulders want to mould the internal 
parts to fit in with the manufacturing process. If so, what would be the 
configuration of the bulkheads - 2 part CB case/1/2 of  #6 and #8 BH combo - 
assembled glued in place with plexus, or same old design? For example a 
thicker balsa core could be made as heavy as cedar, and would we mould the 
deck while we are at it to reduce the cost or to find a builder who most 
likely would not fuss with cedar stripping? would the transom be part of the 
deck or the hull before sandwiching - it makes a difference - made of cedar 
or balsa or aramid?? etc. What kind of variation would there be in the 
weight of the hulls if they are not built from prepreg. If we prepreg and 
vacuum and bake them who is going to have equipment for this expensive build 
method (very high scale builders like Carol marine, or some of the respected 
luminaries in the industry that built the US 49er,  I hope not). How do we 
avoid repeating the Vanguard disaster and will there really be a saving in 
cost! If we go with perfectionist builders what is the likely cost outcome. 
I think you can all guess.

Lets look at the 49er, its made that way, but is simpler than our boat 
inside and outside and therefore inherently more efficient to make. The 
design was drawn so that the deck can fit the hull with easy to bond self 
locating clampable flanges in all the right places, like the rounded 
gunwale's flanges and the sugar scoop transom flange, unlike the swift which 
has no flanges at all and uses butt joints instead (first thing that needs 
to be changed?).  After all the advantages of the 49er build and its lack of 
comparable amounts of expensive carbon in the build the 9er and Swift prices 
are still very comparable despite several high quality and well organised 
international factories  popping them out at their max rate. The builders 
get whatever they can for these high tech boats in the market and I believe 
its illegal to set a builders price for them, so no guarantees of decreased 
price for us. If I were building moulded Swifts that I could tout as better 
than strip built for whatever reason, why in gods name, would I sell them 
for less than the cost of the comparable commercial strip built hull or much 
less than the next comparable classes hull, - say the 49er. On the contrary, 
and I would not enter the market untill there was a long waiting list anyway 
to guarantee my profitability. So to guarantee our wanted lower costs,  is 
the class going to be its own builder? or mould owner?, what would we charge 
for it? Is this a discussion we need to start?

Moreover, that would be the perfect opportunity for a crafty cheap bastard 
like me, we could not stop someone moulding off a moulded boat hull, then 
selling the plug as "never having been sailed" - and then producing the 
identical hulls at "low to no" setup cost - what a commercial advantage!!!. 
Presumably the identical shaped high quality boats produced commercially by 
this method would pass inspection and be certified by the copyright owner 
who just wants cheap, perfect boats out there. If not, one could quite 
likely sue and win damages AND the right to compete in the market as a 
certified builder. The lawyers and courts like this approach. Unlike 
proprietary designs (all most all of the other performance skiff classes) I 
don't think we have a mechanism for controlling this, keeping prices at a 
minimum, and in the process guaranteeing the high costs of the mould to the 
builder, --  "at the moment". Is this a discussion we need to start?

My personal  opinion is that it might not be a problem to have competition 
anyway, (it always drives prices down and we do have a mechanism for quality 
driven down by competition  - withdrawal of certification, rumor and 
innuendo). Finally, introduction of moulded boats and the scenarios that I 
just outlined above will almost certainly drive out any business doing 
stripped boats. Moulded boats would very quickly become our only commercial 
option. What pressures would this put on, for moulded decks, stripped hulls 
and home builders,  I don't know.  There are a lot of very complicated 
considerations. Most of all, these subtle changes moulded boats would 
introduce would have to be voted on by a bunch of people now, rather than 
just the copyright holder. Every one will have some degree of baggage from 
the US OD view to the complete development box rule bent like mine. We 
missed the chance to get this in the initial birth of the class and perhaps 
that was a strategic mistake, or of no eventual consequence as we might move 
smoothly to hybrid manufacturing methods.

One thing is for certain it's now a whole lot more complicated than just 
"lets get a mould and build boats". There have already been rumblings about 
changes of things like rigging in this a partial development class, let 
alone the hull. I would guess moulds might get voted down unless people had 
a chance to see and sail prototypes.

My thoughts are that a lot of people buy or make the boat because they just 
want to sail it and those that race it don't define their lives as if they 
are or are not the winner of the races. We are not talking about an Olympic 
class here,  if that's your bent then we could suggest a 49er. Since there 
is no mould and no consensus or even any data on the quality of the various 
cores why are we discussing this over and over. Cant this wait till we get 
the data. Mould building and then hull building from the mould will result 
in boats in the water at best in late 2006. There's  a process that has to 
be followed before the production hulls can be turned out and it takes time 
and a great deal of cash.  If no builder steps forward to shoulder the costs 
then its possible to make a few hand lay-up/bagged/105/205 prototypes with 
cheap (low cycle) moulds off a real (nice) boat as a plug before we go CNC 
plugging/moulding  away and maybe that is what we should do to see how the 
configurations perform and measure up. There is a lot for us to do between 
now and then which has a much higher priority.

For me priority is getting my hull on the water and building my local  fleet 
by any means possible. If each one of us could convince just one other 
friend or interested person that they could easily and cheaply make a boat 
with our generous expert and experienced help,  by using our excess 
materials or old section templates (please only if they are good condition) 
or with a set of Rogers CNC templates that would be a very very good start 
indeed. That's my fleet building project this month. Go to it!
Greg.
First person to persuade another new builder at his YC will get a slab of 
fosters tinnies from me in a plain brown box.

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