I am delighted to report that the boat has now sold. Delighted - but a little sad too. It is a great ship and we learned a massive amount building it and sailing it. Thanks for reading the blog of the project - We will leave it up for a few months before taking it down. The next projects from us are to finish the MGB and to build a new International 14 for the 2011 World Championships.. Never let the grass grow under your feet I say! Dave.

PRICE REDUCED

WE NEED THE SPACE SO WE WILL ACCEPT OFFERS AROUND THE £X,XXX to £XXk mark..... The boat is on Ebay now too (item no. 230529286693) and we hope to find a buyer very soon so be quick!

GIVE US A CALL ON 01473 788777 or email dc@integracomposites.co.uk

GBR52 is for sale.... Please look through this blog to see how much work we did. She really is in great condition. The asking price is £X,XXX, but feel free to contact me to make an offer or to ask any questions. I need to sell the boat as we have a new project on the horizon.. Pick up a bargain, a legend, a weapon!! Dave

She sails! A legend returns!

Saturday 24 October 12.10. Launched! The end of one adventure, the start of another!

It seems like months - indeed it is months since the last blog entry, but man when we get busy here at carbonology.com we get busy! SO here's a run down of the last few weeks of the build... Well the carbon racks take a lot of time and effort. Joining tubes is a long process if you want them to stay joined and on an 18 everything has to be built to last - and everything has to be made to measure. It takes time.

But as you can see, the racks looked great when they were finished.

I'll put some more detail up about how we rigged the boat in the next few days... promise!!

Strung Up!

Hey it's busy around here. sorry for lack of bloggage, but we're making a lot of stuff for customers - in particular our special projects side, and of course it is the sailing season and championships in various classes are coming up fast and we are involved one way or another.

Well as you can see the wings are on, the sprit fits properly and we're busy stringing up. The mast has been up an down a few times and hopefully we'll get the skiff on the water soon. Big up to Ady who has been putting a lot of time in helping me catch up with skiff work when 'real' work gets in the way.

Stringing up the trampolines is a big deal - they take a couple of hours each side to get right, and that's using a pre made trampoline... We got through probably 30 metres or so of high tensile dyneema (cordura casing) to string them on, with each 'stitch' pulled as tight as we could get it, working the corners first, then the outboard edge, the inboard edge and finally the ends. Its a lot of string - and even more when you consider each tramp' has around 70 metres of string in it. When it's done properly, they are so tight they ping!

The whole boat has taken a long time - a lot longer than we wanted it too, but 2 things are just plain facts. 1. Every job on one of these things needs to be done properly - you can't just lash something up on the way to the start, and 2. The project has generated a lot of interest in what we do (err kind of the point!) and made us busier this year than ever before - and that's right in the teeth of a downturn... I am therefore happy that we have been so busy that the boat has had to take the back seat at times - and delighted that each and every job on her looks so good. Can't wait to get the thing in the water!

Rack em up!

It was very frustrating having to work while the inaugural 18fter Mark Foy Trophy was being hotly contested in Carnac. The racing looked tight and fair with a good range of conditions (although I think it was big rigs all week, am I right?) Robert Greenhalgh, Dan Johnson and Phil Harmer pictured above (thanks to Yachts and Yachting ) did a great job, winning the event convincingly from boats of every corner of the world. Not sailing the last race and still winning by a good margin is usually a sign of overall supremecy. Interestingly the top 3 boats representing the UK, Australia and the USA in that order - Truly epic stuff... Hopefully next year we'll be there.

Not that that is a prediction of when we will hit the water!! We weren't taking it easy here at carbonology HQ - As you can see we're assembling the racks now - The tube has been provided by our viking friend Soren Clausen at Xperion Tubes - Soren was racing in carnac last week in GP Covers (DEN1) and looked like they enjoyed the fresher days particularly! The tube is pull wound so it is particularly stable in torsion - which it is very good for rack tubes to be good at because once sailing, the loads are generally bending and twisting and strain can be in any direction or load case.

As I type both sets are outside curing (funnily enough the boat doesn't fit in the 'shop with the racks loaded!) and when the initial glue has gone off, we'll start seconadary laminating - which might be worth a look if you are interested...

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