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...

Take me back to carbonology

Stick a flag on THAT!

8.30pm on Wednesday June 24 2009 and GBR52 has a rig put on her for the first time in maybe 4 years. We went straight for full rig tension, which although it made the mast creak and the pins bend in the chainplates, didn't seem to bother the structure of the skiff, and even though we put multiple tape measures on her, there didn't seem to be any hull deflection in any direction.

Next time it's up we'll do the same but put 100Kg of mainsheet loads on as well and see what happens, but for now we can just admire the Suffolk sunset being punctured by our No 1 rig...

Don't phone in, it's just for fun!

I know from the wonders of the blog back office that we get readers from all over the 'States, Australia, Indonesia, Germany, France, Denmark, Turkey and Spain and of course the UK... Well skiff fans the world over here's a Skiff related quiz for you!!

This very early 18ft SKIFF FITTING has been kindly lent to us by our neighbours here in Woodbrige - Atlantic Rigging - (2.5 and 3mm dyeform on the shelf as well as anything else you could need for your boat from 6ft to 60ft).

The question is: - What is it?!?

Put your answers on the comment page and remember - Don't phone in - it's just for fun!

True Blue

Ed Note: This post is pretty much based on boat building techniques, but I know of car and bike builders that (very sensibly in my opinion) visited a few boat yards and buy the same products as the boat builders and save themselves hours of work on finishing. DC.

One of the marvels of the modern boat building age is the development of adhesives, fillers and paints. In your own shed/barn/garden you can now produce the same sort of finish that 10, no maybe even just 5 years ago would have been only possible in a few boat yards in the country.

The biggest issue in the process of refinishing is trueing up, or fairing a surface. We used to mix epoxy resin with micro-balloons to form a skimmable paste, but man it was messy - and expensive, if not in materials (actually, yes in materials) then definitely in man-hours. Once that was done and had cured, you needed to get the long board out, but epoxy adhesives being what they are it was hard work - Not that we're scared of that around here, but long boarding a filler which has set like concrete is a long expensive process. Once that was (finally) done you'd use a high build primer applied with a brush, which was almost the same as normal primer in thickness, so you needed 2 coats of it. Then you could see the low points (man I'm boring myself here! - you can imagine how dull all of this is in real life!!) and you'd use polyester filler to tickle up the las few dips and hollows. After an all over sand, the the top coat primer would go on and then once that was flat and yet still covering the whole surface, you'd get the thing sprayed up to a finish. Weeks and weeks of work and unless done very carefully, adding heaps to the weight of the boat.

2009 and thanks to the paint companies all wanting a slice of the high performance keel boat market from Melges 24 to America's Cup and everything in between, epoxy paints and primer/fillers of all types are on the market.

You can carry out your repair and then after a rough sand to key everything up, skim with a super light fairing filler - many of which have a specific gravity of less than 1.0 - (Ie they weigh less than water) All of the surfaces of the skiff have been skimmed using this product - Nautix Blue Epoxy Filler - which weighs just 600g per Litre. When it has cured, we hit it with a long board and it's like sanding polyester car filler - easy. With the shape trued up, we roller on (yes ROLLER) a coat of hi build primer, which unlike it's predecessors really is thick. It goes off fast (like sandable in 3 hours on a warm day). The long boards come out again, followed by the electric dual action (DA) sander (rotating and vibrating orbital sander). Then finally a wet sand with 240grit wet and dry - and you are ready for a top coat!

Here's where it really gets interesting (in a paint mixing way!) The surface finish from the modern epoxy primer is better than the gloss top coats of 10 years ago - particularly when the boat is sliding through the water. So now we don't spray on a topcoat, we roller on using a fine foam roller, a high performance epoxy primer like Durepox as a top coat. When it has set, we polish it with wet and dry, right back to 2000 grit, then use cutting compounds. It comes up like a gloss. The advantage of the hard work is the boat slides through the water quicker (Ok, we'll have that discussion fully another time) but from a practical point of view it means any damage or repair work can be fixed double quick. Very soon the boat will be in it's fully finished colour - and under it you will find just one coat of hi build primer and some lightweight filler. QED.

Stars on 45

I get people ring up and say they have stuck a panel into a car or completed a repair to a fairing on a bike - and then quite rightly used a woven glass or carbon tape to go over the join. They clean/sand the area properly and mix their resin with a little coloidal silica or microfibres to give it some resistance to sag. They cut the tapes, laminate them in and use peel-ply to keep the whole lot consolidated while it cures. All text book stuff. The job looks a peach when they peel the peel-ply off, but within a few weeks the cracks have started. Why when it was going so well!!

Y'see, standard tape is fine for most secondary bonding (ie the reinforcement laid up after the glue sticking the panels has cured), but as it is 0/90 oriented (ie the fibres run at 0 degrees and 90 degrees to the length of the tape) it has a big failing - Only half of the fibre is doing any work... The '0' degree fibres are running the length of the join and aren't doing anything...

In higher loaded areas, for example on the deck of an 18ft skiff where 3 blokes will run around while the boat bounces up and down, it is best not to leave too much to chance. As watertight and solid as it feels, 0/90 standard taping isn't enough. Instead we took some time and cut some 45deg/45deg tapes from a metre of standard woven fabric - in this case a 200g/sqm carbon fabric. Lay up, peel ply, wash up and rest assured that all of the fibre is doing something to hold the deck together - and consider torsional or sheer case loading, the fibre is more directly resistant to loads. Savvy?

(I'm going to be running around on that bit very soon!)

The times they are a-changin'

Looking through some pictures of the skiff when it was Rockport we did that 'God, look at that mainsail - it is SO fat in the middle and skinny at the top' thing...

Things have moved on tho - the skiff rig is now all carbon instead of glassfibre tipped aluminium. Battens are now carbon, making them stiffer (not much lighter tho) and certainly when you look at the pictures of boats from a whole 10 years ago you can see straight away how the Americas Cup inspired flat top, further refined by the 14fters and 18fters has become the norm since say 2006. Indeed Howie Hamlins Glaser built rig which won the 2006 14' worlds is a landmark rig in dinghy sailing in my humble opinion and we worked with Hydes here in the UK to build the GT60 rig to look just like it...

When as you can see in these 2 pics, you get a chance to lay a 1999 rig over a 2007/8 Ullman main (the one we have just bought from Mason's Investec )and you find the areas are almost identical and contrary to how you think it would be, the sail width is not so different, the luff curve is almost identical up the last 1/8th and the tip area gained is probably about 3/4 a sqm - maybe a touch more but not much. The thing is I guess better materials, computer modelling and the relentless driver of competition has developed sailmaking to a proper science and meant in the last what, 5 years? the industry understands better why this rig is more efficient and goes faster - and it is not the area that does it.

Sure, in the light stuff area is king ('no substitute for 'cubes' as the american race car builders would say), but once the sail is working in 8 to 10 knots, it is just more efficient at reducing induced drag, which means in 15knots it is not dragging you backwards like the pinhead sail will and you nett more of the force you generate. I won't bore you with it anymore unless you really want me to open the aerodynamics book at tip design and fill the blog with maths (that is not an empty threat!) - it's just interesting and something we will (all) continue to work on with the boat until the cows come home. But mark my words - the times are a changing and production boats will be next followed by flat topped Merlins, Larks, 505s etc. Fantastic.

Hard Spot

Mounting hardware on a carbon panel on a boat, race car, aeroplane, coffee table, whatever presents a simple problem.
Most of these types of construction are monocoque and necessarily lightly built, in many cases carbon skins seperated by a constructional foam core. If you screw a fitting down it is being held by less than half a millimetre of carbon and some extremely brittle polyeurathane core - ie by not much at all and the result is very predictable! The specific issue on our project is that sailboats generate massive loads, and skiffs have very big sails!

The solution isn't new - Bolt or screw into a solid patch of carbon fibre, or indeed marine plywood placed where you need the fitting to go. However, simply glueing a patch of good quality marine plywood to the surface is NOT enough (Note: read is NEVER enough!). As loads are applied and released, the fitting will move back and forth - and the result of that is the foam core will slowly get crushed under the pad you have stuck down. In the end the fitting loads will be doing massive damage to your pride and joy - literally in many ways! Eventually a complete rebuild is required.

The trick is to replace the core at the loading area as well - so use an oversized piece of marine ply cut into the surface, such that is sits on the lower skin of the foam sandwich and ends up slightly proud of the existing skin, giving you a neat base for that fitting or whatever.

It's not over yet though - With the plywood insert trimmed to the shape you need and all smoothed off, laminate over it with the same material the top surface is made from - in our case carbon fibre. How many layers? Well a good rule of thumb with light to general loading is to double the existing skin thickness, and to double that with high loadings. The skin is 2 layers of 200g carbon in most places. We'll be putting down 4 layers of 200g as a minimum.

Here's how to cut in a piece of marine plywood and insert it into the carbon/foam sandwich:

1. Mark out the area to be cut and cut through the top skin - usually you can do this with a sharp knife, sometimes it needs a bit more and we use a hack saw blade.

2. Use a chisel to remove the foam core down to the bottom skin.

3. Ensure a good fit of the block of marine ply - which in this case will stand proud of the surface when we are done to provide a base for a fitting.

4. Glue in the block of 'ply using a 50/50 microfibre and microballoon mix in epoxy (we're using West on this one, but SP106 is just as good)

5. Fillet and use peel ply to hold the fillet still, and to leave a good finish for sanding later.

Next we will laminate over with the carbon and vacuum bag it down.

Take me back to carbonology

Harken joins the team

Great news today... Harken, the world leading deck hardware manufacturer has joined the carbonology skiff team as our technical partner for fittings and systems. The Harken name will be well known to sailors all over the world - Their products are innovative, brilliantly made and perform time after time under the pressure of competition in everything from small dinghies to the America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race. Working together on the hardware package on the 18ft skiff - the fastest sailing dinghy class on the planet will be a great match and we are very proud to have them as our technical partners for this project.

Drool over the range of hardware at the Harken website.. here!

Fade to Grey

It's very odd you know, when you've done all that sanding and preparing and what have you and then you mix the paint (even if it is just the primer) You take a deep breath and load up the roller and you hit the bottom of the boat... Suddenly the patchwork quilt is gone - she's all the same colour. The downside is it shows up all the lumps and bumps better - which is a GOOD THING really, but does feel like 2 steps forward, 3 steps back!

Still, the skiff is now this fetching shade of light grey - a high build primer which we will use to finish off the fairing and flatting so she's ready for a top coat. As you can see, the shape is pretty straight... Really feel like we're getting close now!

Take me back to carbonology

Hot Desk

In this world of The Apprentice, dog eat dog 'colleagues', executive careers coaching to maximise your potential, power lunches (weren't they in the 80's!??) and generally having to deal with non sailing middle management types that would probably struggle to successfully run a bath if they tried living in the real world, - a world they harp on about but don't actually appear to have ever visited... You know the type - the young thrusters that come looking for you to sign off a deal at 17:05 specifically because they know you have a train to catch just so they can mention it casually to the section head that you must have finished early and get him to sign it instead.

Well this is what you need. A new desk. A bloody big one that says 'I'm an individual' and 'Keep Out Of My Way' in equal measure.... a bespoke, state of the art, all carbon missile of a desk that will stamp it's authority on your more errant staff - even when you errr - have actually gone home early!

What d'you think - Smart or what!!

Fail to Prepare and Prepare to Fail (or F2P=P2F)

Vacuum bagging is not a black art, it is the application of physics to achieve extraordinary results which appear completely impossible to the layman - or a black art for short! (just kidding!) You can do some fabulous ambient cure stuff - where the weight of the fabric and resin holds itself down onto the work, but you would struggle to do some of the higher stressed work on a project like this without a vacuum pump and the right sort of consumables - so here's how to give you the idea.

We are going to lay up a couple of layers of reinforcement onto a foam core which will eventually be the replacement piece of deck to make the boat whole again. As the deck was in no fit state to use as a mould, we're using a piece of regular hardboard to cover it and effectively provide the shape. Most importantly to get a good result, do all the leg work first - prepare properly before you mix the resin and you are half way there... remember! F2P = P2F!

1. The hardboard surface is effectively our mould surface, so before applying resin, fabric or anything, ensure the parimeter is clean and airtight (ie is not onto a porous surface) then apply the vacuum tape to make the outer edge of the vacuum bag - so think carefully -it needs to be a good few inches outside of where the repair patch will end - and indeed you need an area within the vac tape to attach the vac pipe - so give some space for that (about a 2" x 2" space clear of the repair and on relatively flat surface). DO NOT REMOVE THE BACKING TAPE OFF OF THE VAC TAPE!!

2. First, cut the reinforcement materials DRY - in this case the top layers of the foam sandwich (we've already built the lower surface and stuck the foam core down) a layer of 86g glass (for toughness) and a layer of 200g carbon for stiffness.

3. Still not ready for that resin - now we cut the consumables : Peel Ply to cover the whole area, then porous (perforated) release film - often known as 'bread-wrap' - this will protect the next layer (the breather fabric) from the excess resin drained off of the laminate. Next comes the breather fabric, then finally the tough, vacuum bag film which will go over the whole job by about 6 inches in every direction (for a virtually flat panel that is - if the repair is 3D, then a much larger vac bag is needed).

Here's the whole stack. Working from the foam upwards - Reinforcements: 86g E-glass Woven, 200g Carbon Woven. Consumables: Peel Ply, Porous Release Film, Breather Fabric, Vacuum Bag Film. If you want to get hold of handy amounts of vac bagging materials have a look here!

4. To start the lay-up, remove the consumables and the reinforcement materials so you can apply resin to one side of the top of the foam, roll out the reinforcements onto the wet resin to stop them distorting. Wet them out with more resin and a brush or roller.

5. With the reinforcements all down and wetted through, lay on the consumables over the wetted out surface in sequence. The peel ply goes first - which will need some straightening and will start to soak up resin almost straight away - best to pull it around with a flat gloved hand on the surface instead of lifting it and reapplying (which can be a nightmare!)

6. This is followed by the porous release, the breather fabric - the breach unit if you are using one, and finally the vacuum bag - which is best initially at least just left to drape over the whole lot.

7. Closing the bag - Working along the edges , remove the tape protector from the vacuum tape and allow the bag film to fall naturally onto it. Then work your way around sealing the bag down with the tape. Pay particular attention to corners, pleats and 'tubes' caused by the bag film overlapping itself. It must be 100% airtight - not just look like it might be and the pump is a very big test.

8. Flash up your pump and connect. It should take just a few seconds to pull the bag down - more than 10 or 15 and you have a BIG leak. With the bag down, look around the edge for smaller leaks - usually audible as a hissing sound. Old wives tales talk of allowing a small leak to prevent all the resin being sucked out of the repair - but then old wives aren't necessarily the best composite engineers! A 100% leak free bag is what you really want and we spend as long as is needed to get one. Trimming the bag tight to the vac tape is good practise to help find leaks...

And voila! A good solid vacuum bag holding our composites down and squishing the resin throughout the job, and blotting out the excess via the peel ply and porous release (look carefully in the pics taken 5 minutes after the pump was started and you can see resin dots on the breather - a very good sign!) You could get a result by loading up the surface with weights - sand bags or similar - but 1 bar of net pressure due to a vacuum bag, even with a few % loss due to small leaks or pump inefficiency is going to produce around 13.5psi - which is a steady 840Kg per Square Foot! - Which would mean an area of deck like this, which was 5ft x 3ft (1500 x 1000) would need 12.6 metric tonnes on it to generate the same pressure! QED.

Take me back to carbonology!

Born in a Storm

Maybe it's just geography - after all, we are in a large flat area of the UK that get's a lot of sunshine and very little rain fall, and in the Spring and Autumn gets some proper electrical storms - but sometimes workshop legends become true.
When we first set about rebuilding my old Firefly, (F888 Desperado) in 2001/2- arguably the first big rebuild we ever did, the workshop I used at the time - just 8 miles from London Stanstead Airport, was right in the warpath of some of the biggest storms I can remember. Work on the boat was often hampered by the works flooding - and in one particular storm , lightning hit the local power sub station and knocked out the whole industrial estate instantly - fine except it was 1am and me and the boat were pitched into total darkness! Jokingly I told my friends Desperado had been born in a storm...

The next boat we stripped and rebuilt was in 2005 - a 14 footer (GBR 1434) - Black Dog II. This was a special boat - my first proper skiff, and although she was 5 years old when we got her, she was the first of the Morrison 10's built - and all carbon throughout. Brilliantly built by RMW in the prime of their time - although that didn't stop me ripping up the deck and moving the centreboard (to very good effect I might add) A weapon and a half that boat... (it smashed my teeth in teaching me to bear away when you are fully pressed) Halfway through the rebuild and while working a late one the rain started to fall on the roof so hard you couldn't hear yourself think. An electric storm to stand the hairs on the back of your neck ensued and I remember metal bin lids flying around outside like eery flying saucers against the rain in the sodium street lamps. Man that was a storm. Great boat too.

Next came the GT60/ B1c Cherub (Ronin - GBR 2698) which we took to the Hyeres ISAF trial.. blah blah...! We built the whole thing here in Woodbridge in 2007 (man was it really 2 years ago Princey!!) in just 5 weeks from making the plug to the test sail. About a week from painting and we were using a laser to true up the centreboard case and mast foot. It had been a hot spring day and a light rain was just starting when I stopped for a cuppa as evening fell. A couple of hours later and I hadn't heard the monsoon outside, when BANG! All the lights went down and I thought I had gone deaf. The lightning had hit the ground less than 50m from the front door of the shop - which for once was closed. It sounded like a bomb going off. Ronin, with Pete Barton and Roz Allen on board won the first 11 races out of 12 at the 2009 nationals (they didn't sail the last race)

2008 and we're building moths. Specifically Velociraptor 'S' types of which there were only ever 2 - my boat (Voodoo - GBR 3372) and Adams boat (Envy - GBR 3373) for the 08 Worlds in Weymouth (Weymoth!). Both boats were in the shop in full on build mode, we were jigging in Adams foredeck and the glue was going off on the working deck join on mine. It was properly late - in fact we were on our way to working through to daylight, which when boats are being built isn't uncommon around here! The wind started to get up and I could hear the rain against the back window. We opened the front shutter door and turned out the workshop lights - It wasn't raining that hard and n fact there was a light fog, but the storm was above it. The sky flashed purple and then blue, then completely white - for so long at a time, you would have sworn it was 10am. 'Massive electric storm disrupts power supplies' was the headline in the next days 'Evening Star'. Adam got some pictures of his boat in build without a flash on his camera. Great boats... Rapid.. Adam won Kiel week about 2 weeks later.

A week ago and I'm finishing off the engineering in the foredeck of GBR52. Its late, but I'm nearly done. I heard a noise like next door are moving furniture, or maybe shutting their main doors. Not unusual I think to myself - except Mike from next door put his head around the corner to say he was going home maybe 6 hours ago. I open the main doors to get some air. Instantly there's a flash and a bang and I jump out of my skin. There's no rain - then I can hear it coming up the road - like a road cleaning truck but louder! The street lamps start to swirl in the torrent and simaltaniously... Flash - BANG - FLASH FLASH........................ Awesome awesome Spring storm. I turned off the computers (twice bitten!), made myself a coffee, and took 5 minutes to look out at the rain. I'm sitting on the tail of the skiff. Another one born in a storm.

So I'm a builder not a blogger - sorry about that skiff fans!! Loads done and loads left to do, making typing time short. Anyhoo, here's where we are up to. The foredeck is back down, the internals on the floor are now all cut and ready to go in and the rack tubes are about to get put in.

So that foredeck - well, we started out wanting to just check over all the structure and make it as good as the original, then we were advised to put in a piece of 50mm diameter tube for the sheets to go in (it was a while ago - hope you remember!)

Here's where we were up to then!~ Cut out the big gap in the foredeck, cut in a piece of carbon tube, make a new half frame to go where the new boats have a bulkhead, glue the whole lot back together with the central frame extending above the new tube then put the deck back down... er I can't get the .gif to show a series of pics so here's the time laps style photos in sequence..

Accurately mark out the cut lines (in black felt tip here) and using paper masking tape/marker pen, put on datum marks to replace the panel in the same place.
Cut out using a jigsaw with the blade at 30degrees to the vertical so that the panel can go back where you found it. Mark and cut out the central spine so that the tube insert lies in the right place.

Trial fit the tube and make sure it's a good fit at both ends, in the middle where the spine touches it etc etc. Don't ditch the spine material cut away - cut the width of the tube from it and then use the section left to fit back on the top of the tube to fit the deck to...

With everything made it's time to get gluing it all in position. White paper masking tape may appear weak but it has a nice bit of stretch which means the tension stays on when you tighten it. The additional half frame can be seen a couple of feet back from the stem.

With all the glue gone off and tidied up the structure is sound and the deck ready to go back on. A few additional items were sorted at this point as we hopefully won't be lifting the deck again any time soon. Couple of areas of delamination were sorted (i'll do a blog entry for that some time), an existing bulkhead needed re-gluing as the original line had failed and we added drain holes for the front section.
Finally sticking down the original panel - note how the lateral tape marks are used to line it all up and make sure the section goes back in the right place. We held the panel down with weights (tins of paint mainly). Final job will be a glass tape over the join to make totally sure it's air tight, then a skim of filler before we start painting - which isn't very far away now!!

What did we use - Well the only materials used to stick the whole thing together were SP106 resin and West's Mini Pack - both of which are not only great laminating resins and good at filling in the voids caused by delamination, but when mixed with microfibres and microballoons to make a filleting mix make fantasic general adhesive which is likely as not going to outlast the rest of the work. If you want to try them for yourselves, here's where to find out more about them! West Mini Pack and SP 106...

Let loose with a jigsaw = BIG trouble!

Interestingly while the amount of email traffic about the skiff has settled to a dull roar, a curious and anonymous note arrived on my desk this week giving a complete and thoroughly researched answer to why orange jam is called marmalade and then posing a whole host of questions which I am struggling to find answers to! I will have to think of an interesting way to answer it in due course!
But, it has prompted me to sit down for 10mins and just write the blog and firstly I need to say sorry for being slack and not getting much blogging done (although when you see how much boat we've cut up, you won't be surprised) - no excuses, but it has been busy.

So what have we been up to? Well, we decided early on that this would be a full on rebuild or nothing - that we would try to get the boat back to the best racing condition we possibly could and that means copying the kit and systems the newest boats are using. Typical of this is the latest 18's have their jib sheets lead under the fordeck, generally tidying things up and in particular so that the spinnaker doesn't get caught in the blocks on the deck during the drop. - Well chopping a great big hole in the foredeck might seem like a hairy thing to do, but, well, we had the jigsaw out anyway so what could possibly go wrong!

Well - nothing much went wrong, set the angle of the blade to 30 degrees (so that you generate a lip to stick the removed part back down on to) get your goggles on and get cutting. With the panel removed and access abound we found some more damage to fix, a piece of aluminium tube which had the tack line through it and had definitely seen better days, a novel way of sealing leaks around the back of the bow tube (using expanding foam) which was full of water and needed to be rebuilt, and that the jib sheet had been bolted to errr, well not much really...

So now, as you can see from the photo, there is a whopping great hole and an equally long carbon tube running from mast to bow sprit tube, which before a lot of you have read this, will be bonded in place and be ready to have the jib sheets running inside it, along with the tack line for the kite and a rare piece of nautical cordage called a Jib Cunningham... Which an ozzie mate says he adjusts 'once a season - maybe less'...

So the bottom line is, sorry for the lack of writing, but I've been chopping up carbon fibre as fast as I can so that I have something to write about... which is of course a bit of a paradox and brings me neatly to a question posed this week by my anonymous note writer - 'Why the huge temperature disparity between Mummy and Daddy bear's porridge when they were clearly poured at the same time?' A brilliant question when one considers that Mummy bears bowl could well have been smaller, which would therefore have a smaller surface area and therefore should actually be hotter, not colder! We may well have to investigate the materials the bowls were made of to get to the bottom of this one!!

Just another half an hour...

It's a state of mind. Sanding. The buzz of the orbital starts off as just some intrusive noise, but after a day or so becomes an exact pitch you can hum for days afterwards, giving a precise and exact indication of the amount of pressure you are applying to the work. The swirls left by the sanding disc start off as random C shaped scratches and end up as a roadmap, a handwriting sample, a graphic equaliser showing the sharpness of the grit left on the disc. You get in tune with the job - it comes from hours of standing, sanding, thinking of little more than how the boat will look when you're finished, how smooth the surface is, how the paint tastes, why is orange jam called marmalade, where does all the dust go, will Ipswich ever win a game of football again, what colour shall we paint it.

A great boat builder once gave me a truly top tip about sanding. Sanding is boring but has to be done - the trick is to sand until you are really bored - until you can't think of anything to distract you any more and are just totally at your wits end with it - then do another half an hour....

First Blood

Right, I've done my survey. Generally GBR52 is structurally sound and there is no major sign of water ingress. There are however several areas of superficial damage and has some heavy damage on the hull and deck join (known as the sheer) which will need investigating and repairing to the original spec. Just about all of the damage has been caused by collision - none by fatique, and so it is logical that the repairs will not need to be over specification. There are also signs of previous repairs about half way along the length of the deck adjacent to the sheer and these repairs are looking a bit shaky now.
Here's the plan of attack to get things moving.
1. Weigh everything, particularly the hull as it is to see if it is overweight.
2. Remove the centre section of the deck for access to enable thorough repair of the most damaged sections.
3. Repair hull damage by inserting new core materials and laminating over on the inside (vacuum consolidate) then replace the skin on the outside of the by cutting back to outside the foam insert line.
4. Grind off the surface of the removed section of deck and use this surface to mould a copy of the main deck area in foam core and carbon sandwich - using the laminate spec of the newer boats
5. Check and if possible modify the internal structure to be as allowed by engineering authority.
6. Refit deck using new section as manufactured at 4.
7. Remove aluminium rack support tubes and replace with carbon fibre of similar dimensions. Fit sleeves to inside to allow for smaller diameter carbon fibre racks. Fit chainplate to sheer struts
8. Re-skin foredeck with 2x2 twill fabric to replace damaged material.
9. Weigh everything again!
10. Paint - colour tbc!

Ok, as they say on the TV - Here's one I made earlier. A busy weekend has taken us to half way through item 3... we are well into the major repair to the gunwhale.
As you can see above, we chopped out a large section of the working deck with a jigsaw, giving us excellent access to the major damage area. Note the wearing of latex gloves (you can't see the goggles and face mask) - often the dust generated by cutting can be an irritant.


With the deck off we can see what's going on. Removing the damaged section and trimming the existing structure back to a tidy solid shape is the first step. Make the corners radiused so that the skin does not crack under stress. The skin is cut back - then the foam core has been cut back 2 inches further than the skin. This allows the core replacement panel to bond directly onto the outside skin.














The next post will be us putting in the new foam core panel to replace the damaged material and laminating over it to finish the job - watch this space!!

...and they're off!

The boat is in the works - well, it's kind of taken up one end of the works really - man these boats are big! First thing to do was strip her down and carry out a thorough inspection.















When inspecting carbon or glass composites, the key features to watch out for are the same whatever the project. Here're the main things to look out for:

Cracking. Get a bright torch and slowly, deliberately inspect the surface, particularly around high load areas. You're looking for hair line cracks - and open cracks, and star crazing and anything you don't like the look of. A bright torch means you won't confuse a crack with flaking paint or a pencil mark or something innocent like that.

Delamination. Take a coin between your thumb and index finger and lighty tap with the edge of the coin all over the surface, working in a methodical sweeping pattern. Solid structure will sound errr solid! - in fact it should almost 'ring' on carbon (depends on the thickness of paint more than anything). Delamination or core failure will sound dead or hollow. When you find something, work around it to find the edge of the delamination and circle with a marker pen and write a D in the middle. This technique takes a bit of practise, but after a short time it becomes pretty easy - and is a quick way to check large surfaces.

Flexing. All of the surface needs checking over for internal failure - and the best way to do this is a solid thumb push all over the structure. Sometimes a push with a thumb isn't enough and the heel of the hand and a good bit of body weight is needed. Unless you are dealing with super lightweight thin stuff, don't be scared to really test the surface - try to emulate the loading that the surface will get. Anything that moves more than you would expect is bad - but I bet you'll find cracking and delamination in the same area on most of them! Don't forget to mark what you find.

Key point damage. Fixing points and mountings get damaged very easily - especially if the part has started to flex or crack. You don't want to find the threaded inserts all need changing after you thought you were finished and the final coat of paint is drying, or that a hole for a bolt is elongated when it needs to be a close fit! A good inspection with a bright light and and test with a bolt or fastener to prove the thread or size of hole takes just a few minutes but can really make a difference.



Some damage is obvious though as this shark bite out of the deck edge shows!! Next time we make.... a list!!



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Syncronicity 2

It is always worth digging out the history of the car, plane, boat, piano or whatever you are rebuilding - It gives you more contact with the project - makes it more personal...

I've been doing just that with the skiff over the last couple of weeks. When we first tracked it down and agreed to buy it, I emailed John Harris, who I had met at the 2008 Moth Worlds in Weymouth last July. John did a bit better than me that week - He won the event outright and is the current moth champion! - whereas (for once) I can only look back at gear failure, rig failure and finally - most unlike me, sense of humour failure!!

For his regular ride, John steers the 18ft-er 'Rag and Famish Hotel' (known the world over as 'The Rag') and is Commodore of the Australian 18 ft Skiff League - the world governing body for the class, so he was definitely the best person to call for some background!

There have only been 60 or so modern (murray design) 18 ft skiffs built so I knew there would be some information available about the boat and I was hopeful that the governing body for the class would have some record or other. John replied to my email straight away - and knew more about the boat than I imagined - because he used to sail it!!

He went on to explain that the boat was built in 1996 by Julian O'Mahony in Sydney and was originally called Tyrell's Wines. She was steered by John when he was just 20 years old and in his first season in it, in the 97 world championship (JJ Giltinan Trophy) she was placed 3rd, a year later in 98, John and his now regular crew of Craig and Rissole hustled her up another place overall to 2nd in the JJ... Come forward another year and at the 99 Championship, with the boat now owned by Tim Robinson and sponsored by the clothing manufacturer Rockport clothing, she wins the series. Maybe the only boat to have been placed 3rd, then 2nd then 1st in the class's pinacle event... Neat!

So the story begins......

Being more of a Blur fan than a Confucius fan, the intro of Country House where in the background you hear Damon say 'So the Story Begins....' comes more naturally to me than some wise conundrum about every journey beginning with a single step - But whatever, you get the idea!

It's about 11.30 on a bright sunny Spring day in Dorset - in a village just outside Weymouth and we're collecting the boat and clapping eyes on it for the first time. Ady, our middle man has been on the road with me since 7 am ish and and we are met by James' parents and Gareth and Sarah who help out brilliantly throughout the hour and a half of retrieving bits of the boat from corners of the Chalmers' beautiful garden and tying them to the trailer (the boat parts, not Gareth and Sarah)

Then we're off - The mighty ex Rockport looking a bit deshevelled, but strapped down firmly and rolling along nicely. I had been a bit concerned about the trailer having stood out in all weathers for 2 years, so we checked the bearings a couple of times and generally took it easy -but in the end my fears were groundless - the trailer towed perfectly.

At 19.11, 12 hours to the minute after picking up Ady from the depths of Suffolk/Middle Earth, I dropped him off again and pointed the car and skiff at carbonology HQ, where 30 minutes later I was unhitching and dropping off the skiff, neatly blocking off just 4 parking spaces in the yard!

So the story begins.... or we take our first steps or whatever way you want to put it. Next step is to get her into the workshop and devise a plan... more on that in the next post.

One final point - the Ex Rockport 18ft-er already has a new sailnumber courtesy of the European 18ft association so to avoid the typing of it every time - and so as not to replace 16 key strokes with the 21 of 'the carbonology skiff' we will now refer to it as GBR52.. Cool eh?

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Syncronicity I

Early January 2008. So there I was wrapping up my 'Velociraptor S' International Moth to send to the USA. Sold and going to its new owner. I closed the container doors and watched the driver attach the seal that will hopefully not get disturbed until LA. The truck pulled away and the space in the front of the workshop where the boat had been suddenly seemed bigger. The boat was a company boat, so it was never actually mine - but I'd built that moth for myself really and now not in some way owning the fastest boat in the county kind of hurt.

A week later and a friend of mine who runs her own PR and media agency and I are chatting about sponsorship deals in sailing - y'know- how do they work, what can the client get in return for their money. I'm throwing up ideas that avoid the obvious route of sponsoring a local sailor and hoping they do well at the nationals. Naming rights to a local race series, find an unusual boat, do something just bigger than usual, when I use the 18 foot league in Australia of an example of how to do it bigger and better than anyone else and I cite boats like Fiat, Rag & Famish, Gotta Love it 7. OK leave that thought hanging.

That afternoon an old mate most famous in sailing for being a bow/forehand on an 18 calls me and we talk about sailing and motorcycles - but then we talk of little else! Then I'm driving home from work and it hits me. How about carbonology get an old 18 footer, one that needs some work, and puts it back together. We can show people how to fix up old composite structure and how just about any properly built carbon fibre boat can be put back together as good as new - and we can link products from the website to the work we're doing... And when it's all done we'll go sailing and have some fun... Brilliant. But realistically, are there any old Bethwaite 18's or early Murray 18s still around? Will we find one that we can afford and yet is worth saving?

A week later and it's the 30th Jan 2009. Somehow, more by luck than any judgement for sure I've found the I18 'Rockport' for sale in the UK and had got in touch with the owner - a top lad called James. He gave me the lowdown - The boat was badly damaged when it got blown off of it's cradle during preps for a respray in 2005 or 6 and has been side lined ever since. It was complete but a lot of the gear is old now and the hull needs a lot of work - like a total rebuild. I did some research... I knew that Rockport was the boat Tim Robinson had won 'The JJ Giltinan Trophy' in (The 18ft class World Championships, held in Sydney every year) - the odd thing was, he had won it almost exactly 10 years ago to the day on the 31st Jan 1999.
Meanwhile James had sent me some pics by email showing the boat as it is now and clearly showing the level of damage. It's going to be a long job and a major piece of 'deck off' surgery and but it's do-able for sure.

So, 10 years to the day after Rockport took Tim to became the first non Australasian skipper to win the 18 foot skiff championships in it's entire 65 year history, carbonology bought the ex Rockport - and a new chapter in it's history began.

We hope you will keep an eye on this blog and see how we bring an ex championship winning boat back to life, and what we find out about her in the process. DC
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