MV catapult

[northerncat]

how do you go with all the bar oil that would be soaking into the foam?

[groper]

yer... have to just rough cut it with the chainsaw, then plane it down closer, then finish shaping it via sanding - so i guess the bar oil would be gone by then...

[seamad1250]

Yep, roughed in with the chainsaw then used the plane, no oil probs.

[rexd666]

Reciprocating saw aka Sawzall, with a nice long blade. No oil there, but might squeak a lot.
All the ones I have seen were foam sheet. If you make it out of vertical layers you can contour the inside edge to the desired shape, like the old geography 3d contour models so then you only need to knock off the high side. But probably more fun to create some snow shaping manually.

[Trev]

This is how they came in my kit, the trick was to glue the laminates together with fairing compound because if you use a glue it will dry harder than the foam and will leave hard ridges when you sand. I used a electric plane to knock the shoulders off, but there wasn't a lot to remove.

[groper]

What type of foam Trev? Looks like airex c70/75?

[Jim]

Hi Groper, for your longer distance cruising, not necessarily really really long International destinations, have you considered a 3rd centrally mounted outboard, say 15-20 HP. My boat, the Leslie James will do 5 knots all day long on one engine which being off to one side pushes the boat sideways which indicates one or two bars rudder angle on the autohelm gauge depending on tide/current etc. My boat weighs around 6 tonns (guess) in cruising mode and uses bugger all fuel on one engine. Having seen your boat, it is a featherweight, and with a centrally mounted engine, would use a hell of a lot less fuel than me. You will also have much larger fuel tanks, cost a fraction of the price of sails and rigging (any type) and it doesn't matter what mood or direction the wind is in that day. It could be mounted on vertical sliders on the rear bulkhead like Cut Snake. It would push your tender, if that's where it's going, out further, but hey, lifes all about compromise.
Just a thought.
I will stop off again one day soon and check it out now that it has some paint on it.
Jim.

[groper]

Yeah not a bad idea Jim... a little 15hp longshaft in the center would use bugger all fuel and be cheap as chips to setup... The harry proas can use the tender as a sled like this, they sling the tender under the bridgedeck type of arrangement... The only thing that would annoy me is the constant noise for days on end of a long distance slow passage, the peace and quiet of sails is hard to beat... Ive had a few ideas on sail rigs, but they all seem a bit further down the road for me... i might just sell it and build another when im ready to go sailing i think, ive only just started another apprenticeship so i cant just go cruising for a while yet...

[Darren]

What type of foam Trev? Looks like airex c70/75?

Did you consider XPS foam. Closed cell polystyrene - cheap as chips compared to other foams, ideal for things like this, and more than strong enough in it's high strength variants (400kpa?). As a bonus, you can by slabs 100mm thick - less joints

[groper]

Another cyclone and another pic... got the topsides 90% fair...