Boat Building

Dispatches from the shop: Progress reports on our boat building projects, plus some useful information for those of you who are building, restoring or repairing your own boats.

More S860 crossbeams: Centre bearing blocks

Submitted by Matthew on

The Starwind 860 trimaran's crossbeams are joined on the boat's centreline by a massive hinge pin. This mechanism ensures that the two outriggers fold in sync. The peak load on the centre bearing could be up to 41 kN (about four tons) port-starboard or 11 kN up-down, and the structures around it need to reflect that.

Coloured epoxy?

Submitted by Matthew on

What does it mean when your epoxy hardener comes out coloured? Will it put your project in jeopardy?

Nope. It turns out that this is not really a problem for strength or curing characteristics, only for appearance.

Crossbeam construction

Submitted by Matthew on

It's been a while since we kept you folks posted on the Starwind 860 project. Don't worry, it hasn't died – we've just been busy!

A simple trailer tongue extension

Submitted by Matthew on

Folding trailer tongues are nice, but a folding mechanism is expensive and hard to retrofit to an existing trailer.

With the local water levels already low and going lower, the time was right for us to modify Sunset Chaser's trailer for shallower ramps. Here's how we did it.

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