Todd French of French & Webb Boatbuilders in Belfast, Maine has been thinking about this for years. Dan Miller, of Belfast Boatworks, enthusiastically agreed to provide his workspace and skilled workers. What if there were a way of laying up a WEST-system yacht hull with something approaching the efficiency of laying up a fiberglass hull? They knew that it would require;
- An expensive, completely fair and “closed”, male mold. In fiberglass layup the same tradeoff is made in the industry― you acquire a very high cost but perfectly smooth mold, so that the individual parts that come out of the mold can be constructed quickly… you spend more money upfront in order to spend less money later and attract a bigger market. Alternatively, in the case of cold molded wood construction, this requires a male, not female, mold, and you end up with a hull that is perfectly finished on the inside, but must be faired and painted on the outside. Meaning such hulls will never be built as cheaply as can a fiberglass hull. But on a boat where the inside of the hull is always visible, like the LEVANT 15 daysailer, the tradeoff is that it is easier to fair and paint a convex surface (the outside) than a concave surface.
- A team of highly trained workers. This is not necessary in fiberglass construction- there are no time constraints (you can apply as few or as many layers of cloth as you like in a given day). Todd’s objective was to laminate an entire half of a yacht’s hull in one intense session. He reckoned this could be done with four active workers, plus one in the background to fix problems when they emerged.
- A proper vaccuum-bag pump, process materials, and workers who were trained how to use it under time pressure.
- And a yacht design that would have sufficient appeal to justify the large initial expenditure for a perfectly fair, closed, vacuum-baggable mold. You wouldn’t want to invest in this sort of mold if you were building only one or two boats.
Todd decided to try this approach on his new LEVANT 15 daysailer. It had the advantage of being small enough to potentially laminate four layers of wood veneers in one session. The constraint here is the time available before WEST-system epoxy cures. By keeping the workspace cold (below 50 degrees) and using slow hardener, this meant four hours of working time before the epoxy begins to cure, when the heat is turned up to finalize the cure. But is it possible to apply 240 veneers in four 60-veneer layers, within such a short timeframe? Todd teamed up with his boatbuilder friends at Belmont Boatworks, just up the road, in order to have a large enough team to attempt it. The video below should give you a good idea of the process.
Todd wisely began by building a small test panel, just to make sure there were no unforeseen problems. Using conventional techniques epoxy primer is the last thing to go on, and fiberglass cloth is pressed onto a surface from the outside rather than pulled into the primer by a vacuum. The test panel proved that there were no problems using the vacuum to press the “skin” layers into each other rather than using a serrated roller and paint sprayer as is the usual case.
The mold was waxed, and a layer of epoxy finish primer applied to the mold. This would become the visible layer on the inside of the hull once the finished part was removed. No time pressure here― it could have been done days in advance. A layer of 10-ounce fiberglass cloth was then laminated on in fast-cured epoxy resin. Again, no time constraints, and this was allowed to cure.
Then began many hours of pre-fitting the lightweight cedar veneers. Beginning with the inside layer (inside the boat once it is finished), the 1/10″ thick cedar veneers were stapled into place, and marked and numbered and carefully stacked so that they could later be selected and rapidly re-stapled into place on layup day. Just one single veneer out of place in the stack would precipitate disaster, as you can imagine.
The layup day was choreographed in advance. Four stacks of veneers, four workers who could have at it for potentially four hours without a bathroom break, and somebody gutsy enough to say, “start.” The veneers were put into place and sporadically fastened with plastic staples― easily sanded flush when necessary. After only 2 1/2 hours the four layers were in place, and the vacuum bag going on. Somebody must have been heaving a sigh of relief, and wondering just how much larger a boat could be built with this method?
Is this the future of boatbuilding? Fiberglass has not run its course, surely. But the market for pleasure boats has evolved. Poorly designed sailboats, sold on the basis of their low price, have no future but to fail, You can buy old fiberglass sailboats for nothing on craigslist. You make the decision to own a sailboat for the joy of sailing her. But you are not a fool and you thing “green” and you hope that the effort and resources that go into her will endure until your grandchildren grow old. If so, you will choose a LEVANT 15 built by Todd French, and you will have chosen wisely.
This article is about entrepreneurs, like Todd French and Dan Miller, who try to advance the methods of boatbuilding. But I am a yacht designer. And I design yachts that bring jot to folks who own and sail them. My greatest joy will be when you choose to own a LEVANT 15, and tell me how much it has enhanced your life.