On With the Boat

So, the plug was complete, and it was time to start building with the material that would actually go into the boat. I chose to use Divinycell because it is way lighter than wood (very inportant since I will be manually pushing this boat around on the flats with a push pole). Secondly, the foam is closed cell, so, in the event that there is ever any water intrusion, the foam won't rot. It is great to work with because it is light, sands easy, and cuts easy.

The downside to using a composite substrate is that it is really, really expensive.

As a student of my father, I am always on the lookout for a deal. Amazingly, I got a killer deal on some Divinycell. I met a builder in town who needed some cash. He had a bunch of Divinycell at his shop, and I bought a whole pile of it for cheap. Four sheets were 8x4 footers and they were 3/4 inch H100 density, which would be perfect for my deck, and I got another 15 6x4 sheets of H110, which would be good for the transom and bulkheads. I didn't need 15 sheets but bought them anyway. I sold 8 of the H110s for twice what I paid for them. I had to buy another 9 sheets at retail for the hull, console, and other misc parts, but I essentially got the foam core for the deck, transom and stringers for free. It only took me two weeks to get the 8 sheets sold.

Alright, so now I got the divinycell. I cut the divinycell into the same shapes that I cut the 1/4 inch plywood that I skinned the plug with. I used little 4x4 inch blocks of wood and a brad nailer to hold the foam up against the plug. I drove maybe 10-12 of the little blocks per foam sheet. I packed epoxy/cabosil mix between the seams and let it cure. Once cured the foam pieces were all one piece in the shape of the boat hull. The tunnel was difficult because the curve of it needed to be uniform. I used a 2 by 2 inch piece of wood lined up with the keel and screwed it to the substrate. This worked to keep it pretty even.

Once the epoxy/cab cured the boat was all one piece. I used the rear end of a hammer to pull out all the blocks (there were little pices of duct tape on the back sides of all of these things, to keep them from sticking to the foam if I got any epoxy on them). Invariably, at least one of the brad nails would stay stuck in the boat, and would need to be pulled out with needle nose pliers. The seams were all rough from where the edges overlapped or a gob of epoxy spilled out. I used the hand sander to flush everything out.

 Lots of blocks to be pulled out.

Next came carbon fiber. All seams were reinforced with carbon fiber for structural integrity/insurance. I also cut some strakes out of the scrap foam. These looked really cool on the bare foam, but they ended up causing a huge amount of additional work (which I will explain later).

I used peel ply on the carbon fiber so I wouldn't have so much sanding work to do after the cure. After the surface was prepped I dry fit the fiberglass. With the help of Beau (who used to work for Paul Mann at the Outer Banks) and another friend of mine, Thomas Tayloe (who used to work for Shearline in Beaufort, I laid two layers of glass. No way I could have done this correctly without their help.