2001
After the kayaks, I
started building parts for the Central Mounting
Modules (CMMs) in the
storage room beneath my apartment. The CMMs span the boat
athwartships and provide a mounting point for the beams. They
make the boat simple to assemble, despite the inherent complexity of
its ability to fold.
These were my first epoxy/carbon/foam sandwich parts,
vacuum-bagged. I
built almost all of the parts for the CMMs, including the top plates, central
bulkhead, bracket parts, and beam pads in the summer of 2001. I
also did some materials testing in fall of 2001 to
compare carbon/Kevlar parts with similar fiberglass parts. The
net result is that the carbon fiber I was using was much stiffer than
fiberglass but no stronger. Another interesting result of the
testing was that if I built my entire hull from lighter carbon fiber
instead of fiberglass, it would only weigh about 138 pounds less.
Unless a boat has been engineered from the start by the designer to be
built from carbon fiber, I don't think it makes sense to do so.
Because we were converting our
building in the Mission to condominiums, I wasn't able able
to do any work
on boats for a while. At first I would set everything up in the
garage on
Saturday morning and pull it all apart on Sunday evening, but it’s
tedious to spend as much time setting up as actually working.
In fall of 2001, some friends moved
into an apartment in the Castro with a 3-car garage,
and I started working in 2/3 of the garage, alongside my friend's old
plywood
Pelican. At around 500 square feet, the new shop was enormous, as
well as
bright, clean, and with a level floor. Work progressed
rapidly. I assembled the CMMs, and
vacuum-bagged many flat parts: bulkheads,
furniture,
and cockpit floors. My intention was to build as many flat or
small parts
as possible before staring the hulls because I knew I would probably be
transporting them before the boat was complete. I also built my Daggerboard and trunk, as well as
a carbon fiber rudder for one of the kayaks. I never set about to
just get the boat done to the exclusion of all else, so when
interesting side projects presented themselves I allowed breaks from
the trimaran.
I think I sailed the Foamee only twice,
once from South Beach
and once in Tomales Bay.
It was a good tender to the Avalon, though, although storage was always
a problem. If we left it in the water it became encrusted with
filth; there was no good way to keep it on a floating dock at South
Beach, and eventually the gunwale split after being banged against the
concrete dock during a winter storm. It's now suspended from the
ceiling of the garage in Ohio, patiently awaiting refurbishment. |