Building the Foamee

As an experiment in fiberglass boatbuilding and preparation for the process of building the trimaran, I constructed the Glen-L Foamee, a 9 foot foam-cored fiberglass dinghy in my garage in San Francisco.  Laminating with polyester resin sure didn't give me favored neighbor status.

The plans include a centerboard, rudder, and sail, but since I was building the boat primarily for use as a tender to Avalon, I omitted those parts. I also included a skeg that's not on the plans, because a short, wide, round-bilged boat like this won't row in a straight line without one.

Update: sail conversion is complete, click here for pictures.

The plans from Glen-L were extremely thorough, and included full-size templates for the building forms and a sheet with over 60 pictures describing the building process. Construction took about a month and a half of evenings and weekends; probably 80 to 100 hours total. Materials cost about $800, which would be much less if I were to do it again because I've got better sources and would have fewer mistakes to undo.

  1. The building form.
  2. Applying foam.
  3. The transom.
  4. Glassing the outside.
  5. Flipping over.
  6. Glassing the inside.
  7. Sheer and skeg.
  8. Sanding and painting.
  9. The launch.
  10. Conversion from row to sail.
  11. Recommendations.

Back

Next