The lets talk about something else thread

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Guest#260 Is home building now a thing of the past because you can't make fast boats from plywood? Shouldn't be 'cause foam sandwich is easier.

But don't you have to get your hands dirty with lots of nasty smelly sticky stuff?

 

Originally posted by Guest#260 But don't you have to get your hands dirty with lots of nasty smelly sticky stuff

Rubber gloves. No you shouldn't get your hands sticky. In any case these days you use epoxies for wood anyway and bless them.

And at least the days of having glass jars full of strong formic acid round the garage are gone. (That was the hardener for Aerolite 306 before epoxy came out). I remmember dropping a bottle and watching the concrete floor fizz!

At least as far as high end race boats are concerned I suspect more are homebuilt in foam sandwich than wood anyway.

I think of the homebuilt boats (the very vast majority) in the last 50 Cherubs in the UK maybe two or three were wood.

I don't know how many 14s are homebuilt, but I suspect its a while since anyone built a wood one.

I gain the impression there are more plastic N12s than wood, and I think the majorty of Moths are plastic too.

Merlins are a special case, being shed loads of hassle to homebuild in plastic.

Who knows what's going on amongst one designs like Fireballs and so on?

Interesting actually, now I think about it I wonder if its less intimidating to homebuild in a box rule class because the tolerances are so much wider... I wouldn't fancy trying to build a Fireball where its considered necessary to hit the max at point a, the min at point b and all the rest of it...

I think you'll find a lot of them are still buying the same boats :-)  The Furball was still outselling the RS8 according to last years Dinghy review

The "Formula" idea for monos (as well as cats) sounds great to me (not that that means anything). It seems like a way to increase choice without introducing too many classes. I suggested the sliding scale where you could trade off weight for length etc in another forum (as it seems you could fit in RS700/MPS/AC which are similar pace) but it didn't get much support.

One thing about the near death of homebuilding - was it because boats were so much more expensive (in real terms) in those days? If you want to get afloat on a budget now it's pretty easy - I picked up a competitive Laser for $1000 and an old but sound International Canoe for $500. Both are still competitive, but boats like that weren't easy to find in good condition decades ago so home building was the only budget choice.