The Making of the Model

Well after a few weeks worth of work went into designing with AutoCAD and calculating Hull Speeds and buoyancy integrity (to mention just a few things) I proceeded in scaling the plans to 1/10 (a workable size for a model) and printed out on a plotter all the pieces on 2, 70 x 100cm thick sheet of cardboard.

Cut out all the pieces and started assembly.

I must confess that this whole process is a lot of fun.

It's starting to actually look like something!!!

Still some more work to do but the model is proceeding nicely.

The Design is Finalized

After endless hours of research the design is completed …

I have tried to implement the best of all worlds.

1. Comfort
2. Seaworthiness
3. Practical
4. Ease of Construction
5. Let’s not forget Affordable 



On my design, I don’t show the cabin because I haven’t decided exactly on how I will end up constructing it. I know for sure that the cabin will have a length of no less than 210cm.

Diagram of the hulls frames

Various other considerations have to be taken into account like cockpit floor height, Seating, rigging setup, buoyancy & Drainage.

I am thinking of something like this. As far as the keel is concerned I will work it out during the construction.





I am confident that all these issues will sort them self’s out once construction progresses.

The next step is to make a scale model and see how things come together.

Just a last side note with regards to the design. I have reworked some of the features and found that this design would be a very nice “Fishing Boat” powered by a 10 to 25 HP outboard engine. How knows maybe it will be my next project seeing as I will have the all the main molds already made for the Morning Star.

You be the judge.

Epoxy and Fiberglass Basics

The boat building method, the resins and fiberglass are much more important than the plywood. You can use cheap plywood and still get a good boat with the proper resins, not the other way around.

This stitch and glue tutorial describes the assembly sequence of a small boat but does not provide many explanations about resins and fabrics. Here is a very basic tutorial for those who have never seen resins and fiberglass but want to use them for boat building. Sorry if it looks simplistic to those who have experience with these materials but it is intended for people who know absolutely nothing about composites.

The two major components used to build a "fiberglass" boat or to build the seams on a stitch and glue boat are:

Fiberglass and Resin
The resin is a thick liquid, of a viscosity similar to paint. Here, the resin containers are fitted with plunger pumps for easy handling and mixing. The tape is a standard 4" woven fiberglass tape used in small boats. The fillers (micro balloons and silica) are mixed with the resin to make putty.

Fiberglassing or laminating means to impregnate the fiberglass fabric with the resin in order to produce a hard, strong finished product. Each applies resin on the fiberglass, with a roller or a brush.
The resin will cure (harden) and the result, seam or panel, will be a strong, hard fiberglass part. That is all!

Epoxy & Fiberglass basics

Let's look step by step at the building of a fiberglass-epoxy seam: coat with resin build putty fillets apply fiberglass and resin.

The first step is to mix the resin. It is very simple, just mix the two parts in a small container. The resin is then applied on the plywood with a brush or roller. As you can see, it is just like painting
We need some putty to fill the corner first. The putty is made very easily from resin mixed with a filler: micro-balloons, wood flour etc. It can be applied with a spatula but we describe better methods in our "Stitch and Glue" manual. Note that all surfaces are pre-coated before the application of putty or fiberglass.

Lay the fiberglass tape on the wet putty.
Wet the fiberglass with the resin. It will become transparent while absorbing the resin.
Use a squeegee to remove the excess resin and eliminate air bubbles.

That's all! Your fiber glassing is complete, just wait a couple of hours for it to cure. Now that you learned how to make a fiberglass seam, it is a simple matter to use the same technique to fiberglass large areas like a boat.

http://youtu.be/4PaeguIt-X8

My supplier for Epoxy is Fibermax
http://www.fibermaxcomposites.com/shop/index.php?language=en

Another really cool tool for epoxy is this.

Why Wood

In an era of modern materials such as fiberglass and aluminum, you might wonder why I

could suggest marine plywood.  When compared to other alternatives, wood has many significant advantages as a construction material for many types of marine craft.

Better resistance to stress Wood is the most resistant to constant direct force... the kind like the structure of a boat gets due to the pressure of the water on the hull.  And the faster the boat goes the heaver the force is. One well-known test was done on various materials to find out how well they hold

up under constant pressure. Each material was put under direct pressure for 1 million cycles for 30 hours at a time.     

1. Straight Fiberglass kept only 22% of original strength
2. Aluminum kept 37% of original strength
3. Wood with epoxy kept 64% of original strength.
4. Better thermal, galvanic and acoustic characteristics

Wood has better thermal and acoustical characteristics than other materials so there are greatly reduced problems with condensation on the faces of the interior hull. Its galvanic characteristics are also ideal. Galvanic corrosion occurs when two dissimilar materials come in contact with each other and one causes the other to corrode. Wood does not have this problem.

Best aesthetics and visual experience No one can doubt that in terms of look and feel, you can't beat the feeling of wood.  The aesthetic characteristics of wood and the visual experience it brings are far superior to the synthetic experience of other types of boats. With its warm and natural beauty, the feeling you get when staying on board surrounded by natural materials contributes to your joy of ownership.

Comparable maintenance costs. Traditionally made wooden boats typically have a high cost of maintenance. This is not true because all wooden parts of our boats that are exposed to the sun or sea are protected by our epoxy coating.  

Technically speaking, when dry wood is protected in this manner, it maintains all its extraordinary characteristics, practically without aging for decades. Maintaining a boat is no more expensive or time consuming than that of a fiberglass boat.

When compared to other materials such as fiberglass, aluminum, or even steel, wood is actually stronger when you look at the relationship between its strength and its weight.  This means that a wooden boat when compared to synthetic boats of the same size and weight, the wooden boat will have the least weight. It also means that when compared to other construction materials, that same wooden boat with have the greatest strength. Bottom Line: Wood has the greatest strength per volume of weight and that makes it highly suitable for boat building where the material needs to be light but strong.

The Project Begins

Hello and Welcome to the Morning Star Project. I will try to keep this blog updated and as detailed as possible so that I can share with you the progress of the build.

It is said that every great journey starts with the first step, so my first step was “Inspiration”

The dream of having your own sail boat and enjoying life at sea was something that has been with me from early childhood. As I grew up and practicality poked its ugly head into my life I quickly realized that the “Dream” had to comply with obtainable specifications and mission requirements.

Requirement number 1. It has to be cheap (you know what they say “No Money No Honey”) It has to be relatively easy to build with a Maximum size of 17 feet (due to space constrictions) and something that can handle 4 large adults and a few kids safely for day trips and sleeping accommodations for two for weekend getaways.

The search begins with endless hours online surfing all manner of sites from builders blogs and forums too How To, sites and endless companies that sell ready kits or plans. To be absolutely truthful I have to confess that I found quite a few very interesting propositions but if it wasn’t one thing it was another thing that was wrong with them so I decided to combine all the good attributes of each one of my final selections into one super pocket yacht that I would design.

Now it’s important to note that I am not a marine engineer and any and all construction procedures and modifications that I will be presenting in this blog are not recommended to be replicated. Implement what I do or say at your own risk.