Hi,

I am pondering a new boat build which will, in all eventuality, comprise making the hulls (it's a catamaran), foils, beams and maybe even a mast. I am pretty impressed with the Easy-preg option for an off the mould finish, ready for paint directly - I don't want the weight penalty of a gel coat if possible. The hulls would be a Nomex sandwich and I assume that this would be OK with a 215 gsm vari-preg layer (don't want to go to the 430 or would the experts recommend a resin layer? If so, where do I get this as there is nothing on the Easy Composites site that looks like it fits the bill. I'd like to work on a single vacuum / over cure rather than doing curing the layers individually.

My second train of thought is how to incorporate UD layers in the vari-preg system. The cat's beams, foils and mast will be a UD dominated laminate, so I will need to work this out! Again, is there sufficient resin within the vari-preg backing layer to co-infuse UD layers, or again will a resin layer be required?

Got to build an oven of course, but I'd like to get the construction resolved in my head at least.

Thanks for the great tutorials.

Cheers

Andy

Thanks for those positive and helpful replies. I know of plenty small (14', 4.3m) racing dinghies with a 200 gsm glass skin on PVC foam which are constrained by their rules on materials but proving fast, reliable and long lived. The boat I am thinking on is not limited by materials. I have an old 1990's vintage A Class Catamaran on my back lawn which is build in nomex and carbon & kevlar pre-preg; so please do not be so dismissive of the technology or the application or my skills (which you have no knowledge of) or belittle my thought processes.

It wasn't clear in my post but I was working on an Easy-preg on the as a first layer, with the 215gsm vari-preg as the second layer which would be the layer that the nomex would attach too. That gives a 430 gsm / 0.5mm outer skin.

I also thought that this was the Easy Composites tech support, so I was looking for guidance on whether the nomex would need a resin layer which is something that EC do not apparently sell or at least, I cannot find it on the site. Similarly, if I go down a PVC core route, this would probably need a resin layer to successfully sandwich the core. Thoughts on this would be appreciated, irrespective of any "opinion" on my project.

To quote Uffa Fox: "weight is only of use to road rollers".