That design was a quick throw together.
I am not in the boat design biz.
As to construction..
I have used 4mm okume ply for tortured wood construction in the past (a-cat and 18Sq) but for strip planking I think it would be to thin to get a proper tongue and grove joint. As to the beam issue I am using 4" (125+/-) .069 wall 6061 T6, these beams are leftover from an 18Sq project from 20 years ago. I am working on a oval carbon tube design to fit to my boat next year.
Coming from a 18Sq background (and having not sailed a cat with a crew in a very long time) I am unfamiliar with the dynamics of an F-16 so any thing I suggest should be take with a few grains of salt.

Thanks all. Will put something down on paper soon... this what I finished and launched last week...

Pilgrim

One suggestion I would make is to buy a used Taipan and use that as a base for you to build your F16. The hulls are one part of the whole package, and there are a lot of motivated sellers at the moment who have left or planning to leave Singapore and need to offload their boats.

Using this method you can learn how the platform works, how it all fits together, and then optimise your F16 with new hulls. Plus once you have finished your hulls, then you have the rest of the boat readily available. It may actually be cheaper, depending on the deal you make, to buy and build your F16 this way as opposed to buying all the parts and importing in seperately.

Getting a new mast in and buying all the blocks and ropes and sails can certainly add in costs quickly.

I am also in Singapore (sail the A-Cat and a Moth), but involved with Taipans for a very long time and F16s, so have a few ideas here.

Cheers
JC

HI JC,
Yes, it would certainly be easier and probaly cost the same but it wouldn't be as much fun. I sail occasionally with David Lee on his Taipan and he has offered me a share in his boat but I have this urge to try out my ideas and to build a boat. Its like an itch, if you scratch the wrong place you wont get rid of it....

My ideas are basically that for the hull, if you have a smooth curve to the underwater shape, correct volume distribution and a fair hull you have a good hull shape. Then you need to be at the minimum weight and the whole thing has to be stiff. A lot of the speed is in the rig but most of all the sailor.


DIY is a compulsion...

Shane

This is at table of the hull half-widths in inches, stations are 12 inches apart. The bow is Station 0. Above the datum line the hull can be vertical sided, below the datum line, the hull is a semicircle with radius as in the table. Its basically a circular arc, formula of a circle is r^2 = x^2 +y^2
y = sqrt ( r^2 - y^2 ) - put this into a spreasheet and input R=1410 inches and you get this arc...

HULL WIDTH 13.50 INCHES TRANSOM WIDTH 10.96
STATION 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0.75 1.64 2.61 3.48 4.25 4.92 5.48 5.94 6.30 6.55 6.70 6.76 6.70 6.55 6.30 5.94 5.48

The bow will have a bulb of radius 0.75"

OK, no problem Shane. Good to hear you have the passion to go through with this. Know that space to build boats in Singapore is virtually non-existent since 90%+ of housing is apartments/flats.

There are a few boat owners who would be keen for any bid on their boats as some are no longer in the country, so thought cheap way to get the rest of the boat components.

But for build ideas, let me know if you want help as I have a few ideas of how to improve things. There are a few things that can be improved around the beams and boards which noone is really doing and quite hard to put into a production boat due to the tooling required, but can be utilised in a home build as you are doing everything from scratch.

Send me a PM if you want.

JC

Hi Shane
Unfortunately I don't work in inches, so the dim's for my single handed design are 300mm (12"approx) wide at the front beam, 295mm (11.75"approx) at the rear of the C/B case and 270mm (10.62"approx) at the transom.
The depth of the hull under the front beam is identical to both the Stealth, Auz Tool & Bimare AJ, roughly 460mm (18.25")

Thanks Mark,
Your single handed design is slightly narrower and with less height which is to be expected. I am about 90kg and with a crew of around 50-55 kg I would need the extra volume. So far I think I am in the ball park....

Shane

I have to ask, has anyone thought about flat bottom/hard chine?

I did think about hard chine because its so much easier to build but I dropped it because of the following reasons -

Advantages of hard chine
- easier to build
- tracks better
- chine probably resists leeway

Disadvantages
- more wetted surface area
- cross flow is obstructed by the chine. I believe there is slip which causes the water flow to be at a slight diagonal to the axis of the hull. In a rounded hull, this is not a problem but for a hard chine I think the boat has more drag in some situations.
- looks amateurish next to the rounded white plastic factory jobs

I don't think it will make the boat faster but I chose round hull because I think it looks cool and I want to try and build it.

Shane

Hard chines can look cool as well, if that is what is wanted. I dont know for sure how bad/well hard chine hulls will do compared to round hulls in real life.

Rolf,
what is the target weight for the each bare hull of your Blade? What size are your cross beams?

thanks
Shane

The target weight should be 23.5kg for each hull. We have not done a thorough calculation to try and predict our weight. One hull panel (one side of the hull) comes in around 8kgs on our scales. Add bulkheads, deck stringers, transom, decking, beam seats and eventual fittings.

Our beams will be 100mm in diam, carbon tube.

Thanks Rolf,
Thats something to strive for...but my calculations so far yield 25.5kg per hull... guess i have to thin the wood i will be using...myabe I will planedown the thickness at the bow and stern.

Carbons tubes are the ultimate!May I ask what weight of cloth you are using for the carbon beams and how many layers?
I assume you are going to bolt a traveller track onto the beam..

Shane

Carbon tubes becouse alu tubes was more expensive than carbon. Believe it or not.
416gsm uni and regular 0-90. 5 layers is the current plan but will be re-checked before we wet out the epoxy. Currently testing the process and setup by making glass tubes. Much cheaper to do that wrong.

Traveller track will probably be glued and bolted.

Rolf, on the beams, are you going to glue them to the hulls or drill and bolt them? I would think glue would be the best way to go but then you can't get them apart easily either.

And very illegal according the F16 class rules.

Well some day I might actually read all the rules...some day. ;^) I thought carbon beams were illegal as well? Or carbon anything?

Carbon is LEGAL, and I think if you wanted to, you could build the whole boat out of carbon if you'd like. At least, I think.


Mike

We are for sure going to bolt the beams to the hulls. Glued beams are somewhat impractical when it comes to long distance transportation and storage during winter.