XCR Progress

[Chris Ostlind]

I was down at the shop this afternoon with my son. We managed to get the first layer of glass on the mold form for the cockpit rim on the new sailing canoe.

This is turning out to be a rather fun method for building a cockpit rim. I used pink insulation foam for the straight runs on each side. Because the curves at the bow and stern ends are too tight for the pink foam material, I used 6 pound poured urethane foam to fill up a set of cavities that I built from scrap plastic sheeting and cardboard. The urethane foam was then sanded to a smooth transition with the pink foam.

The whole thing then got covered with a plastic release tape to which epoxy will not stick and the first layer of glass was put down. I'll be doing three layers of glass, then sanding smooth prior to laminating two layers of carbon for the final part.

 

[john hupfield]

Chris;Ah progress!
I see it is sharp at both ends and lacks outriggers.You have turned pure of heart at last.
I also see either an oil slick which puts me in mind of something or your fans were drooling so much that they left a puddle behind.
What is your weight factor in this boat and did you figure the displacement?
Look out.I'm building.
John

 

[Chris Ostlind]

The Big Boy

The XCR is a nice and long, 18'6" of LOA with a BOA of 35". It displaces 510 lbs. at a little over 4" of draft with a full displacement figure, when loaded for an expedition, of 750 lbs.

It sports twin rigs which total 110 sq. ft. of sail. With all regrets, I have not departed the dark side of my fragile love affair with multihulls. The XCR will be fitted-out with amas on both sides as well as trampolines between the amas and the canoe hull.

There will be a removable thwart slightly forward of midships so it can be sailed with one rig without moving the leeboard. The aka beams will pass through a pair of carbon tubes that mount in the raised cockpit coaming. These tubes will serve in place of standard thwarts to tie the hull topsides together as one integrated unit.

This should be a very fast and stable trimaran/canoe with full tripping and expedition potential. When equipped with a full spray cover, the boat will be able to take on fairly nasty conditions with a good deal of impunity.

I have had the canoe hull out for a paddle before it got the deck treatment and it is pretty fast, agile for such a big boat and nicely stable. I'm looking forward to how it performs with the full sail rig setup as planned.

There's just so much to discover with these boats.

So, tell me, John... what are you cooking-up in that mystery boat shed of yours?

Chris