I put a question out to the F-Boat list and received a number of good replies on the subject (one of them mentioning a lower-cost alternative that I had placed by the way-side because it wasn’t a big name). I received the following from Ian Farrier regarding my question… it’s nice to know that I’m worrying about, basically, nothing.. 🙂 The question of the day, however, is what properties are “good” for a boat?

Are we really going with West Systems?? Unless I find something that looks better, it might end up going that way. I still have some more research to do with MAS and System Three. Cost savings is HUGE for ordering a large quantity of resin and hardener (like almost a grand! that’s a nice sail right there). So I think we’re going to bite the bullet and get a bigass drum of epoxy and pump it out into smaller (5ish gal) containers to use.

Sent out a few e-mails this morning for price bids on large drums of West epoxy/hardener and CoreCell. Sent e-mail to a few “retail” mail-order places as well, just to see if they can come close to a few places that I’ve found, or if maybe the price comes down from less freight charges.

We’ve decided to use CoreCell brand foam for the boat construction. It was a very close (and difficult) debate between that and the less-expensive DivinyCell – both posessing amazing qualities with few bad points. From the research I’ve done, it appears that CoreCell is easier to thermo-form, has much better impact resistance (pdf) but seems to burn at a faster rate than others. Still unsure on the high-density insert material to use – CoreCell makes one, but it’s damned expensive (over $300 for a 3×6 sheet!

Ian’s plans are VERY detailed – seems he’s thought of just about everything. I must admit that after looking through the plans, I feel slightly overwhelmed – but on the other side of the spectrum, if they weren’t as detailed I’d most likely become overwhelmed while working on it. At least this way I know exactly what I’m getting into. Current plan is to construct the Daggerboard Case first, then move on to the bulkheads, rudder/dagger, CMM and beams and any other misc items.

Wow! Plans showed up with this morning’s mail! Talk about fast! I can’t wait to dig into them and start studying everything. Unfortunately, they’re still sitting in the package, as I had to run to my Advanced CAD class this afternoon, but I’ll have plenty of time tonight to go over everything.

Clicked the sibmit button a few minutes ago to order the F-82 plans. Waiting for dad to call me back so I can tell him that we’re officially screwed. 🙂

Looks like after a few months of research, pricing, debating and trying to figure out if we’re clinically insane enough for this (the verdict is yes, BTW) – dad and I have decided on building an F-82 Trimaran. I’ve managed, even in my almost-unemployed and poor-college-student status to save enough money to order the plans, which I’m likely to do in the next few days. The plan is to start building the “small” bits (bulkheads, beams, CMM’s, etc) in my apartment garage over the next period of time until I secure a big enough work area for the floats and main hull.