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Connemara Catamarans
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Hull Bulkheads
Spring 2005 and I was joined by my old schoolfriend Jonty for the seasons work. In our climate a reasonable working year is April - October though have to keep a carefull eye on temperature and humidity towards the end.
The first job was to flip the two hulls and build a jig to hold them in place. This was difficult enough with the two of us but possible with the application of assorted pulley systems and levering planks. Leveling the hulls out was more difficult as because with the pannels not being perfect a line across the sheer was not as horizontal as it should have been. On reflection should have marked the Datum line clearly and permanently on all pannels.
The process of making and fitting bulkheads was largly straightforeward. I made the pannels on the table, usually using vacuum bagging rather than infusion because I found it almost twice as fast. Fortunately I had marked all the stations along the hull pannels so positioning bulkheads was OK. When we came to the main cockpit/saloon bulkhead discovered that the polytunnel was too low (I did work it out when constructing the polytunnel but the boat seems to have grown !) so after much consifderation we deceided to sink the boat by 30cm - the advantages of an earthen floor.
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Home Design Model Workshop and Table Infusion Assembling Hulls Hull Bulkheads Bridgedeck Floor Superstructure Completing shell Interior Cost and Time Estimates Suppliers LInks
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The hulls in place. We used a water level (coloured water in a hose pipe) to level up all four corners.
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Fitting stringers for the bow compartment floor. We are making this lower compartment into s sealed tank with inspection hatch.
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Digging the trench. Note that it is always Jonty that is doing the work while I manage and supervise !
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Sliding the hulls back into place was scary, one slip could have punctured the polythene and the hulls were just on the heavy side for two of us.
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We made these two temporary crossbeams to hold things level and in place. The blue cloth is to make them visible enough so that my girlfriend would not walk into them - it didnt work.
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