New boat in Western Australia.

[Chris Lee]

Hi. Ben and I are building an i550 in Albany, Western Australia.
I have been a professional wooden boat builder for most of my life and Ben is a master of the racing fitout.
We had a look at the plans when they arrived and decided that the alterations we had planned for the deck meant that a full lofting would be a good idea. Our boat is open for the full length so the cockpit floor runs from the transom to the stem as do the seats or side decks [see photos]. This is to allow the use of a skiff type spinnaker chute and to save weight.
We also decided to build the boat in the normal way, ie. upside down starting with the bulkeads standing up and wrapping stringers and skin around them. Much more control over everything that way. Once the stringers were in we fitted the side deck so that we could fit some carbon struts from the chainplates to the compression post and also some tubes for through deck control lines [vang and cunningham only] before the sides went on. Then the bottom was glued on using steel that was lying around in the shop to keep it fair around the chine [see photo]
We have a web running full length of the boat on the centre line from the underside of the floor to the skin.
Ben did a lot of work on Autocad designing and drawing the new bulkheads and centre web for laser cutting. Top marks for him, it all went together perfectly!
The sides will go on this weekend.
Centreboard is made, hand shaped from Cedar with carbon uni. Rudder is a Cherub centreboard at this stage.
Rig is a carbon i14 mast and sails.
Cheers

[i550sailor@aol.com]

welcome to the fleet,,, your build looks good, always cool to see it done a little differently.

Cheers

[slowpoke]

Looks great, if I could do over again I'd definately biuld upside down like you are. Does she have a name yet?

[Chris Lee]

No name yet.
This is a photo of Ben's wonderful mast support. It weighed in at about 1.5kg, 6mm ply and carbon.
Because we are using a standard i14 rig including the spinnaker for club racing we have a prodder extension of about 2450mm. This means that the inboard end of the pole extends aft of the mast when stowed so we have built a mast support which has a hole for the pole to go through and brings the base of the mast up to the sheer line. Should give us plenty of lift with the kite up. Our normal summer bree2e is 20-25kts so it should be lively!

[Chris Lee]

Carbon struts from chainplates to mast support.

[Chris Lee]

After a long period of painting, trailer making, sanding, sanding etc we have finally turned her over. You can see more pics on our blog. http://albanyi550.blogspot.com.au

[Chris Lee]

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Hull # 541 is in the water at Albany WA.
Finished hull weight is 250kg.
We have only been out twice so far but she seems to be a good boat.
More photos and information soon.

[Marino]

Wow, that is one FANTASTIC LOOKING i550 and a DEADLY WEAPON aganist other competitors.

[i550sailor@aol.com]

Looks really good, I guess I never thought of an I14 rig/sails as a substitution. did you modify the I14 rig?,,,, What is the height of the boom from the cockpit floor?, looks like plenty of headroom.

[Chris Lee]

The only modifications we did to the rig was to build new cedar/carbon spreaders longer than the old ones and add a set of adjustable lowers just below the spreaders. Works a treat.
We do have an issue with a wildly oscillating centreboard at over 15 kts. It is about 250mm longer than the design shows so we have shortened it by that much with temporary blocks under the head of it and sanded a 45 degree shamfer on the aft edge to discourage vortex shedding. Hoping for enough wind to test it tomorrow. Will let you know how we go with it. Anyone else had similar problems??