John D.
John has been a long time friend, starting from rock climbing. Then John and Debbie (John's wife) were our roomates for awhile. John has been active on the Pyrotechnic crew and has a lot of show's under his belt. While researching the boat project, John found the project to be very interesting, he started to research what would work for Debbie and himself. They came to the conclustion that they would like to build a Catamaran sometime in the future. They will both be helping for the America Japan Crossing Project in the hope that they will learn the skills of boat building and enjoy the hard leasons learned. John will be keeping a log of thoughts and lessons as we move thought the project.

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TRIMARAN CONSTRUCTION:

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2003-01-26,27
Lay-up of the foam went well up until reaching the offset or taper of the keel line toward the transom due to the decreasing radius at the transom. (The bow was not an issue because of relative flatness.)
While sizing templates were used to calculate the width of foam stripping to use at the key stations--the angle at which the strips run up into the transom section from the "key" strip posed an issue. Full-length strips that conformed to the mold toward aft center would not bend to the tight radius at stern. This was to be expected to some degree and was compensated by stepping down in strip width. That however posed another difficulty despite step-downs being figured into the lay-up drawing. When it came down to it--narrower pieces that on paper added to the width of the wider joint did not always match well and took some adaptation.
The joint stagger on the 6# foam was good and met criteria with very little waste. The 5# foam ran into issues again toward aft with to many joints clustered together while simultaneously struggling with the twist caused by the decreasing radius and also dealing with the step down of two or three strips to one. This caused bulge out that will be difficult to bond and keep fair. (Paying close attention to shoring up these points will be required to reduce the amount of fairing required after glassing.)
Bonding one line at a time and allowing to set may be the answer. Also, moving the joins in the 5# further apart in the next hull should help alleviate some of the fitment problems at step-down joins.

Lessons Learned:
All in all it went very well if not slower than expected (especially at the aft). I believe that once past the major part of the learning curve (always something to learn) that the third and fourth ama half will go together in half the time. Move or stagger other joins further away from step-down joins or areas of twist and start step-downs sooner so to not be affected by twist due to decreasing radius toward stern. Despite detailed planning which is a must-Intuition and adaptation plays a major role in success. Planning reduces waste, Adaptation produces a fair hull.