Frames plastic surgery

After reading was has been recently discussed in the forums and consulting with some fellow builders (thanks to Ben, Tim, Tom, Kevin, Jeff..), İ decided to do some important changes on 2 frames.

First frame 89 was beef up, but İ mean "seriously" reinforced :

1-İ doubled it up, which means the whole frame is now 1/2 inch instead of the 1/4 the plans called for.

2-İ redrew the upper arch to 2 full inches instead of the 1 inch specified in the plans

3-İ reinforced it further adding another strip of plywood going all around the arch until right below the lightening holes. İn other words, the top arch is now made of 3 layers of 1/4 plywood....

That should be strong enough to widsthand any load on the mast /compression post.

Second, İ did aesthetical surgery on F124 and did what other long cockpit builders did : İ widened the cockpit area at the cabin entrance.

The original drawing called for a very curvy cockpit getting closer to the cabin area. İ personally believed that a widened cockpit up front was a better solution for looks as well as for crew placement and since this is a homebuild project, İ took the risk to alter what İ believe could be eventually improved.

So basically İ left the upper sides of F124 with exactly the same dimension as F169,5, that is 16,64 inches and reinforce it to compensate the "hole" that was left over. İndeed, cutting frame 124 leaves the side panel very loose, flimsy and unsecure because you end up running into thin air when cutting trough the bunk's cuttout. İ did not have enough plywood panels left and frankly, was kind of lazy to recut the whole frame. So İ opted for reinforcing the frame and for that matter İ did exactly what Tford did on his boat. Compare pictures and you'll see what İ mean. Tford, you be proud that your solutions are replicating throughout the boatbuilding community. İ owe you that one ! Good for a beer if we end up sailling together !

A minor tweak İ added to Tford solution is that instead of laminating together a 2x 1/4" reinforcement and then epoxy it to the frame, İ added one reinforcement on each side of F124 and laminating the whole thing all together like a sandwich around the original frame.

The result was good and seemed to be very strong.