Welcome! Our weekly S/V Lynx videos will be about the building of our kit catamaran followed by the voyages of Captain Blood and crew as we sail our 50' performance Schionning Designs catamaran, S/V Lynx, around the world while visiting over 110 countries, territories, etc. The crew compliment will vary at times, though there will be some permanent crew on board as well. On the way, there will be videos about scuba diving, kite sailing, touring exotic shores, food, culture, and all kinds of different adventures.
Before that voyage can begin, join us as we share the buying our kit catamaran and building the boat ourselves. So, don't miss out on the fun, start from Kit Episode 1 and binge watch from the beginning of this adventure, and maybe, even join us on the voyage as crew! The videos of the adventures have already started and future episodes will come out weekly hereafter. So, hit the subscribe, like, and bell icon!
For those watching, I think finding a good “mud man” to do this for ya would be cost effective!!! Mud style body work is an art!! And those that can do it and “rip” thru it! Fast! As amateurs, we put it on light, use to soft grit to sand etc. it a skill!!! A trade! Might be good idea to find that guy to help FYI great work !!! Don’t want to downplay your work!!
Very informative, not as painful as I would have thought. Builders like schoining & grainger should open up their cost on there sites, so you can see it itemized like this for models! I would think this model is substantially more than the trimaran I’d love to attempt, and isn’t as far out of reach as I was guessing
I find fascinating that Phill gets the time to fully explain his thought process behind every aspect of this build and what he does to overcome the challenges and limitations faced by amateur boat builders. I think this adds tremendous value to the channel.
Probably a silly question, but just looking at the power lines in the street, have you checked that this huge boat can actually be transported to the water from there ? 🙂
I want to say this is a really interesting project. And my thoughts can be thrown in the garbage if you like. But sometimes it does struggle to hold my attention and the reason for that is you spend so much time explaining what's going on, approximately 25 minutes of this most recent video verses about 5 minutes showing the actual build occurring. Again an amazing project and I will continue to watch but I thought I'd offer my thoughts for you to do with as you will
Sorry about that, but we're kind of damned if we do and damned if we don't. The issue is simply that building a kit boat like this often involves slow and repetitive work. For example, this week, one day we just cut cloth for eight hours straight. Showing more than about 30 seconds of scissors cutting cloth would be boring beyond belief. Another day we just tabbed bulkheads all day. Again, showing us putting on epoxy and glass over and over, would be boring, so we show about a minute of that work. So to keep the video from just showing repetitive work we try to explain what we are doing, why we choose certain things, how we solve issues, and a little about our future plans. But, certain people aren't going to like us talking this much. Hence, we can't make everyone happy. But, our channel currently gets an average approval rating of 99.2%, so unless that drops (or until we get to more interesting work days) we'll just keep on going this way. We thank you for watching though, and hope we can get to more interesting boat building for you soon.
Chinese. We looked into a few different options for 48vdc A/C units, one in the US, one in Italy, and Chinese A/C units. The US was only cooling, not heat, so we ruled them out. They Italian system looked good, but cost an arm and a leg. We even looked into getting in on a group buy deal that sailing channel Dauntless mentioned. The issue there was that it was an American company playing middleman. The good part was, they took the risk and hassles of dealing with buying from China so you didn't have to do that. The bad news was, they have to make their profit as well, so the price was much more than buying direct from China. Since I have already had many dealings with China on other products and know the process, I decided to just order directly. That turned out to get me the best price, about 25% of the cost of buying from the US 'Dauntless' deal and even a better than Italian company price. Only time will tell if these savings were worth it, meaning how well they perform and last. I will report more on the performance as soon as we install them. If they seem to work well, I'll talk about where we got them on our videos and add contact links. Until then, I don't want to recommend them to anyone. On paper and looking over since receiving them, I will say that they look good so far. They are made for a marine environment and we hope they work out in use.
@@SailingSVLynx Yeah - I was part of that Dauntless deal as well. Until critical mass could not be reached. I’m curious if the units you have ordered will automatically cycle the water pumps on and off as needed. That’s a big part of the energy savings.
Hi again guys. I wondered how much care you were taking to protect your exposed epoxy surfaces from UV damage? I read recently that the Gougeon brothers said as little as 200 hours could start to do significant damage. Keep up the good work guys. You are rapidly getting to be my fav catamaran build channel. At 56 years old I feel I could face a build myself now after watching your progress
As much as we can. We use tarps over sections we aren't working on, but there is only so much we can do since the city won't let us put up any kind of tent.
Good to see you back to work full time, hope no I’ll effects from Covid. I’m sure your following the design but I would much rather cut the top of the bulkhead off in for the fore beam and not weaken the beam . Then you could have bonded the beam to the bulkhead with continuous over the top reinforcement. Fill in deck support part of bulkhead after. But Everything is so overbuilt that it won’t matter either way. I can see now why the final weight on the Schooning boats is so high. Cheers Warren
I'm not sure why you think the weight is high, compared to which cat? An HH50 OC is 2,000 pounds heavier. A Leopard 50 is 18,000 pounds heavier, both weigh more than our Solitaire 1520 (also a 50' boat).
Glad to hear you Phil and Brian are healthy and doing better! quick question/comment…For the fresh water tank areas, why no just getting those bilge areas glassed and properly sealed (make them the actual tanks) instead of inserting the tanks in them? Love the channel a how you guys explain everything!
Looking good! Hats off to you guys for being so diligent and dedicated to this project! It would appear you’ve got roughly 4 years left of build and commissioning at this rate, keep up the great work 💪🏼👍
@@SailingSVLynx hope so! I’m just estimating based on how long our boat took from when it was in the same spot. I’m guessing this is why you stopped doing progress vs timeline updates in your videos, but all good part of the fun is the experience of building it yourself and knowing you are doing it right 👍🏻
@@kirkb3473 Not in the slightest. I stopped because it was taking too much of my time to track every hour of everyone's time. You imply I'm trying to hide something.
@@SailingSVLynx no sir, not at all. You guys had made a video contest about your finish date is all & that’s great that you’re saying you are still on target to finish next year. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
@@kirkb3473 Hey Kirk. No, we haven't really said we are still on target. Last that I reported, we figured we were behind by a few months and decided to re-evaluate where we are this coming October or November. If we have the outer shell completed by then (that's the goal), then we think we can better estimate the rest. Still, even then, it's all an estimate by people who have not built this size boat before. In the end, it will be done when it's done. Remember the original estimates were based on how many man hours Schionning thinks it takes to build one of these kits. But maybe we're not as efficient as they expect.
Happy to see you have lots of air cond. For me its #1 on a boat , its what makes any boat sleepable, otherwise the humidity makes you miserable, theres nothing worse than taking a shower only to start sweating like your in a steam sauna . Great job and planning .
Always a joy to see your project developing, though I'm heading to have built my boat by a boat yard and one size smaller. I wonder why one shouldn't fill those fully sealed flotation compartments with something like table tennis balls. They would keep up most of the buoyancy in case of an leak and are not annoying during the repair. Their weight is neglectable.
Let's see... .095 oz per table tennis ball, about 535 balls fit in a cubic foot. Just one compartment watertight compartment in the bow is 27 cubic feet, so, ((.095 oz x 535) x 27)/16 = 87.767 lbs, It's a catamaran, so one of those compartments in each hull, so times two equals about 176 lbs. But, there are far more watertight compartments... so you can see where this is going. Filling them all with table tennis balls would add hundreds of pounds to a catamaran that must be kept light.
Balsa is another option, (other woods would be way too heavy for a performance/cruising catamaran). Balsa comes out to about the same weight as the foam. It has it's advantages and disadvantages. But we like foam because it is less likely to rot if water gets past the fiberglass. Of course, built properly, that won't happen. But there were other reasons we liked the foam, the panels were much larger which meant there were far fewer seams we had to glue together.
Hi, great work going on. That wrinkly look on when you lay the laminated side board down on the polyethylene film might come out better if you used Mylar film as it does,not absorbed the resin and wrinkle . (or apply a strip before fliping). Keep up the good work. This is a heck of a documentary ! Cheers warren
If we cared about the looks of those boards, we might have done that. :) But, these are sealed up inside the bridgedeck, never to be seen again. As long as the strength is there, we're good to go. But, if we do something else like these boards that will be visible, we'll consider your suggestion, so thanks!
Hi , fyi the other very important reason you use the peel ply is with west epoxy and other older epoxy formulations is the 'Amine' blush that comes to the surface that would have to be removed before and more lamination. If you use their UV stable hardened it does not have this issue. Its a shame the west epoxy six-10 caulk tubes with mixers are so expensive or they would make life,easier ! Cheers warren
@@Cheers_Warren That's cool, good to know! And thanks for posting to help others. Also, we don't know everything (far from it) so keep posting suggestions, they might help us in the future!
Thanks for the suggestion, but we have already tried too many different types of cutting devices and have had the most success using a good set of fabric scissors.
Thanks, we like the boat too! Due to the deal we negotiated with Schionning Designs we aren't allowed to share our specific kit cost publicly. All total though, the boat is projected to cost us $550,000, ready to sail around the world (that's with everything we're putting on the boat). But, you could probably build her yourself for about $500,000 or have her built for around $800,000 by professionals. To get a specific cost for the kit, just drop Schionning an email request and they will send you a current quote. If you want to see a specific cost breakdown of everything we are putting on this boat, we do share that with our patrons on our website.
You and your wife are very hardworking and amazing people but I just want to do a shout out for Brian who diligently and quietly gets on with whatever he is doing. He surely will be one of the best people to share your future adventures around the world with. All three of you are needed for this project to work well and I am so excited for you all. No doubt at some stage you will be able to raft up with Kev who is building Salt and Light (maybe in Japanese waters) and it will be interesting to hear all your thoughts as to what has worked well and what you would have changed if you were doing the build again. Great videos ...very inspiring. Although I won't be building a boat I hope one day to return to my teenage years and get boating around Holland and the North Sea 👍🏻
Kevin and I talk all the time and will be meeting up, though more likely in Australia than Japan :) As for boating around Holland and the North Sea, perhaps we'll see you there as we plan to sail up north in that part of the world eventually.
@SailingSVLynx if I recall you used to sail around there when you were younger. It would be great to hear the backstory one day. Yes Kevin is an amazing fellow and I really like to follow his building journey as I do yours. It would be great to meet up in Holland some time in the future. Let's all keep our fingers crossed 🤞
I remember a little bird saying... he was going to resist the temptation of adding more weight..😅 just saying.. seriously keep up the good work, your doing an awesome job...
Over all, I've actually reduced weight on the original design. Mostly this is due to the hybrid engine system and changing to synthetic rigging, but I also reduced weight in the hull design with our basalt cloth replacement (approved by Schionning).
@SailingSVLynx yes you have, there is always a critic, I have missed the last few weeks, working on my own boat, it never ends even when it's in the water, however we are truly blessed to live boat life 🙏
Great work guys - can't wait to see this epic assembly come together! I know it sucks to be stuck in bed when you have a million things you'd rather be doing - glad it wasn't for too long! 😉
keep fighting the good fight. being sick sucks. Brian needs to get well we are getting thirsty! all jokes aside, Wishing Brian and yourself good health!
Sorry to hear you caught Covid - apparently there is a lot of it about. Apparently the route of transmission is different this time - it’s through the right ear and a small mask over the right ear will help.😉
Sorry to hear that you both got sick! You got over it surprisingly quickly. Hope Brian is doing okay! Those bus bars are quite beefy! Looking forward to seeing the electrical installation. How does one protect galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals in electrical systems? Is something like tefgel (not sure if I spelt that correctly) commonly used in electrical installations to mitigate the corrosion?
just beware an oxide layer on the Aluminium may cause issues its an insulator, so electrical connections to it may be unreliable, also drawing 600+ amps will cause alot of heat!
We will use an anti-oxidizing compound as well as tinned connectors to attach wires to the bus bar ends which are accessible to us so we can clean them in the future if needed. As for heat, we calculated this and at the size and length of the two bus bars, they shouldn't get too hot with that load, especially since the max load won't go for more than 30 seconds. The bus bar measurements are 10' x 3" x 05", 6101 aluminum, two bars (in case anyone wants to do your own calculations to check ours). Amp draw is max. 580 for short duration, 300 for continuous.
Don't forget to rub all parts down with acetone whenever dealing with peel ply. It has a wax coating so it peels!!! Peel - sand for key - then Acetone - then glue. Don't take my word for it - ask the OEM.
We don't use acetone on anything as it eats epoxy. We did early on, but kept getting pitting in any exposed epoxy, so we switched to using 99% alcohol, which has been working fine.
I am so inspired by your journey. Thank you for showing that this is possible. I hope to follow in your footsteps someday!! Watching from Buffalo, NY!!
Thanks for watching, and follow your dreams! We hope to visit Buffalo on the boat one day. The Admiral comes from there originally. Maybe we'll see you then!
Great work - no need to try and justify your choice - you have found your perfect balance between performance, comfort and price and all things considered it appears the MOST logical to anyone comparing.
Are you concerned about the temporary table flexing when you come to add the coves as I imagine you will need to be walking on the tables? I noticed some flex when you leaned on the table at the start of the video. Maybe additional support under the tables is required.
@@1littlelee I do, but 3D printing still costs in materials. Example, to print a set of the same angle clamps as I purchased from Amazon at $15.00 for eight (including the hardware), just the printable part would cost me about $10 each in materials on a Markforged printer, so $80.00 for the set of eight. 3D printing is excellent for one off parts, or prototyping, or creating a part shape that is very difficult to make any other way. But, for something that can be vacuum formed, once you have the molds, a plastic part can be vacuum formed for pennies.
Great work as usual! Seems like many of those bridge deck webs could have been longer pieces with slots to inter-lock/self locate - a suggestion for Schionning perhaps. I like your plan for the dummy coves - very smart. Flipping that monster will be quite a challenge though! Will you enlist the help of Mr Bobcat again?
No need for the Bobcat, and, it can no longer fit under the boat, so it's work is pretty much done for the rest of the build. We'll just use enough people, six to eight should do it easily. Brian and I have already picked up 1/3 section of it by ourselves and it wasn't even very heavy. Now, it's going to get heavier as we put on the dummy coves, but it won't be too bad.
@@1dandandy1 They are working out fine. The webbing is coming together swiftly, though there is a slower portion about to hit when we start on the mast support area.
