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.
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!
Sure looks good, glad y’all are making so much progress! That bridge deck will really be a milestone in your build journey! Y’all have come a long way!
for your "conduit" for the controls look at plastic rain gutter downspout it rectangular not round and easier to tab in to the bulkheads as it go's through
Running several small conduits is far easier to run cable through than one big. As the cables tend to stop each other when many run alongside eachother.
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.
A lot more time open water sailing and less time on the hook. You mean, you just stop for reprovisioning and then sail away as quickly as possible? That would be regatta sailing! Circumnavigation is exactly the opposit: a lot more time on the hook and only what is necessary open water sailing. The reason to choose a more performant boat ist to have the ability to outrun bad weather and not having to wait for a larger weather window.
If we spent 8 years in the Caribbean, we would spend a lot more time on the hook vs 8 years sailing around the planet. There is just a lot more open water sailing in a circumnavigation. But, that doesn't mean we're trying to re-enact the book, Around the World in Eight Days! We'll still take the time to pause and smell the roses, so to speak. We didn't really go into the reasons for choosing a performance boat, but yes, we agree, which is why we did choose a boat with decent performance.
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 think you guys are being too conservative on the estimate of a Schionning performance wise :) It'll be faster than the Outremer and Seawind (given same / similar rigging and sailor ability). It'll do 15 knots + on a beam or broad reach in 15 knots of wind. I get you not wanting to smash the boat, and enjoy a comfortable cruise, but in a bit of swell (such as those trade wind zones of 20-25 knots) it can be more comfortable to match or near match the swell speed, and perfectly safe. In 20 knots just put in a reef, put a bit of board down to ease the pressure on the rudders and auto-pilot, and do 18 knots :) Unless going to windward of course. I think you did a good job with the graphs to make your point, you spoke about but didn't graph it, the Schionning wins easily when you put a price or value rating on a graph axis!
We aren't building a G-Force, (or even one of the other Schionning Designs). Those boats are that fast. Our numbers aren't a guess, the first Solitaire 1490 is in the water and sending us real-world data on performance. And since our hulls and many other elements of the boat are almost identical to the 1490, our performance will be very similar. They sail at 2/3 of wind speed on a good point of sail. Now, that's with standard jib and main, so we might eek out a bit more speed with more sail up, but even the designers at Schionning claim a top speed for the 1520 of 18 knots if you don't have a rotating mast, and we don't. Besides, it's best to be conservative in these kinds of comparisons, especially since we are doing so only using SA/D ratios. In the real world, the order of performance on that list is going to change somewhat, as we mentioned.
Just curious if you’ve had the opportunity to actually step aboard any of the catamarans you are comparing in your comfort graph or is this just from looking at videos on the internet? Totally understand it’s a subjective opinion, but if you’d stepped foot aboard an HH50 you’d quickly realize it’s only got 48’ of waterline and 24’ of beam, it’s got much less volume than the Solitaire, and you could fit one inside the hulls of a balance 526. It would be great timing for you guys to visit the Annapolis boat show as you can see all of these boats in person and get some good ideas for your build as you wrap it up in the next year.
We do plan to visit Annapolis for the boat show. And, you're right, no doubt some of these cats in our list will move around some on the list (as we mentioned).
Bravo. Good work. Very informative. You make it look easy and we all know it is not! Must be stressful sometimes. It will be the perfect home. Who will be le chef (cook) when chartering?
Thanks, it is work, but work we enjoy. We don't plan to charter the boat, we're going to sail her around the world, hopefully with a lot of guests on board (some of them may be our Patrons, but certainly everyone who helped build the boat!). But, to your question... everyone on board! The Admiral is a great cook, but she's the Admiral, so I'll be doing some of the cooking, as will anyone who joins us for the voyage. We'll take turns.
Greetings from Perth Australia, you are making amazing progress. When I first saw your channel I thought you’d never meet your timelines, but I’m a believer now. BTW do you follow life on the hulls?
Yes, we do follow them! And pretty much any cat building channel (and some monos as well). As for our timeline, we originally had a six month contingency in case we went longer than planned and we are well into that now. So, we'll see, she will be done when she's done. But, we're happy with progress. Remember, our original estimates were based on what Schionning said it takes in man-hours, but as first time builders we knew it would take longer. How much longer? Well, that was a guess by us, those same people who haven't built a boat this size before. So... she'll get done when she's done, but we'll keep plugging along until that day!
Your plan to remove the grid structure and flip it over, has that method been done before? Seems like at that stage the grid may not be able to support its own weight while being lifted, moved and flipped. When the grid has its top and bottom surface glued on it will be very rigid and strong but before that possibly vulnerable to failure? Hopping it goes well👍
No, to my knowledge, it hasn't been done before. However, as always, when I come up with something not in the plans, I pass it through Schionning first. They thought it was a good idea. It also cuts off a couple of weeks of work! Now, as to strength. After tacking some of the web sections together, we had to move them to make room on the side to work on the WRC crossbeams. For that, we had to lift and move the grid. It was very rigid already and we still have more to strength to add when we create the dummy coves, so we're not concerned.
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.
@@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.
@@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.
