Cold Moulded Boats Illustrated Guide

[Steadman Uhlich]

Illustrated Guide to Cold Moulded Boats.

My Goal?
I hope this thread will serve to educate and stimulate discussion and knowledge about this form of boat construction. And, I hope you will enjoy learning about these boats as I have.

Content or Focus?
In this thread I will post photos and descriptions of boats I find that are Cold Moulded (CM). This may take some months, so this will be an "ongoing thread" or evergreen discussion that will contain examples of boats, links to information about the CM process, opinions from owners of CM boats, photos of CM boats I find and generally anything about CM boats. CM boats are relatively rare, so you may see this thread get lost in the archives for a while, then pop up again when I find a new CM boat to display in this exhibition. I will continue to post what I find as I find it.

My POV?
I am not an expert on CM building. I am simply fascinated by it, and consider it interesting as a method of boat building. That is my personal view, and one reason why I would own a CM boat. I encourage any CF members who own a CM boat to address the likely technical questions, and I will defer to their knowledge on technical issues. Consider me a guide or curator of the exhibition.

Share Your Experience!
I encourage any CF members to participate and to contribute to this thread. Feel free to post your own finds, your own CM boats (photos please), your own anecdotes about your experience with CM boats, or anything you find interesting about CM boats.

Boats for Sale are for Illustrative Purposes
Occasionally I will post photos and a link to a boat that is listed (at the time posted) for sale, but I have no financial connection to that boat or any boat or seller. I use these photos and descriptions because they are accessible and pertinent. I am not selling these boats. I am merely sharing information about boats I find and I post the link to help others here on CF who may be looking for a boat like the ones I find. I hope it helps others, that is my primary reason for doing it (and because I don't have time to answer requests for links to where I found the photos or boats). I do hope if someone does buy one of these boats, that they will then post some photos of it sailing or tell us about it. Just remember I am not an expert on these and as I always say: "Caveat Emptor."

Why Subscribe to This Thread?
I hope you enjoy this thread and if you do, subscribe to it so you will see the boats I post over time. It is simple to subscribe to a thread, you simply use the drop down Thread Tools menu or simply post a comment in the thread and you will be automatically subscribed.

I mention this because this thread may only see sporadic posting due to the more rare nature of the topic boats.

And as I have learned while looking for relatively rare boats, if one is in the market for a rare boat, it is smart to be notified and aware of newly listed boats as soon as possible. The best opportunities go fast, and I have missed more than a few.

Fair winds to all!
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[Steadman Uhlich]

A Quick Introduction to Cold Moulding a Boat

The following link is the best example I have seen to quickly introduce you to the process of building a CM boat. I encourage you all to view the site via the link to learn or just to see another boat build. Pictures tell the story better than I could.

Nigel Irens 50' schooner
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If you are interested in wooden boat building techniques like Cold Moulded (CM) boats and would like to see a recent build, then follow the link to see MANY photos showing the entire build process as this Cold Moulded schooner takes shape. The photos show the CM process very clearly, and also show the casting of the lead keel ballast and the fabrication of the Carbon Fiber masts too. All together, it is a fascinating picture story of how this boat went from concept to design (plans) to finished boat in the water. I enjoyed seeing it and I hope you will too.

This blog post is lengthy but has many photos, good captions, and good descriptions of the entire process. It is one the better descriptive pages I have seen for a boat build, and exemplary for detail and easy viewing as simply scrolling down the long page is a quick way to see the entire process from plans to splash.

Nigel Irens 50' schooner
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Here are some excerpts from that linked site:

Fusion Schooner 50’

Actual march 2015

Design : Nigel Irens

Cruising sailing boat

Hull type : long keel/centerboard

Rigging type : schooner gaff rig

LOA : 14.97 meter

Beam : 4.2 meter

Draft : 1.68 meter ( 3.2meter centerboard down)

Displ. : 21 metric ton

Excerpt:
"As per Lloyd’s regulation hull will be 40mm thickness, in strip-planking/cold molded epoxy, with yellow meranti for the strip and two layer in diagonal of Philippine mahogany wood (red dark Luan) kiln dry, all the hull is completely encapsulated with bi-directional fiberglass, we use local epoxy type PRC#7 who was formulated by the U.S. Navy many years ago when they still had bases in the Philippines."

[Delancey]

Unlike a lot of other boat building materials, wood really does grow on trees and when sourced from sustainably managed forests, it can be an environmentally responsible material. If you can keep it dry it can have excellent stiffness to weight ratios and also has very high cyclic fatigue resistance.

I would like to see the topic expanded from just cold-molding to the umbrella term of "wood composite construction" which would include strip plank and tortured plywood as well since these techniques have many virtues onto themselves and sometimes form sub-structure for additional veneer laminations more normally associated with cold molding.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Unlike a lot of other boat building materials, wood really does grow on trees and when sourced from sustainably managed forests, it can be an environmentally responsible material. If you can keep it dry it can have excellent stiffness to weight ratios and also has very high cyclic fatigue resistance.

I would like to see the topic expanded from just cold-molding to the umbrella term of "wood composite construction" which would include strip plank and tortured plywood as well since these techniques have many virtues onto themselves and sometimes form sub-structure for additional veneer laminations more normally associated with cold molding.

I won't mind if you or others include posts here about strip plank or other forms.


I chose the term "Cold Moulded" because it is broad but also commonly used term and more likely to be recognized by the more general audience here. If I titled it "wood composite" I am afraid some would think it is more about a particular material or product (like wood putty) rather than the process and the resulting boats. That is my concern or how I see it.

Again, feel free to post about other subsets of building techniques. Or if that is not suitable for you, start a new thread. . I had thought of simply calling this "Wood Boats" but then I am sure that would catch flak from people who only look to traditional methods and do not accept epoxy or composites as "real wood." I hope you understand.

[Delancey]

Well, to get things started let's first take a look at the historical context. Prior to the advent of room temperature setting adhesives like epoxy in the fifties, the only way you could produce a laminated wood monocoque boat was to "hot mold" using phenolic adhesives in a technique that was first developed for the aircraft industry.

Easier said than done since you needed to have an autoclave big enough for your boat was well as an organized way to hold the veneer in place prior to laminating. Room temperature setting adhesives like epoxy made life a lot easier by eliminating the need for the autoclave as well as the need to lay up the boat in one shot.

Additionally, the use of epoxy brought along with it several nice perks. Being highly water and chemical resistant, epoxy is well suited for encapsulation of wood which means by depriving wood of water and oxygen it will not rot. Better still, by keeping it dry you allow it to retain it's maximum stiffness. A highly sought after quality for a boat building material.

Here is a photo of a "hot molded" boat ready to go into an autoclave-

[Delancey]

Most are familiar with their products. They also pretty much wrote the book on cold molding. Enjoy,

The Gougeon Brothers On Boat Construction .pdf
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/...k%20061205.pdf

[Steadman Uhlich]

DELANCEY,
Thanks for posting the Autoclave photo and description and the Gougeon Brothers ("G Bros") Epoxy Book or "WEST Sytem" bible. Good additions to this thread.

[RidgeRunner]

The Ron Holland designed Golden Dazy. One of the early Gougeon Brothers projects that put them on the map. Winner, 1975 Canada Cup. She was "retired" to Lake Champlain and raced hard for 20 years, totally dominating the very competitive local phrf fleet.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by RidgeRunner

The Ron Holland designed Golden Dazy. One of the early Gougeon Brothers projects that put them on the map. Winner, 1975 Canada Cup. She was "retired" to Lake Champlain and raced hard for 20 years, totally dominating the very competitive local phrf fleet.

Cool!
Thanks for posting the photo and description.

[minaret]

Best cold molded boats out there today:


Jespersen Boat Builders / Custom Wooden Boats / Eric Jespersen /Boat Repairs Sidney BC




I seriously considered buying this one once:


http://www.jespersenboats.com/magic.html



Some great pics of the construction process there.




http://www.jespersenboats.com/jakatan.html




Newer Perry design.

[smj]

I may be wrong, but isn't the schooner designed by Nigel Irens a combination of strip planking with two layers of wood cold molded on top? Or would that still be considered a cold molded boat?

[Jim Cate]

Steady,if you won't let strip planked boats play, then I'm gonna take the football and go home. And, as SMJ points out above, the schooner that you are so hot for has just about as much strip planking as cold moulding in her hull.

As the happy owner of a strip planked boat, my prejudiced point of view is that SP may be superior in some hull shapes, but harder to force into others. For example, there are sorta hollow sections in our bow, just aft of the stem... a design feature that Jon Sayer used in a lot of his boats. Gary Macaulay, the shipwright who built Insatiable II said that forcing the 25x25 mm strakes into that shape was really difficult. That situation might be easier to form in cold mould, due to t he thinner veneers... but i'm no shipwright and can't back that up with experience!

They are both wonderful ways to build a hull!

Jim

[daletournier]

I was anchored next to that schooner two weeks ago. Not my sort of boat but it definitely is lovely and has a presence.

Sent from my vivo Y35 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Steady,if you won't let strip planked boats play, then I'm gonna take the football and go home. And, as SMJ points out above, the schooner that you are so hot for has just about as much strip planking as cold moulding in her hull.

As the happy owner of a strip planked boat, my prejudiced point of view is that SP may be superior in some hull shapes, but harder to force into others. For example, there are sorta hollow sections in our bow, just aft of the stem... a design feature that Jon Sayer used in a lot of his boats. Gary Macaulay, the shipwright who built Insatiable II said that forcing the 25x25 mm strakes into that shape was really difficult. That situation might be easier to form in cold mould, due to t he thinner veneers... but i'm no shipwright and can't back that up with experience!

They are both wonderful ways to build a hull!

Jim

I wrote in an earlier response to DELANCEY that I see no problem with including discussions about other methods that are similar or used in conjunction with Cold Moulding. Strip planked boats are nice and I have admired them too.

As I responded earlier (did you read that?), I had to pick a title for this thread and I picked one that I think will be broad enough to include the wood composite building methods, which can share some methods and materials, but can have differences in technique and some materials use.

As I wrote earlier, I think both can be discussed in this thread. So, you can play or not, that is up to you.

Or if you feel that you want to start a thread only about Strip Planked boats because you think they are too different from a Cold Moulded category and another about Carvel Planked boats, go right ahead.

But, I was hoping you would contribute to this thread in a positive way, because you have a lot of experience sailing on a boat which I think fits within this discussion topic.

That's how I see it.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Love her rig. That boomless middle sail really seems to add to her sail area a lot more than would a boomed one. It's very much like those seen on some Wharram designs, such as his Tiki 38'.

On her construction, it's pretty common to have horizontal strips incorporated into a cold molded boat. As it's a quick way to add a lot of wood to her without needing another 3-5 layers of veneers, & concomittantly requiring the insertion & removal of several million more staples. It's also a better way to do things from the perspective of needing a lot less epoxy. Which of course also reduces costs, along with the less layers & staples thing.

I'm certain that we'll never know the true cost of building this boat, but I'm still curious. Ditto on wondering why she has so few berths, & how this works for passage making? Regardless, I want one!

Edit: Jim, I'm sure those hollows aid in keeping I2's decks a bit drier, & her ride a touch smoother


PS: For those interested, there's a lot of discussion, & information on these topics & more at www.boatdesign.net/forums