building an electric catamaran

[vu360]

About five years ago, we came on this forum to look for recommendations on a buying boat, but after that we decided to go down the path of building a custom electric sailing catamaran.

There were no such boats at that time (not many today) and no big production boat companies that wanted to work with us. So it took a long time to complete (for many different reasons), but after 3 years development and over a year of living on board fulltime, we decided to share a bit about her.

https://youtu.be/V-2ZKOQdCi0

We've had people reach out to understand more about it. So we will share more in future videos about the systems on the boat for those that be interested in maybe converting their boats in future.

We are happy to find/create a boat that works for us.

[Clayfree]

Beautiful boat! Looking forward to future videos.

[Skippy5]

That is a beautiful boat and congratulations to the both of you for a successful build! I will look forward to sailing on such a boat some day. B&S

[harlem24]

According to this forum you are doomed to fail...
Looking forward to prove them wrong.

[Chotu]

Fellow builder building a very similar catamaran. She’s beautiful!

Can I ask a few questions about areas I’m struggling with?

1). What material are your salon in windows made from?

2) I notice some very nice Formica/Wilsonart laminate work. Is the tan color stuff all laminate? Such as the table, the areas around the table? What’s the core of these parts? What adhesive did you use for the laminate and how did you do the edge banding so perfectly?

Thank you!!!

I’ve been struggling with these details for months.

[mglonnro]

Amazing boat! Bravo, and may the winds be with you!

[vu360]

I guess I haven't read the forum too much. Helps not to listen to people that tell you are things are impossible. ;-)

[vu360]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Fellow builder building a very similar catamaran. She’s beautiful!

Can I ask a few questions about areas I’m struggling with?

1). What material are your salon in windows made from?

2) I notice some very nice Formica/Wilsonart laminate work. Is the tan color stuff all laminate? Such as the table, the areas around the table? What’s the core of these parts? What adhesive did you use for the laminate and how did you do the edge banding so perfectly?

Thank you!!!

I’ve been struggling with these details for months.

The boat is built like a race boat, there's not much isolation or materials on the hull. The bathroom for instance is only well finished surface on the hull and painted white. The material around the windows are lightweight marine plywood wrapped with easy-to-clean marine textiles.

All furniture is foam core with natural wood laminate and many surfaces as well. The advantage is it's super light, but the disadvantage is that it's not as durable, which means you may need to replace the materials more frequently. It was a trade-off we decide to go with for the speed advantage.

[scargo]

This is a beauty ! congratulations.
What is (roughly) the cost to build this type of cats in Croatia ? and why not Thailand, Vietnam or even Ukraine (like Ksenia Ksenia Yachts ) ?


Thanks

[BigBeakie]

Originally Posted by vu360

About five years ago, we came on this forum to look for recommendations on a buying boat, but after that we decided to go down the path of building a custom electric sailing catamaran.

There were no such boats at that time (not many today) and no big production boat companies that wanted to work with us. So it took a long time to complete (for many different reasons), but after 3 years development and over a year of living on board fulltime, we decided to share a bit about her.

https://youtu.be/V-2ZKOQdCi0

We've had people reach out to understand more about it. So we will share more in future videos about the systems on the boat for those that be interested in maybe converting their boats in future.

We are happy to find/create a boat that works for us.

We were in exactly the same position about the same time as you. Our's is still not launched due to "circumstances" and now Covid.

Congrats on your persistence and turning out such a beautiful Cat

[BigBeakie]

Chotu,

Fyi,

1. We use tinted toughened safety glass for all windows. The salon and cockpit windows are built by a fabricator with fully opening hoppers and frame is hard anondized aluminium. The side windows are same glass & make sure you get ceramic baked-on edges for adhesive bonding to be bedded into hull/ salon sides with Fixtech 190 adhesive.

2. Furniture built with 10 or 15mm foam with Wilsonart timber veneer. Water based contact adhesive (test it first! Some are poor strength)
Edge banding done with flush trim router.

Does that help?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by vu360

The boat is built like a race boat, there's not much isolation or materials on the hull. The bathroom for instance is only well finished surface on the hull and painted white. The material around the windows are lightweight marine plywood wrapped with easy-to-clean marine textiles.

All furniture is foam core with natural wood laminate and many surfaces as well. The advantage is it's super light, but the disadvantage is that it's not as durable, which means you may need to replace the materials more frequently. It was a trade-off we decide to go with for the speed advantage.

Thank you very much for the response.

Now I see why the wood looks so good around the settee table area. It IS wood.

I’m doing all foam core furniture also. I’m going for the “every pound (kg) counts” philosophy too.

Beautiful finish work.

And one more if I may? Is that glass in the salon windows? Polycarbonate? Acrylic? Been wrestling with that choice publicly on this forum.

Thanks again for the understanding of how you put together this beautiful finish work.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

Chotu,

Fyi,

1. We use tinted toughened safety glass for all windows. The salon and cockpit windows are built by a fabricator with fully opening hoppers and frame is hard anondized aluminium. The side windows are same glass & make sure you get ceramic baked-on edges for adhesive bonding to be bedded into hull/ salon sides with Fixtech 190 adhesive.

2. Furniture built with 10 or 15mm foam with Wilsonart timber veneer. Water based contact adhesive (test it first! Some are poor strength)
Edge banding done with flush trim router.

Does that help?

Yes! Thank you. I’m already building foam/Formica (Wilsonart) and have had to test out the various contact adhesives. I have found them to all work, but the solvent one is best, followed by a 3M water base, followed by the Weldwood water base.

The weldwood waterbase really surprised me. I followed the instructions to the letter. Then went to join them. Nothing. Absolutely zero stick. Like i put varnish on. So I set them aside as a failure.

2 days later I was showing my girlfriend the fit and when I touched them together, they felt sticky!

I put it in place and hit it with the j roller. It worked! It needed days to work.

[vu360]

Originally Posted by scargo

This is a beauty ! congratulations.
What is (roughly) the cost to build this type of cats in Croatia ? and why not Thailand, Vietnam or even Ukraine (like Ksenia Ksenia Yachts ) ?


Thanks

There's a lot of places in the world to build a boat. I think all the places you mention have good productions today, but it's just a question if you can find a boatyard you trust to build your boat with good engineering to make sure your boat meets a high certification bar and safety requirements. Knowing what I know today, I don't know if I would say I would do it again in Croatia, but the biggest advantage of building in Croatia is that you have access to most material as it's part of the EU. Labor cost is a little cheaper, but everything takes a lot longer and experts are hard to find.

If you are building a new one-off boat, then it's quite cost prohibitive. If you have professional molds done for everything, it will cost you from 300k-500k for a boat in the 45ft range. Now, if you imagine that a new 45ft production catamaran (FP, Lagoons, Leopards, Nautech, etc) range from 400k-800k euros and performance ones cost between 700k-1M (Outremer), then a one-off custom performance electric catamaran with a lot of carbon and about every option would cost a bit to build.

To be fair, we had a lot of frustration and a lot of risk along the way, but persistence and more money than we wanted to spend got us through it -- we now have something we love. You just got to be prepared for that.

My advice is don't build a custom boat. Find a sucker that went down that path and buy the boat from them. Less frustration and more enjoyment. Of course, might be hard to find. ;-P

[vu360]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

We were in exactly the same position about the same time as you. Our's is still not launched due to "circumstances" and now Covid.

Congrats on your persistence and turning out such a beautiful Cat

Thank you.

I did a lot of the electrical and interior design, but most of the construction and implementation was done by a boatyard we worked with. I am jealous you have the skill set to work on your own boat. You will know your boat at a much more intimate level than we do.

Hope to see you and your boat on the water sometime in the future!