I'm 27 years old and building a 52ft catamaran in my backyard with no plans "The Vaka Meraki"

G'day guys, Just thought I would introduce myself and my project "The Vaka Meraki"My name is Josh Peaker, I'm 27 years old and I am Building a 52ft Polynesian Double canoe in my backyard. My youtube video explains a bit better how I am doing this but I'll give you a quick run down here as well.

I have designed the build to be symmetrical front and back with the exception of the 2 metre bow section and the 2metre stern section.
this allows me to make a mold for only quarter of the hull and a bow and stern mold. So in real time I am quite a bit through making the molds for this boat, and i am no considering a vacuum infusion process to lay up the hulls I will add some photos of the build so far but the easiest way to track the build is on youtube.
I started the plug by making MDF bulkheads and sheets them with 3mm MDF sheets with melamine, I wouldn't recommend this as the 3mm MDF was very unstable with different temperatures, if I was to do it again I would use plywood. After sheeting it the joins needed glassing, fairing and painting. The joins were then vinyl wrapped to seal them even further and the whole plug was waxed 5 times. The gelcoat was applied then a 300g CSM mat was applied with vinylester resin to better cope with stretching and expanding then further layers were done in polyester resin. That kind of bring this project very very briefly up to scratch in real-time but as I said previously the youtube vids do it more justice. Just thought id put the project out for anyone that may be interested in following along. You can also tag along on facebook - https://www.facebook.com/The-Vaka-Meraki-111662026867991/Cheers guys

cool, sounds like a great project! Best of luck with it all.

Great endeavor right there Josh. Not trying to make a meal of it but as a duty of care wondered who the qualified, certified and suitably experienced naval architect was that you have tasked to design the structure and all the scantlings, including all structural drawings and associated design verification analysis reports, so that you could build to that and potentially insure the vessel? That is it is one consideration to design it and build it yourself, but a completely separate situation to have the whole hull and rig designed and built to suitable structural drawings, which would be approved by a classification society such as ABS, Lloyds or DNV. Maybe this is you.

Select to expand quote

kiter01 said..
The layout of the text has changed when I clicked Post, So I apologize If it is hard to read. Also just to confirm this is just the Male plug to create a Female Fibreglass mold, I know mdf is not a boat building material but the mdf is all sacrificial, there will be absolutely no timber in the completed hulls at all. Also here is a picture of the Canoe I got my inspiration from

why not, but that will cost you an arm and a leg. Why not use 4 mm ply and glass it in rather? Yeah, that means you have to do it twice, but still would save you thousands for that size in glass and resin.

Big project K1. Good on ya. Keep it going bud. Look forward to seeing updates.

Select to expand quote

stupid said..
I,m sitting on someone's idea of what they wanted in a boat as I write this.
don,t let anyone slow you down , aim for lots of small goals to accomplish a larger outcome so you feel good when you reach"a stage". Never give up . If you hit a wall, find a way around it.
power to you. Should be more people having a go .

I agree, too many wet blankets here ,it's good to see him having a go . I have built all my own boats never had a problem with insurance.

I have built four multis - it has been fun. None of them have been designed by naval architects. No probs with insurance. When it comes to beams you can just copy what a similar style boat - like Hokulea has and be fine.

Don't worry too much about build time or techniques for hulls - they don't take long at all. It is the rest that takes the effort. Hulls are fun and easy. Still it is important to get the hydrodynamics correct. My little 7.2 metre folding cat is going to get some more flotation aft because I got the weight study wrong a bit - she sails well, but could do with more flotation to carry weight. Getting this right is super critical. You can fix most other stuff ups up but getting the bouyancy distribution wrong in respect to the CG is hard. The tricky thing about cats is that the hulls get depressed and lightened. Which is not the case with monos or tri hulls. So you can play around the CBs at various displacements. Your hull shapes seem nice and easy and so you should be fine.

cheers

Phil