Bringing 50 years professional experience of building and designing boats into focus, we introduce a new range of sailboats designed specifically for fast construction, easy completion, and to achieve a professional finish – see also Estimated Build Times for more information. The slideshow below gives a glimpse of the Whisstock heritage leading to these new designs.
In the late 1950's, well before the advent of marine epoxies, resorcinol waterproof resins and BS-1088 Marine Grade Plywood became available and revolutionized timber yacht construction.
Resorcinol resins enabled us to laminate components such as keels, stems, sternposts, knees and any other large or curved structures; and indeed to laminate whole hull skins.
Marine grade plywood allowed us to make stiffer and lighter decks and superstructures, doing away with the need for lodging knees, metal diagonal strapping and a whole variety of other devices to prevent the boat working and twisting.
In 1978 we commenced production of the 30' Naja kit boat, using all pre-cut, pre-finished plywood parts and pre-laminated and completely pre-finished structures. These were probably the most complete kit boats ever manufactured with step-by-step detailed instructions for assembly. Early Naja's used resorcinol resins; later kits were WEST™ epoxy coated and bonded. And this was all before the availability (to us anyrate) of CAD or CNC cutting – all the parts were derived from the loft floor, made, cut out and bevelled by hand.
Take a look at cometosea.us. Jack van Ommen built his Naja from one of our kits in 1979. He has sailed her single-handed over 35,000 nautical miles, including a complete circumnavigation and two Atlantic crossings. She is coming up towards 35 years old and still looks as good as new. OK - Jack has kept her well – but even so, sailing some of the toughest ocean passages in the world, the boat is a tremendous testimony to the strength and durability of a properly put together plywood boat.
Well before the advent of marine epoxies, marine plywood, properly used, was proving itself a splendid constructional material; epoxies simply made it even better.
CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) cutting is performed on plywood either by laser or router. Both methods have excellent and extremely accurate results.
Developed surfaces are the flat versions of curved surfaces, which may be curved in more than one direction. Examples are the hull skin, coachroof coamings, coachroof tops, decks and so on. The developed surface will be the shape you can mark out on a flat sheet of ply that will be the correct shape when it is bent into place.
All the curved surfaces of the designs in the EasyBuild range can be developed, so they can all be CNC cut from flat sheets of plywood, together with all the flat surfaces, like bulkheads, furniture items, sole, cockpit sides etc.
Our specially designed joining methods mean that long panels can be bonded together off the job with great accuracy and strength, ready for assembly.
Similarly, specially designed location and assembly systems mean that individual components, including the hull skin and interior furniture, can be quickly and accurately put together.
With over 95% of all the parts of the finished boat accurately cut and prepared, assembly is much faster than conventional building methods and the finished product will be more easily built to a professional standard.
Using high quality components, accurately cut and assembled to a professional finish, means that you get on the water faster and the cost of your labour and materials is better protected in the end value of the yacht.
With a soft chine hull, as well as being curved fore-&-aft, the hull panels are and also curved, rather than flat, in the cross-section view. This double curvature has three beneficial implications:
The panels are stronger in terms of resistance to pounding in a seaway
The panels are more easily developable
The run-in from the panel through the chine to the next panel is smoother
We use fact No. 2 to design hull panels that are fully developable so they can be accurately cut from flat sheets
And we use fact No. 3 to design a hull to utilize the performance and stability benefits of hard chines in the afterbody, gently resolving into essentially a round-bilge hull form forward to gain the benefits of a softer ride and good sea keeping qualities.
