Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Leaving beam out of it for now

The amount of laminate for the hull sides alone are about double since hulls for mono and cat are approximately the same dimensions in freeboard and length (probably higher in freeboard for the cat, and most cats have plumb bows and sterns, although I think your boat is pretty plumb also). On our smaller cat, the hull freeboard from the keel root to the deck is 6.5', of which 5' is above the waterline. Our LOA is only 4" longer than our LWL. This gives us ~1,000sqft of hull surfaces - almost half that used in your entire boat. As for laminate, a typical hull schedule on a catamaran would be 36-42oz of biaxial (1/4-3/8") on the outside, 1/2" core with 18oz biax (1/8") on the inside. Unidirectional is used to wrap high load areas and to spread loads in other places. I don't know the beam (or length) of your boat, but the Alpha beam is just over 24' - that has to be around 40% unless yours is a very large or beamy boat.

Mark

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