From shed to factory

Hull moulds, one of the 4 ovens and the cutting table

Hulls in the oven

Rudder moulds

Daggerboards ready to be finished

The daggerboard moulds

Designing a new A-class is one thing. Producing is a whole other ballgame. Fortunately we incorporated our production filosophy in our design process from the start. That's why we were able to scale up production when demand increased so dramatically.

Building pre-preg boats has many advantages but you also need high tech tooling. We had to build ovens, buy freezers and make temperature resistant carbon moulds.

We choose to build the number of moulds to be able to build a complete boat parallel. So a double set of hull moulds (4), 2 sets of daggerboard moulds, two  beam moulds (fore and rear beam) and two sets of rudder moulds.

With that amount of moulds we can either build one boat a week or theoretically one boat a day (without paint).

A pre-preg boat has to be painted afterwards which is more expenisve but als gives a better finish and it can be renewed after some years of extensive sailing.

Without PJ's background in composites and without the support of his company Holland Composites this would never have been possible.

In another posting PJ will explain his choice of materials.