MBD 40' Shorthanded Cruiser/RacerDesign Concept Keen Brisbane yachtsman, Rick Morgan, wanted a 40' sailboat with the displacement and sail areas of a modern racer, that could be sailed offshore by a crew of two. For naval architects, Murray Burns Dovell, the answer was obvious - a water ballasted boat with a short-handed deck layout. Water ballast was chosen over a canting keel to generate the power required to handle the large sail-plan, for reasons of simplicity and reliability. In the ocean, with a small crew, it is an advantage to be able to weight the boat down in tougher conditions.
Gregg Mahoney and Chris Rayment of Custom Boatbuilders, north of Brisbane, were contracted to build the Morgan 40. The hull was strip planked over CNC routed temporary frames using DuFLEXTM Composite Strips . The DuFLEX Strips were cored with Corecell® linear foam and laminated with a 400grm unidirectional E- fibreglass. The stiffness of the strips allowed them to bend fairly over the frames and increased the stability when turning the hull. The structural interior was built with DuFLEX Composite Panels, cored with AIREX®C70.75 structural foam, that were supplied as a CNC-routed kit for quick and efficient installation. The deck and cabin top were fabricated from plain sheets of AIREX®C70.75. KINETIX® R246TX Thixotropic Laminating Epoxy with H160 Medium hardener, TECHNIGLUE adhesives and WEST SYSTEM®brand resin, hardeners and powder modifiers were used for all structural bonding, laminating, coating and coving applications. KINETIX® H159 hardener and microballoons were used to fair the project. |