The hulls of WingFoX Nano. Materials and manufacturing technology.
The last year showed distinctly that the sailors who used newer design began to attain very well. The hull of a modern A-cat features a design where using the best materials may not be sufficient. It seems equally important to use them properly so as to take maximum advantage of their properties.
The standard "wet" lamination or using the vacuum technology proves insufficient. Care must be taken to use the best materials appropriately and to process them properly.
The WingFoX hulls are made of high temperature EP carbon prepreg. By annealing them in an autoclave at the temperature of 140o C and the pressure of 6 bar we obtain a top quality laminate which is unattainable by other methods. There are but a few manufacturers in the world who have autoclaves spacious enough to handle the entire boat hulls. Our six-meter long autoclave has been designed especially to anneal the entire hulls.
We applied a 10 mm thick Nomex aramid honeycomb-shaped separator. Combined with the carbon prepreg, Nomex renders an unprecedented structural rigidity while maintaining the minimum weight.
The hull is especially reinforced with additional layers of carbon fibre in all locations which require such a reinforcement. For instance, the area of the centreboard case is strengthened as the latter is designed to transmit in whole the generated aerodynamic lift.
The rigidity of the hull and the entire platform constitutes a basic parameter decisive of the catamaran's speed. After an impact of a side wave onto the bows, an insufficiently rigid hull may start vibrating. The resulting lateral resonance of the bows disperses a large amount of the movement energy and creates a sudden increase in resistance. In order to increase the rigidity we have additionally reinforced the hull by applying an extra layer of unidirectional carbon fibres on its surface.
The hulls are sprayed with ultra hard and UV resistant varnish.
The hull model was made by CNC milling technology, which ensures high accuracy and symmetry of up to 0.1 mm. Milling was applied upon completion of laminating to the entire hull treated in bulk.
The increased rigidity of the entire platform is furthermore due to a deep mounting of the beams in the hull, not to mention the very design of the beams, but this comes in the next article.