A Photo & Discussion Forum for Wharram Design Enthusiasts

alignment of hulls

Hello all,i will be aligning my hulls soon and was wondering if there are any tips and things to

watch for while going about this task?

cheers paul.

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Permalink Reply by kim whitmyre on February 26, 2012 at 12:41am

Paul,

do you mean for assembling the hulls/beams? if so, as long as the hulls are level (or on the water!) the alignment of the hull beam pads with the beam pockets should do the trick. you are on the glide path now! ;-)

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Permalink Reply by boatsmith on February 26, 2012 at 8:07am

The hulls need to be parallel, in the same level plane and even fore and aft. I use water level and tape. I sort of creep up on perfection. As you move it in one direction it will also change another measurement. I measure center center at the stems and stern posts and diagonally as well. Get them all close and then star getting closer and closer. Sort of round and round until everything balances out. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not.

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Permalink Reply by paul anderson on February 26, 2012 at 10:57am

Well thank you fellas,it seems to be the way with me and this build i get all twitchy before i attempt some new part of the process and all.But hopefully some of my dumb ass questions will be useful to others who get that far away look in their eye and start messing about with epoxy and ply in the future.

cheers paul.

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Permalink Reply by Ann and Neville Clement on February 27, 2012 at 7:26am

Hi Paul,

Boatsmith does all that measuring and so did we and it is just as he says. But we also found that we were lifting and trying the boeams again and again as we did adjustments to the beam trough pads and put some chafe guards where we thought they might rub on the sides of the troughs and even had to reshape one beam a tiny bit because it was tight. On the Tiki 46 those beams are heavy so we had some saw horses on deck and some lifting tackle and the beams went up and down as we adjusted. So perfect alignment is only part of it! But I remember well the excitement we felt the first time we saw the hulls connected and the pure joy of being able to walk across the deck from port to starboard... yes indeed! You are for sure on "the glide path" as Kim so rightly says. When we got to that part of the build, I went from calling her the G** D*** Boat and started calling her Peace. Keep mixing glue and soon you will be in the water.