All of the boat builders that I know have little sanding tricks that make a job go faster or do it better. Fairing a 40′ custom-built hull is an arduous task that is often accomplished with two-man teams and fairing boards. We do 90% of the work with a grinding device. Almost everyone in the business will agree that a grinder will remove a substantial amount of material quickly. The trick is controlling that removal. Continue reading
Above: ARION as she looked in 2001.
Damian McLaughlin, a custom boatbuilder from North Falmouth, Massachusetts, has been designing, repairing, and building boats for more than thirty years. Recently, he finished the reconstruction of Arion, heralded at its launch in 1951 as “The first auxiliary sailboat built with fiberglass,” and “The largest one-piece hull of reinforced plastic in the world.” In 1950, Sidney Herreshoff, son of the famous Nathaniel, designed the 42′ Arion to be built using what was then an innovative new material: plastic resin reinforced with glass fibers, otherwise known as fiberglass. Continue reading