Hydro Construction

[ryan_4z]

From what I hear this stuff is only going to keep getting more expensive, and harder to find. I am all for advances in safety, but I wonder if we are making our sport to expensive. We pride ourselves in being a fairly inexpensive form of motorsport. This new rule will add hundreds of dollars to the cost of new boats.

[Jeff Akers]

i am fine with the carbon sides and what not but look at the rising cost of carbon fiber and kevlar clothe. Where is one going to get it from?

I get mine from here, www.fiberlay.com

[G Stillwill]

Kevlar is still reasonable I get 5.2 oz harness weave for 4.99 a foot 38 inches wide so can do both sides for 35.00 to 40.00 7ft to 8 foot long and they ship in round tubes never foulded.

http://www.solarcomposites.com/

[Composite Specialties]

Kevlar

All of the list places are a little high in price. Go to www.sweetcomposites.com and get your kevlar there.

[sadiemydog1]

Hydro Construction

In all the years I have been around racing 99% of the spinouts and accidents in the corners the boat spins to the left leaving the cutdown throttle side exposed. Some designs are cut down to almost the deckline. I just don`t see how a reinforced side is going to protect the driver. Overseas most of the designs are of the laydown type with high sides, the driver is more exposed to a penetrating type injury, and reinforced sides have merit. I really don`t think this rule has been thoroughly researched and needs to be reconsidered before implementing.
Art K

[wagner-racing16-s]

at work last night i was thinking that cars now are made to crush and fall apart to absorbe the energy. So if a boat has solid wood cockpit sides it would shatter absorbing the energy where as the theory of the composite side is just to stay together and break away from the boat. So I'm stuck thinking that a boat at 65 mph hitting you in the side is just gonna push you straight into the other side. Which would hurt more? Maybe i was just to strung out on coffee working 3rd shift and in a daze but I'm confused

[wagner-racing16-s]

Marc the boat has been going great. We have had a few problems but my dad is going to wait till the end to let you know what we encountered. The more i learn from my dad the better. It is crazy how much he knows from being a union carpenter for so long. I need to get all the info i can. I am very interested in learning how to do the composite sides also. So maybe if you can send me an email on how to do it if you have time that would be great. my email is
wagner_racing16-s@sbcglobal.net

[Dave M]

Kevlar

All, I get my Composites from Eastern Burlap & Trading Company and Sweet COmposites, and in a pinch Fiberglast.com, MrFiberglass.com. Last two are expensive, but when you ar ein need an extra $20.00 is not bad.

Jeff,

The add on panels to existing sides will be safe, just not UIM for adhesion to the decks. I thought a lot about that one, no easy way to do it as each boat has different deck lines, and to leave some material hangine loose it most likley would not lay on the deck correctly. So these would not make a boat UIM compliant, only more to APBA specs if the rules get passed the way it seems to be going.

Ryan Z, you are right, it should add a few hundred to the cost of a new boat. Not only materials, but epoxy, and time. It takes a lot of epoxy to do it right, not excessive bunches, but certainly a lot more than normal wood sides.

Oh well, everyone should be okay with this, as it will be the rule. After a couple years most will not think twice about the extea cost as the boat price will have it built into the end price anyways. Lets just hope the cost of Kevlar and glass does not skyrocket in the next year or two. Right now, Kevlar is roughly half the cost of carbon (when carbon was available).

[Tom Cronk]

UIM Rules

Dave
You need to get a clarification from Bob Wartinger
on the UIM rules.They are changing them for new
boats.
Tom

[Dave M]

Thanks Tom

Thanks for the heads up. Once all the new rules fall into place and they finally get something nailed down it will certainly make building easier. The current boat I am doing is UIM compliant according to current rules. Can't stop contruction now, as the first race is coming up.

[DougMc]

Testing Data

I like that safety is moving to the forefront of racing. I had my new boat built with kevlar sides and rounded pickels. With this in mind, I would like to know if anyone or any organization has hard facts compiled from testing to prove that the new rules will actually make it safer. If such data exisits, I would hope someone would post the data for me and others to download and read. If data does not exist, I believe mock ups should be created of each possible sample cockpit side, testing conducted and the data posted to read.

The post above about cars being designed to crush in a crash makes me step back and think a bit. This post gives me pause that perhaps we could be moving in the wrong direction. I flipped using a boat with plywood sides and nothing happened to the sides. I saw a boat flip with carbon reinforced sides rip right open due only to water pressure, not being hit. My pure plywood sides stood up better than the carbon fiber over plywood sides. How could that be if carbon is stronger? What would a mock up test show. What does happen if the sides become too stiff and just crush the driver rather than splinter?

Just because the Europeans are doing it is not enough to make it fact. They were wrong on Communism and Facism too ...

[HRTV]

I like that safety is moving to the forefront of racing. I had my new boat built with kevlar sides and rounded pickels. With this in mind, I would like to know if anyone or any organization has hard facts compiled from testing to prove that the new rules will actually make it safer. If such data exisits, I would hope someone would post the data for me and others to download and read. If data does not exist, I believe mock ups should be created of each possible sample cockpit side, testing conducted and the data posted to read.

The post above about cars being designed to crush in a crash makes me step back and think a bit. This post gives me pause that perhaps we could be moving in the wrong direction. I flipped using a boat with plywood sides and nothing happened to the sides. I saw a boat flip with carbon reinforced sides rip right open due only to water pressure, not being hit. My pure plywood sides stood up better than the carbon fiber over plywood sides. How could that be if carbon is stronger? What would a mock up test show. What does happen if the sides become too stiff and just crush the driver rather than splinter?

Just because the Europeans are doing it is not enough to make it fact. They were wrong on Communism and Facism too ...

Doug,

Lets be real! due to the very nature of small outboard hydro racing what American or European boat builder is going to have enough surplus cash in his personal budget for R&D crash testing. I might be dead wrong on this one but you are asking for data similar to what the huge auto manufactures produce in there private testing labs. I don't know that this type of data will ever be available for small outboard racing hulls. You could test the strength of carbon fiber vs. wood in a lab type setting but you could never do real life testing which is done with robotic dummy's in car crash test. I understand your concerns and they are valid but I dont think the sport has come that far yet to produce real time crash data. You are talking about some serious $$$$$

[modhydro]

Simple math

As far as rounded pickles it is pretty simple. Double the area and you cut the strength needed to penetrate in half. I know that this isn't exactly true, but it is close enough for discussion here. It is pretty amazing how simple physics that has been around since the first rock rolled into another still holds true!

As far as reinfocement on sides, there can be such a thing as too stiff. Lets say for instance you have an infinately strong side that doesn't crack, break or bend. All of the inertia of the hit (less that converted to heat for you purists) will be imediately transfered into the other boat. Now you are looking at sudden accelleration injury possibilities: snapped neck, blunt force trama, etc. Not likely that we will ever have something that strong so I'm not too worried. If we have a composite side with core material and fibers of some sort as a skin, we have a panel that will still break, but absorb far more energy with the hit. I personally still like a wood core as I feel it does the best as far as resillience, strenth, and its ability to absorb energy. Take a piece of foam (core foam, not stuff from Lowes), and a piece of plywood the same thickness. Bend it until it snaps and tell me which you would prefer to be covering your butt. I know that this doesn't address the shear strenght which is what a core is meant to do for a pure bending load, but we are talking about a very comolex stress with several different loading and restraint conditions. I think that too often it gets put into either puncture or breaking. It is far more complicated than that. Let's hope that common sense and responsible building will take care of the whole thing.

Like Dan said, the testing would be very expensive. Would we go for straight broadside? Oblique hits? How many samples would be needed? What core and layup? What epoxy? What impact mass and speed? It quickly would add up to a cost that would make it impractical. Rather that this, lets step back look at simple math and make good decisions.

Steve Roskowski

[Bill Blackwell]

This is good dialogue. Keep it coming. Like many others (I suspect), I'm waiting, reading and watching to see where this goes and what the rule will actually say when it's all said and done.

Not to cause a stir, but all discussion has been towards hydros. What about Runabouts? I expect the arguement will be that hydros are low profile and runabouts are not or that some runabouts do not have cockpit sides. Regarding low profile, if it's runabout vs runabout the profile arguement is somewhat mute. For the lack of cockpit sides in some runabouts, that shouldn't exclude them. And what about the point at the bow of a runabout? We are talking about the same inertial forces but put behind 1 point vs 2.

Hopefully, we can have some respectful dialogue about this without personal attacks. For what it's worth, I've built boats with balsa core vacuum bagged wood composite hydro cockpit with rounded pickles. After all, our boats do carry precious cargo.

BRB
Fast Boats Built Slow

[QUINAULTRACING]

This Is What I Like To Hear..brain Power

STEVE R., What you are saying is the first thing I though of when this subject started out, WAY TO GO.. steve..22-R..QUINAULTRACING Hi to BILL B.