Not much has happened on the America’s Cup scene in the last couple of weeks. However, as reported on the Rule 69 Blog (which is appropriate), Bertarelli has made another questionable maneuver by convincing the local ID35 catamaran class to ban Russell Coutts from competing. Russell was at the helm of the winning 2006 championship boat – the Alinghi sponsored catamaran won it the following year 2007. Also recall that Bertarelli also made a legal manuever to have Russell banned from competition in this past America’s Cup once Russell choose to leave Alinghi after a fall out over the parameters of the last competition. Apparently there was going to be some Larry Ellison / Oracle backing for this years ID35 series and though I’ve looked, I haven’t found any justification for the exclusion. Because Russell makes a living by sailing, there could be some legal implications by an unfounded exclusion from an event like this.

When you piece together some of the seemingly less significant past events, like Coutts being excluded from the last AC, with current things that Bertarelli has done, I’m seeing a nasty self portrait of a man who is not very grounded in self awareness or sportsmanship. Hopefully someone will put a stop to the madness soon.  Either setup the match that will eventually happen with or without your consent or let go of the Cup Ernesto!

I started some work yesterday on a friend’s boat that suffered an altercation with a tow boat during the Tradewinds regatta several weeks ago. It had some pretty bad damage to the bow of the port hull where it was split, crushed, and bent off to the side. In case you’re wondering, you’re not looking at two different boats, this boat has a color scheme where it is white on one side and yellow on the other – it’s a pretty wild optical illusion on the water.  Appropriately enough, the boat’s name is “Undecided”.

It took me a little while to figure out how to approach this repair as there was undoubtedly pretty extensive damage to the foam core inside each hull half. This damaged structure had to be removed. The tricky part was to figure out how to replicate the bow shape because these hulls are asymmetrical (i.e. I can’t necessarily copy one bow to the other). I tossed around ideas about pulling a mold off the Team Seacats blue I20 port hull but dismissed that as far too time consuming. I decided, instead to cut away the most damaged side (the yellow) and clean up the inside of the other and then figure out how to brace it to hold it’s shape so it can be glassed/reinforced. Once that would be done, then I can clean up the cut away portion and work to get it bonded back in place…that’s the plan anyway.

With my trusty diamond encrusted cutter in my Dremel, I went to town on the bow cutting away a panel of the yellow side of the hull so I could gain access to the damage on the inside half.

I then ground away all the broken fiberglass and delaminated foam and was pretty much left with just the thin outer skin which was still trained to bend in the damaged direction. The remaining foam was tapered gently to avoid a stress point with the repair area.

I then took several measurements and came up with a bracing plan to re-train the skin into the proper shape, placed clear packaging tape on the back of the couple of cracks (to keep the epoxy from running through). With the shape verified to be true, I started laminating about 6 layers of 7oz glass with epoxy around the clamps.

Because it was beginning to drizzle and the temperature was about 50 degrees (you need about 60 degrees for the epoxy to cure properly), I roughed out a cheap plastic tent over the repair area and plugged in a small space heater. I was able to monitor the temperature with a remote digital thermometer / humidity gauge that I keep in my shop and was able to keep the repair at a toasty 75 degrees. One day, I’ll have a garage for doing this stuff in.

A quick spot check this morning before leaving for work this morning was good – the inside bow now holds a very straight and true shape and I only have a few minor areas to touch up and fair on the exterior. A little more glassing where the clamps were and I’ll be ready to move onto the yellow cut-away section for repair. The weather is going to get a little colder this week but fortunately I can do the repair on the cut-away section inside my workshop.

Found this over at the Horse’s Mouth … I’ve been pummeled by waves half the size of come of the smallest shown in this video and can’t imagine what this feels like or how long these guys remain in the grasp of the wave…Ouch.