Remember doing some fiberglass repair work on your boat? You measured and cut the glass cloth. Then you carefully mixed the resin and catalyst making sure to get the proportions right so the resin didn't kick off too fast and solidify in the cup instead of infused through the glass fibers where you wanted it.
Now scale that up to a 100-foot hull mould using more expensive carbon fiber instead of fiberglass. Think you'd be up to the task? The crew at Hodgdon Yachts faced that challenge recently and carried it off like the big boat pros they are.
"The amount of planning, organization and coordination required to effect this successful work is formidable" noted Tim Hodgdon, President of Hodgdon Yachts.
According to the company, "The mould to be used for a pre-preg carbon hull is one of the largest single hull infusions ever done in the USA and one of a handful of this scale worldwide. The success of large infused composite parts such as this are increasingly giving designers worldwide the confidence to specify advanced composites over other materials given their many advantages."
