Moulding

Phillip Playle - craftsman

Phillip now moulds the Marblehead, Ten Rater and A Class hulls that we make. He also makes and adds the structural parts and fits them out. Being responsible for the entire process from hull moulding to packing helps ensure the quality control process. Phillip also does the completion of foils, ballasts, mould-making, hull repairs and oversees the other moulding tasks carried out here by our helpers.

Phillip won the 2000 10R Swiss open championship, placed 2nd in the 1999 10R world championship and fulfilled his ambition to win the UK 10R national championship in 2001 which he repeated in 2004. He is a past national champion in the One Metre class (the first in the UK in fact) and is a long-time Fireball sailor who enjoys big boat sailing from time to time.

Moulding shop

Hull moulding is done using wet lay-up into female moulds in the traditional way.



Moulding of component parts is usually done by compressing the reinforcement materials, which have been wetted out with epoxy resin, between carefully made 'matched moulds'. The result is a moulding of controlled thickness which has an extremely low resin/fibre ratio. The fibre/resin ratio is probably higher than most pre-preg laminates. We were intrigued to find that fin skins made from high modulus carbon pre-pregs gave a heavier and much less stiff fin than our own mouldings did.

The whole area is well heated and well ventilated. Hydraulic jacks and G-cramps are used for compressing the moulds and low temperature ovens are used to heat some of the moulds while curing.

Once released from the moulds the hulls and other component parts are transferred to a cleaner area where they are assembled into more complete boats.

Plans and patterns of a multitude of parts pose a storage problem and we store glass and carbon reinforcements next to their cutting bench in the clean area. The Moulding Shop is also where we do any 'in-house' silver soldering of fittings, well away from the solvents!