The Hull Plans

The Keel

As the deck is not flat the hull is built using three straight "runners" and the ribs are designed to be held in place by the runners until the hull is finished and then the runners can be cut off to the deck level. Some ribs are then cut out between the runners to fit in motors and batteries etc.

This construction method is in fact very similar to the way they were actually built! nothing like re-inventing the wheel!

I used Balsa wood runners and a balsa keel but next time I will use something a little less flexible for the runners as they did bend a bit.

Starting behind rib14 there are two extra keels for the prop shafts and all three keels have keel doublers which means they are each made using three pieces of balsa wood laminated together with the prop shaft only going through the middle piece. This makes the keels easy to make as you can merely cut through the middle keel along the diagonal lines shown between ribs 14 and 17 the main keel propshaft is the lower of the two sets of lines.

I made the main keel from 1 length of wood and then cut through for the prop shaft.

You will need to print up the keel in sections, maybe I should provide separate A4 or A3 gif files?