This was a custom design for an ocean going yacht. The design needed to include integrated solar panels for battery maintenance when on a mooring or in a marina, hand rails and an opening central window for ventilation in hot climates.
Added complexity came from the need to keep the weight down as this was on a variable draft yacht with a lifting keel. in the end a full carbon fibre/ foam sandwich was chosen, with vacuum bagged panels created to a specific laminate schedule suitable for the use-case. The completed carbon fibre/foam structure weighed only 35kgs when completed – a similar solid glassfibre laminate of the same strength and stiffness would have been 70kg+. The structure is more than strong enough for offshore use, the side panels are 18mm thick with 1200gsm of carbon biaxial cloth on either side and the arched roof is 30mm of foam with a similar thickness of carbon, but also an additional layer of 600gsm glassfibre to provide better impact resistance (carbon is very good for stiffness, but limited in impact resistance).
Water draining was taken into account with the rail to the aft of the unit – this and the side extensions guides any water down the side of the hard dodger, and not into the cockpit from the corners.
The windows were custom by a marine glazing company to CAD designs generated by us.
The process to ensure the dodger fits perfectly and to get initial overall dimensions is to first model ideas in plywood with a glue gun to get rough dimensions set (i.e. you can sit itn eh cockpit and try solutions, ensure winches and jammers are usable etc. Then to make a GRP mould of the deck to create a 100% accurate mating face, then the dodger was modeled in CAD, and then created out of the carbon panels against the mould made in the previous step.
We can now 3D scan the boat to provide a quick way to model designs in 3D before any physical work takes place. Being able to make a plywood or cardboard mock up from the 3D scan is still a very useful exercise however as there is nothing like actually sitting under the dodger model to identify tweaks and improvements before its goes into production.
Get in touch if you have a hard dodger requirement – these projects can take some time, but the end result can be a complete game changer to sailing your yacht in adverse conditions.
