New boat, new adventures. Ready for shipping to Miami, feeling 🔆🔆! A world’s first, epic trip in the making, details to follow soon.

#whaleboato28 #boatbuilding #oceanrowing #oceanrowingboat #miami #adventure #travel
#ovinto @atelierpinus ...

Workshop update:
The various steps of building a safe ocean rowing boat are intensely laborious, but the only way to create absolutely watertight compartments that guarantee your boat stays afloat in case of puncture.
Precision fit carbon frames (cut with a water jet) are glued in the vacuum infused hull.
All intersections between these frames, the hull and the keelsons (the parts running the length of the boat) have to be sealed to create the watertight compartments. This is called the 'taping' process, often neglected because of the labour intensive process and cost implications. It involves first creating a 'fillet' - a smoother transition of the 90° angle - these are the white lines in the photos. After the fillets, a strip of carbon with epoxy resin is applied. You can see this carbon on the first frame in the first photo.

The Whaleboat O28 contains 120 meter of fillets and carbon tape.

#quality #hardwork #nocuttingcorners #oceanrowingboat #boatbuildingisanart #whaleboatO28 #boatbuilding #vacuuminfusing #carbonfibre #carbonfiber #oceanrowing #safety #innovation #engineering
@viveshogeschool ...

Meet “Stumpy”. The first and only eco-friendly open sea rowing boat in the world. We built her more than 10 years ago, using flax, recycled PET bottles and bio (epoxy) resins, vacuum infused. @stefanvanaudenhove and @koendegezelle rowed her across the Channel from Ramsgate to Ostend, despite being too short and slow, as she was designed as a 1 person surfboat, not a long distance cruiser. A gruelling, wet 72NM trip across the busiest shipping lane in the world, that took them 21 hrs!
Back in those days we experimented a lot with biocomposites in boatbuilding, using a large variety of natural materials, like flax, jute, banana leaves, animal skin.
So if you want to have a deeper insight about the use of biocomposites in your boat, its advantages and disadvantages, please get in touch. After all, a lot of green-washing is going on and a lot of nonsense told.
And Stumpy? She's still happily bobbing on her mooring, used mainly as a training boat in our sea rowing club on the Belgian North Sea.

@libecohome
#biocomposites #boatbuildingisanart #craftmanship #technology #boatbuilding #oceanrowing #oceanrowingboats #northsea #madeinbelgium #busiestshippinglaneintheworld #channelcrossing #thechannel #surfboat ...

We're keeping busy in the workshop, with design and production from start to finish as always. Just finished another mould to build more Whaleboat O28 ocean rowing boats. Each mould lasts at least 50 hulls. Bring on 2022!

#whaleboatO28 #boatbuildingisanart #handcrafted #craftmanship #technology #mould #mouldmaking #tooling #intheworkshop #boatbuilding #inhouseproduction #oceanrowing #oceanrowingboats #2022 ...

Designing and building an ocean rowing boat has become a cutting-edge enterprise. Pioneering new technologies are crucial to meet and exceed customers expectations. Here are a few areas of innovative techniques from the building process we'd like to highlight - numbers match the pictures:

1. Hull, cabins, decks and all structural elements at Whaleboat, in short the entire boat, is built using vacuum infusion instead of the classic hand layup, for a lighter and more rigid result.
2. Structural elements are then cut with water jet technology for super precise fit.
3. All parts of the boat are designed in house, and some of the more complex parts like our custom auto pilot require years of training in CAD software (look at the intense focus on Gus' face)
4. Sometimes old school shaping of elements is the fastest way to prototype, but we're happy that @oliverdewolf of @viveshogeschool is now able to create a 3D image, using the latest 3D scanner and software. Making the transfer from real life object to CAD drawing.
5. 3D printing is another technique we often use for prototyping and creating elements that make life on board easier. Specialist @amyandresdottir is now developing and printing a kitchen layout for the O28. Other examples include our revolutionary foot steering wheel, and oar supports.
6. Power consumption management and systems connectivity is a next area of intense focus. We work with marine electronics specialist @cedric_soete from STS to fine tune the relation between solar input and the battery storage. No request is too exotic for Cedric, not even when we ask him to control the autopilot with a smartwatch!

Although the process may be very complex at times, we at Whaleboat like it because it keeps us on our toes. We never stop looking for the next improvement.

#3Dprinting #CAD #optimisation #powermanagement #3Dscanning #vacuuminfusion #composites #lightweight #engineering #hitech #electronics #carbonfiber
@gusengineering
#whaleboatO28 ...