Today is the first day of our lofting training. Well, have to say that lofting a boat in its full size (even it is only a small dinghy) is very interesting, but at the same time, it is very exhausting as well. The first impression of lofting is that every tool used is super size (see the picture on the left). Everyone got a big cut board whose dimension is 4000mm x 1250mm. I have never drawn on a board of such big size.
After discussion with Vaughn, we decided the location of the LWL for the profile and the CL for the half breadth. LWL and CL are those first to be drawn on the cut board. Stations are the next. Drawing stations are quite tricky, and you have to be very careful about the error of every station line. Because the sum of the error of each station might be quite big. Actually I got 5mm longer of the Loa. And it took lot of time and effort to fix it. Can not imagine how it will be to loft a big yacht with 21 or more stations.
After finish the LWL, CL and stations, I started to draw the sheer according to values in the table of offsets. But Vaughn stopped me and told me that the right order is to finish the grid first. This does make sense. Then I spent rest of the day manipulating those big tools to draw water lines and buttocks.
Picture below: Tian is working on his F.P.
You are always quite quick to write a post!!
I just woke up..^^;; I almost fainted when I am back home.
When am I gonna lose this damn flu? See u.
Posted by: Jade | 08/17/2010 at 12:11 AM
Wei, A great blog so far. Good to see that Vaughn is keeping an eye on you.He is very experienced at boatbuilding and has lofted many projects. You can learn alot from him.Good to also see that you are checking your grid dimensions. Yes sometimes we make errors, then have to go back and fix them. You need to do this checking continually. Being accurate is part of boatbuilding. Do this well and people will start to rely on and trust your skills.
Good work Wei
Cheers
Posted by: clovegro | 08/20/2010 at 09:46 AM