Construction
For new construction Q Class boats built to the New Universal Rule of Measurement, we have worked out scantlings for modern wood construction. Construction in accord with these scantlings, when applied by each designer and builder to the needs of a particular boat, will provide light, strong, long-lasting construction, using materials which are well-suited, available, and beautiful. The presence of the scantlings – with which each new construction boat must comply – protects against the need to use extremes in construction in order to be competitive.
This construction concept, new to these boats but not new to boat construction, provides an epoxy-saturated, strip-planked hull with diagonal veneer outer layers, which – with its reduced internals – gives a monocoque construction which is strong, stiff, and light. The light weight allows us to include a nice interior, without increasing displacement or sacrificing sail-carrying capability (and hence driving power) to windward.
Properly sheathed with a thin layer of glass fiber on the outside, a boat built in this way will soak up almost no water at all, providing exceptional resistance to rot or marine borers, and almost totally avoiding the weight gain found in older wood, and even some GRP, construction.
One of the major considerations of the scantlings for the new Q Class was the desire to have full, comfortable, headroom inside the central part of the cabin. This is a growing problem as people keep getting taller, and on some older boats (and even some new ones) there is inadequate allowance for it. To this end, the scantlings for the new construction boats call for steel plate floors along the main cabin, providing a strong structure for the mast step, especially important since it sits more or less directly over the stem / keel intersection, and providing a slightly lower cabin sole to gain a bit more headroom.
See the Measurement Rule section of this website for the construction scantlings which are included in the New Universal Rule of Measurement, or click on the photos to the right to see this construction method in action (note that the photos are of a different boat, as no Q-boats have yet been built in this method, but the photos show the methodology and power of this technique as it would be used for the Q-boats).
Go to the Designs section of this website for a comparison using drawings of classical versus modern wood hull construction. The appearance of the methods is very similar; the resulting quality is not. New wood construction is strong, light, and durable.
