What do you do when you have made 3 boats? Make another one of course.

There is no stopping Craig on his search for the ideal design of an IOM. The third boat is printed to replace the one that I cracked. He is now using Polymax PLA which we know to be far more durable. It will still be wrapped to the gunwales in a glass epoxy sheet.

As well as the boat above he is working on a narrower version ideally for light weather but I suspect it might become an all rounder. Of course we have all been inspired by some of Brad's design concepts this year with a very sleek but extreme boat, and we could see from history that a design like this was lurking. Of course whatever Brad sails will always be quick as he just has an edge over us all but his new design does seem particularly sharp.

The narrow design needs to be tested and penned and printed and the intial lines look good. Here is a comparison with Chimera spin off.

Of course the challenge with the narrower version is to position the buoyancy correctly. The volume displacement will be the same but distributing it correctly to get the balance right when the boat is moving is a tricky challenge. You can see the marked difference in design width above and it will be exciting to see how it performs. Apparently narrower boats have more wetted surface area because the hull shape is Squarer to provide the necessary buoyancy.