: I have 3 or 4 sheets of 3mm ply in the shop. Very bendy stuff and I
: looked at something similar. The problem I saw was the bends
: were really tight with hard chines. The ply would want to break
: before it bent. I could make the bends but I figured that was a
: weak point too. So I thought about thin strips and glueing them
: up but it seemed like a lot of work for minimal gain so I never
: pursued it. There are some cool bragging rights there if you
: like the work, but it just didn't appeal to me.

: Plus I did some calculating and you only saw about an 1/8 mph
: increase for loosing 25 lbs.

Btw, the idea of using laminated frames instead of the plywood is to use a "ring frame" sort of like a flattened barrel hoop. Makes the inside of the boat cleaner with less sharp edges, might gain a little flexiblity in the hull (for me a good thing) and should be considerably lighter. It's also more work as you still need to make a plywood frame to use to clamp the laminations on for each frame, of course it can be crappy CDX plywood too.

My composite boat requires an entire wood framework to be built first for the same reasons, have to have the shape to make the parts from. Basically you'll build two boats to get one, of course then you do get two boats :)

Bill H.