Extend Transoms

This page is still very much under construction...

Never thought we'd see Ocelot flying!

Pretty much ALL catamaran owners eventually want to extend their transoms.  It provides for bigger swim platforms, a bigger area to step onto or out of the dinghy, and in our case, we could redesign our swim ladders.  The longer waterline improves speed through the water, we could improve water‑flow back there, and the extra flotation reduces hobby‑horsing when sailing through a short chop.

Extending the transoms was originally on our "maybe" list, but we're very glad we did them.  Ocelot's sterns were originally pretty abrupt, with the hull ending still several inches down in the water.  This created turbulence when sailing, slowing us down somewhat.  Getting to the small swim platforms involved climbing 3 essentially vertical steps up the back wall of the engine room, which was difficult when schlepping scuba tanks or even just groceries.  The swim ladders were big and heavy teak and stainless steel affairs which folded up on top of the limited space available, so they made getting into and out of a dinghy a bit dangerous with their large holes between the rungs ready to twist an unwary ankle.

Our requirements for the new extensions included:

Lofting:
Lofting is the process of laying out all the dimensions of a boat, or boat additions, before building.  Being an engineer, Jon would much rather have lofted everything, planned it all out, and laid everything out on a nice, clean, concrete floor.  But our floor is just sand, and we didn't even have a good idea of where the waterline would go after Golf had his workers grind off all our underwater gelcoat.  So we realized that the extensions would have to be done largely by eye.  Luckily, Golf, for his many, many faults, has an artist's eye, and considerable imagination.

Building the forms for extending our sugar-scoops

Wetting out the second layer of fiberglass

First attempt:
 

Transoms :
 

More bi-axial fiberglass for our sugar-scoop extension	Pulling the wood mold off the starboard extension
Houa building the frame for our transom extensions (take 2)	First bit of foam epoxied to our starboard transom	Houa setting up the framework for port side extension	Golf, Boy, & Houa laying glass on top of the foam extension
Baw epoxying on the port-side transom extension	Houa working on the port-side transom extension	Boy grinding the gelcoat off stbd transom, above extension	Max & Golf glassing the inside of starboard transom extension
Center spines for the transom extensions (upside down)	Port sugar-scoop with gelcoat (finally) ground off	Port extension reshaped with a frame & a Spanish windlass	Baw smoothing a joint-line on starboard extension
Houa & Baw epoxying biaxial glass into the port extension	Fitting & mudding in the spine & frames on starboard extension	Spine & frames being epoxied into starboard extension	Houa trimming starboard extension frames to fit the top
Baw clamped the frames on port to make them straight	Jon & Baw taping the mudded corners on port extension	Jon & Baw sticking down the top of port extension	Houa with a possible new aft profile for Ocelot
Baw covering the port extension in biaxial fiberglass	Jon & Golf discuss starboard extension	Baw & Lek shaping the foam for the outer wall of stbd extension	Glassing in the starboard transom extension
Port transom extension with skin of outer wall in place	Starboard transom extension with skin of outer wall in place	Foam strengtheners to go inside the outer walls	Port sugar-scoop with lines where steps will go
Baw & Lek building frames to pull the curl out of stbd outer wall	The organized pandemonium of work on Ocelot	Baw reaches deep into the extension wall to mud in the frames	Lek & Baw glassing the insides of our extension wall
Baw & Lek glassing the cells inside the port extension wall	Ocelot being worked on - click for larger view	Lek glassing insides of port wall under a cloud of shade-tarps	Baw checking cuts on port wall, so we can start curving to the top
Baw carefully trimming down the inside of the port side wall	Baw & Lek grinding down the foam to fit the new top of the wall	Baw & Lek fitting the foam for the top of the extension wall	Baw trimming the foam for the top of the wall
Baw mudding the foam & sticking it down on top of the wall	Top of wall screwed down to cure in the correct shape	Baw cutting down the starboard wall to match port	Max glassing the targa support while Baw works on stbd wall
Baw gluing foam blocks into the outside of the starboard wall	Baw trimming foam for the top of the starboard wall	Foam blocks being epoxied into the outside edge of stbd wall
Baw mudding up the top of the starboard wall	Lek & Baw laying the first sheet on top of the starboard wall	Baw & Lek laying the second sheet on top of the starboard wall	Baw & Lek securing the top of the starboard wall
Lek & Baw fitting foam to the top of the port wall	Bundled foam strips from above - the curve they follow is complex	Baw & Lek building clamps to hold the bundled foam	Lek & Baw clamping the strips & epoxying them together

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