As boating industry professionals we attend many boat shows over the course of a year. Some,  such as Genoa, Newport and Miami are very large and have all the glitz. Other, more local shows are much simpler, and Sabre is by far the most elegant boat on display.

But if you are a show junkie you need to attend the Maine Boat Builders Show which takes place in Portland, Maine on March 17 to 19^th. The show is held at Portland Yacht Services, located at the eastern end of the Portland waterfront.

What makes this show so different is that all of Maine’s yards, small and large, display their latest creations. The quality of the workmanship on these boats is extraordinary.

And don’t expect to be greeted by a dapper sales person at every booth. In most cases it’s the boatbuilder himself who is telling you about how he or she builds the boat. Exhibitors are encouraged to have their boatbuilders in their displays.      

So if you really want to get a boatbuilding fix, this is the show to attend. Sabre will have a Sabreline 38 Express at the show and Back Cove Yachts, our sister company will have both a 26 and a 29 Back Cove on display.

Timing of the input from each department is critical to a smooth flow of work through the shop. While the fiberglass department has been laying up the hull, woodworking, electrical and mechanical departments have been preparing for the arrival of the hull at the start of the assembly line.

The very first non-fiberglass work started at about the same time that gelcoat was sprayed on the hull. That was the building of the cabin sole which will be the first wooden component to be installed in the hull. The cabin sole is built using two layers of plywood. The bottom one is marine grade plywood and the upper one, mahogany with a teak and holly finish. The parts are cut out on the CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) router pictured here. As the assembly of the sole is completed the under side is sealed with epoxy to prevent any intrusion of water from the boat’s bilges .

And as the cabin sole is readied for installation in the hull, many other major components such as the galley, the forward cabin berth and the main salon settee are being crafted in the woodshop.

This is a really big day in the life of a boat. Here’s the hull being released from the hull mold. The Flag Blue gelcoat looks great as the part is released. Before lifting the hull, the team has gone in an laminated temporary lifting tabs inside the part to give them lifting points. The chain hoists are attached and the lifting starts. The part comes out easily because the draft or angle that is designed into the hull allows the part to come away from the mold easily.

Another beautiful Sabreline 38 Hard Top Express hull is ready to go into the production line.

People often ask how precise the technique of laminating of boat hulls is. This chart is kept in our fiberglass department and is a record of the weights of all (in this case) Sabreline 38 Hard Top Express hulls. Keeping this record helps us to control the quality and ultimately the performance of our power boats.  Note that most hulls fall within a 100 lb window which represents a very small percentage of the overall weight of the vessel.

Once the gelcoat has been sprayed into the hull mold the lamination process can begin. Danny has delivered the pre-cut E-glass to the mold room.

Here’s another image of Danny’s inventory of E-glass. We use several different structural specifications which the laminate engineer has designated for different sections of the part.

Danny has also cut to shape the coring materials which we use in our hull bottom and topsides. Sabre uses Divinycell which is a PVC foam core. We prefer foam to other coring materials as it cannot absorb water and create issues for the owner several years down the line. Our foam is vacuum bagged into the hull laminate using a large plastic "bag" which covers the entire area to be bagged. Vacuum pressure is then applied to the bag and the pressure bonds the foam to the exterior fiberglass layers using a Diab proprietary putty called Divlet putty.

Now that the foam is bagged to the outer laminate the associates continue to laminate more structural E-glass to the inside of the core, creating a foam sandwich. Note we use solid glass at all through hull locations and along the "spine" of the hull.

I’ll talk about the advantages of coring in the next post.

This is a shot of Danny’s work bench. He pre-cuts all of the fiberglass which is used in the manufacture of our hulls, deck and secondary fiberglass parts. Fiberglass is a science in itself so I won’t take this discussion too deeply into the subject. Suffice for me to say that we use several different types and strengths of fiberglass in order to achieve the naval architect’s goals for structural integrity, surface finish and durability.

The main type we use is called structural E-glass. E-glass is a woven fabric which has specific structural attributes woven directionally into the fabric. The composite engineer who studies the strength requirements of each part will layout the fabrics in the proper directions and patterns. Danny then cuts the fabrics to these patterns labels and rolls them ready for the laminators working on this part to apply.

Perhaps the most critical of all fiberglass applications is in the under body of our sailing yachts https://www.sabreyachts.com/sailing_yachts/index.php where extreme stresses are created by the keel and the sailing loads.

A client of Sabre Yacht’s suggested that a great topic for my blog would be a discussion about a boater who has moved from sailing to power boating. I agree it’s a great topic and I’ll start it off by saying that Sabre is one of the few builders in the US today who builds both sail and power. As such the discussion about going over to "the other side" is a conversation we often hear.

I have always felt that over a lifetime, boaters might make the switch several times. Perhaps you started off as a youngster sailing in a local club or community sailing program and you sailed competitively during your youth. Perhaps too you made it on to a collegiate sailing team and continued competitive sailing during that time of your life. As marriage and family considerations came along you may have switched back and forth from sail to power along the way as your own children grew up and you wanted them to enjoy the pleasures of sailing and family cruising.

And, once your family grew up and started their own lives and families your own boating habits may change again and as knees fail and the physical demands of sailing become increasingly difficult to cope with, power boating would be the choice in order to remain on the water.

And now the fun begins.

You’ve seen the tooling (mold making) process take place over the past few weeks (in reality it took months to do in real time what I have shown you during this short snap shot). Now we are ready to build a  Sabreline 38 Hard Top Express

The first thing we do is to prepare the mold by cleaning it and applying a mold release wax. That ensures that when we are ready to pull the part from the mold that the part comes out of the mold easily and doesn’t damage the mold as it releases.

Once we are ready to go we pivot the mold onto it’s side and start applying gelcoat (that’s the paint that you see on the outside of a boat hull or deck). Here the guys in the shop have applied a Flag Blue gelcoat to the 38 Express mold

Secondaries are parts which are not part of the deck of a boat but rather are pieces which attach to the deck. Examples of this are the hatch covers and, in the case of the hard top express, the hard top structure. Our tooling shop is currently working on the hard top while the deck and hull which are needed earlier in the boatbuilding operation, are already in the final stages of mold construction.

Next week we’re on the building a Sabreline 38 Hard Top Express. Stay tuned!

Once the plug is finished to a very smooth and hi-gloss surface it is ready to be used to create the mold. Mold making involves spraying tooling gelcoat (paint) on the surface of the plug and then applying a fiberglass structure to the outside of the gelcoat. It’s like building a boat in reverse. Once the structure of the mold is in place the plug is released from the mold and voila! the mold is ready to be prepared and put into service making Sabreline hulls.

While I was in Fort Myers viewing the hull plug I also took some pictures of the deck plug which is following the 34 Express hull mold by a couple weeks.

The deck plug is a very complex piece of engineering and everything from styling details to the function of the cockpit seating has to be thoroughly thought through now. It can’t be changed once the mold is completed.