Sapele without the heartache

New Sapele-finished structural panels could bring the glow of wood back to dinghies without the maintenance of the old plywood product

Alan Jackson - Jacko the boat builder - has a new product that he is just itching to get using. The problem is that like many innovative ideas it has come up against rules that never envisaged such a product.

Jacko was to be seen wandering the aisles of the Sailboat Show with various carbon bits, spreading the word on all that is lightweight, strong and carbon - this from a man who goes misty-eyed at the thought of timber and sharp chisels!

As he says, having "seen a few sunsets working with timber and boats" he finds the demise of good quality timber products very sad.

Now much involved with carbon fibre masts, booms, spinnaker poles and custom-made carbon parts at Chipstow, Jacko still loves working with wood but the world has moved on. The quality of plywood now available means that the small band of dedicated builders still producing boats by traditional methods are finding supplies difficult to come by in the high quality demanded for what is now a luxury end of the market.

With a considerable part of his workload now being repairs to wooden and composite boats, where the sapele decks require replacing, the idea was to combine the sapele veneer with 'E' glass, core foam and epoxy resin and produce sapele deck panels - the look of top varnished Sapele with the low maintenance of glass.

While they can be produced as standard sized panels to save waste and cost, the ideal method would be for paper templates to be supplied and panels made to that form. With standard classes such as the Enterprise, GP14 etc., these dimensions would already be known, allowing standard panels to be supplied "off the shelf".

Alan has a long association with the Merlin Rocket class and they have already agreed to the material but other classes that could benefit from the material have yet to study the potential - there must be hundreds of plywood and composite dinghies that could get a new lease of life from new, low-maintenance decks.

Could we also see a return of the "glossy wood" foredeck to break-up the acres of plastic in our dinghy compounds?

Technical:

Construction: sapele veneer/E glass core-cell foam/epoxy resin (other veneers available)

Weight: 1.6kg per square metre

Thickness: 4.2mm (5.2/6.2mm available)

Cost: £65 plus £45 per square metre. ie £203 inc vat for panel 2.5 x 1.2m

Chipstow web site http://www.chipstow.co.uk