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I'd say on most plywood/glass/epoxy homebuilds that vacuum bagging is overkill. I did it on Jezebel for a couple reasons... mostly because I intend for her to live in my slip, not on a trailer (unlike most boats her size), and so any air spaces in her hull or in the fiber on her exterior could become problematic and reduce her hull lifespan. (Although the fact that she's solid wood instead of plywood would still help immensely there). I think you could get a really solid epoxy barrier by doing quality hand lay-ups if you do multiple layers, but that'd increase weight and Jezebel was very much engineered for lightness. As far as the vacuum technique, I'd had a lot of experience with different kinds of extreme vacuum and pressure casting for making dive electronics in the past. Compared to that stuff, vacuum processing the hull was a simple process but done at a much, much larger scale than I was used to--hence the need for a do-over the first time! Compared to hand lay-up, there's a little bit of extra expense for the expendable components and the pump, but if you know how to do good hand lay-ups then starting to vacuum process isn't too hard. My advice would be to start small on flat components (like 2' x 2' on a board or something) so you can test your system and get familiar with the process, and also spend the little bit of extra coin on real expendables at least when starting instead of going pennywise-pound-foolish by using hardware store plastic drop cloths etc. There's lots of videos and stuff online nowadays. Most of my fiber and expendables I bought from fiberglasssupply.com. This article along with the chapter in the Gougeon book was one of the most helpful to me: explorecomposites.com/articles/lamination/basics-vacuum-bagging/

I asked myself that very question a time or two during the build...! If I was to do it again I would use more plywood but there are a few reasons I went this way.... 1) I really wanted to make a true strip planked vessel that incorporated joinery elements of classic carvel construction because I like precision wood work, and once I started down that path I didn't want to compromise. 2) I was going for lightness/durability overall and western red cedar while less impact resistant than most any plywood has terrific stiffness and strength to weight, and when cold molded in layers has a lifespan yet still undetermined--my slip neighbor has one of very first Radon's ever built, a western red cedar strip plank epoxy fiberglass hull from the 1960's and she's still going strong as a commercial lobster boat. Plywood hasn't been shown to have that same operational durability. 3) I wanted the look. Most of my boating life has been on really crappy inflatables and old fiberglass boats, but I've been a guest on some beautiful yachts and I guess I just wanted that and the only way for me was to build it. If plywood had been used on her sides the interior wouldn't have that classic wood boat look. 4) I thought if I went full high end by the book strip plank/cold mold, as a first time boat builder, she'd be easier to insure. This has been frustrating and ongoing though as underwriters either don't care or don't seem understand that she is a professional composite and not a wooden boat or typical 'backyard wood fiberglass boat'. 5) finally, when I was just starting her one of my neighbors was moving and so cleaning out their house. They had purchased a few hundred square feet of beautifully milled, 1/4" thick western red cedar planks to panel their den over ten years ago and then never gotten around to it. It was still shrink wrapped and that kind of paneling is no longer even commercially available, or if you can source it is so so so expensive. So a lot of interior portions and bulkheads that might have been marine ply become western red cedar composites.

It's not pure carbon fiber, which is why it's a cold molded composite--it has layers of wood, carbon fiber, fiberglass, and kevlar.

@@SoCalSpearIt Respect for your work, but one thing worries me - when the hull of the boat is damaged below the waterline and the wood comes into contact with water. It is particularly bad when the damage is not noticed. The wood swells and tears everything around it. Ask me how I know this...

​@@VS-16I am sorry to hear that you probably have first hand experience with that, but she has several things going for her in this department... She is a vessel purpose built for freediving/freedivers so pretty every single time she goes out her bottom is being at least casually examined by a diver. Damage is hard to miss. Her bottom schedule is also mostly s-glass. It's more expensive even than carbon fiber; typically just true racing boats where weight savings always trumps cost. On paper s-glass is rated about 40% stronger than e-glass and you can feel the difference when working with it... Like on regular e-glass you can chew through it pretty easily just hand sanding with 80 grit. Same thickness e-glass you can barely make a dent unless you're leaning on it for a while 80 grit in a power sander. Her edges are also all white oak which absorbs very, very little water by nature. Her bottom flat surfaces are western red cedar which can absorb some but none of those will absorb water the way marine ply does... It's not in the timelapse but early in the build she was dropped a few times before barrier coat and painting, not from a great height and she probably weighed only 300 lbs then but the chine edge where she struck the stone tile had just the tiniest little cosmetic smudge.... Anything that would break through that to her wood isn't going unnoticed. Lastly is just the simple fact that the pacific around socal is deep. We don't have shallow rocky inlets or much floating debris since we hardly have any trees or rivers to carry debris to the sea; the Channel Islands don't get enough rain for proper trees to grow.

I designed her, very specifically to be a commercially viable all weather island hopper for freediving and spearfishing in southern California. If you're interested in the design there's a long slighty contentious thread on boatdesign.net about design and build: www.boatdesign.net/threads/custom-19-all-weather-minimalist-strip-plank-composite-go-fast.66022/

But she was specifically designed for the Suzuki DF60, and is 19.5' LOA with a 51" max beam.

@@SoCalSpearIt Thank you !

You gotta love the one you got...!

I am curious, what specifically would you like to see in real time? I didn't set out to make any type of instructional videos in the beginning. A large part of it was to document the process for insurance, marine survey, and coast guard. As I got further in I realized this was also going to be relevant in the future (like decades later since the lifespan of a well made cold molded hull is still unknown... My slip neighbor operates as commercial lobster boats an original Radon from the early 1960's) in case of repairs, sale to another owner, or major modifications. Realtime is also a little more production overhead but I might make more boat videos with a larger crew.

These time lapses take a long time to edit so she's actually getting close. I'm doing the rigging (fittings, engine, electronics) now and some final fussy woodwork and paint chores. I have an application out to a company that looks like a good fit for insurance and the trailer is built so if there's no hold-up on insurance I can get her in the water sometime in October.

The black cloth you see going on the boat is the actual carbon fiber. Most of what you see in this video is 5.6 oz twill weave from Fiberglass Supply.

@@SoCalSpearIt i though thzt cloth is for cars and motorcycle only modifird plactic accesories thnaks bro

@@LyndonKurtDemeray Fake carbon fiber is used on many cars and motorcycle plastic parts because consumers think it looks cool, since real carbon fiber is very expensive, requires professional workmanship, and is used in aerospace and high end racing applications where strength to weight ration is worth the overhead. For this boat, it was used on the hull to encapsulate and stiffen the wood and for that application saves only a small amount of weight. It's not shown these timelapses yet but I used it extensively on certain interior/secondary parts like the helm, cowling, hatch covers, radar tower, etc which I wanted to be very low profile and very light and strong. There it allowed me to save quite a bit of weight and still achieve design characteristics I wanted.

Some people call it music...?

Thanks! I had done some very small scale but very complex vacuum and pressure casting for building custom dive electronics but nothing this scale so there was a learning curve. I can imagine the expendable supplies have come a long way in 40 years -- the bagging materials and peel ply, etc. A lot of homebuilders would never bother to do as much vacuum processing as I did for this but I wanted to learn and get good at the techniques, and for doing concave surfaces and sharper corners it's definitely the way to go if you're interested in quality and weight savings over all. The exterior hull was vacuumed because the vessel is intended to sit in the water as a work taxi for about the next ten years, so micro bubbles and air spaces that might be present below waterline absent the vacuum process can make trouble in the long run. This whole build is a little absurd, but in my harbor are some of the original Radon's from the 60's when the still built them strip plank western red cedar, white oak, and fiberglass, still going strong and still incredibly sought after both commercially and recreationally.

Yeah, I really like long and slender for this application, and I kinda stuck to the devil I know--I have so many thousands of hours in the kaboat (I actually am on my third one, having worn out the first two) in all weather and so I took certain things I loved about that design and changed things I did not. Do you freedive with your kaboat?

@@johnwildwest1 it's a semi-displacement hull design instead of--for boats this size--a more common planing hull. So it'll ride smoother in rough water, be better in a following sea (common for socal), not exhibit stern squat at a low speed which helps the pilot see over the bow for divers/swimmers, and it'll be fast. Downside is it's not a dry ride and you have to understand how to pilot it in a heavy beam sea but it's for people in wetsuits.

​@@davidcummings6299 I got too busy with actually building it (I am a professional captain and freediver) to cut together more timelapse. My insta is more current if you're actually curious. Or just go troll another creator. instagram.com/p/C8d0PsEOWo-/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

@@SoCalSpearIt Thanks nice red…. Someday maybe a video I was liking the build.

@@davidcummings6299 I did shoot all the way through the hull build but enthusiasm for the timelapse and filmmaking aspect gradually became replaced by 'oh dear god I have to get this thing finished so my personal and professional life can go on' I'm basically 38 months into what I thought would be a 6 month project and every second spent farting with cameras or edits becomes a second I'm not working on the boat. So, I get grumpy here in the comments. I'm out of the country at the moment but realized I brought a drive with more footage on it so I can start editing a second installment.

@@poepflater I don't plan to do another strip plank build that is quite this elaborate anytime soon, but at the same time I have thousands of miles and about ten years with plastic boats (PVC inflatables)... Drove me a little nuts so I wanted to do an old school performance build. I have been too busy to add timelapse to this channel but she is almost finished--and not a spec of plastic (okay I admit epoxy is a polymer) in her. Just wood and fiber composite and 316 stainless.

@@SoCalSpearIt Yeah the plastic nails is just to save time, you can basically work with other tools as if they are not there.... unlike hitting a nail with a plane etc...

Most of the carbon fiber work was finished months ago. Please feel free to check my insta for more current updates. Carbon fiber isn't cheap but try pricing out kiln dried furniture quality white oak, western red cedar and mahogany, plus an All-Salt Shoxs pedestal, all 316 stainless fittings, and kevlar and S-glass cloth. Compared to those materials, carbon fiber is 'average'. But, this type boat is expected to last 50+ years, and as a commercial captain I will likely put thousands of miles a year on her so the weight savings and durability is worth it to me. Plus she looks sexy.

@@SoCalSpearIt nobody cares about instagram , so i just checked your instagram and nothing about the boat being carbonised

​@@gatecrasher1970instagram.com/p/CgR2iZWL1gT/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

That's probably thickened epoxy. I'm using exclusively West Systems, mostly 105 and some of the G-Flex. They have a brownish/purplish low density thickener, the 407, that I mix with the 105 for better lamination and fairing.

I have a ton of footage, just gotta edit it. I'm actually done with the exterior glass, CF, paint (that'll be part two perhaps?), and got all the interior below decks built out and plumbed--tomorrow I start laying the first layer of the deck in.

@@SoCalSpearIt i smell bullshit

@@gatecrasher1970 inhale deeply, friend. My insta stays updated, feel free to check it out. Unless you are just here to troll?

@@SoCalSpearIt nobody cares about instagram fool

Good job! You'd have to contact Guinness to see if they have a separate book for India. When I did it, they stipulated that the whole body has to be fully submerged the whole time and you could not wear weight/lead, and it had to be done in a container (ie not open water). They didn't say if I could touch the sides or bottom of the container but since that could make it easier I didn't touch.

On a good run, 2 or 2.5 hours. There were some long runs back to LA though, limping home at 6kts in a big seas, after 18 hours in the wetsuit, that little engine stalling out in the waves, taking 4 - 6 hours to make it home. Good old days :)

Thanks, Artiz!

Yes, that rack'll be for gear, antenna and white all around light. I'm not doing a radar at this time but if I add one it'd go there.

Yeah, thanks, I have a pretty big pile of footage but haven't had time to do any editing to speak for OVER A YEAR!

UV light from the sun is tough on the suit--glues, rubber, lining, all of it. It isn't going to instantly fall apart but over time it would shorten the life of the suit, and if left drying in the sun it is easy to forget about it and then it's been in the sun for days. It would depend also I think on strength of sun with more northern latitudes being easier on the suit.

It is way too stiff for this kind of suit, you'll first off all lose the soft comfy feel of the open cell rubber and have a hard seam there. Also, because it is so stiff yet a strong adhesive, the rubber of the suit will likely just tear again around the aquaseal joint, it becomes a stress point. Neoprene cement dries extremely flexible and stretchy, the same as the rubber the suits are made of. As for aquaseal, it will reduce the lifetime of the suit, but back in the day for some old spearfishing suits that were already old already beat to hell (ie lobster diving suit), I'd smear aquaseal on the knees or shoulders or whatever to create an abrasion resistant patch on the outside. It kinda works but again the suit just tends to come apart around the aquaseal.

Thanks! Been working on my back flexibility this season--shoulder mobility has always been a weak link for me, and when I got in and started looking at the way my back and shoulders move I realized that I have terrific flexibility in portions of the lower back but nothing at all in the middle and upper! On the 2nd dive I simply lost the tag--I had been sticking them to a velcro patch on my belt but it wasn't secure enough. The classic is to tuck them into the hood but I was afraid to tear my hood since I didn't have a back-up top. It was still a nice dive. All the VB dives I did in bi-fins were really EQ practice for the CNF dives.

The one shown in this video is actually my second one (I'm onto my third and hopefully last). I wore out the one in the original video. I'll try and edit the footage I have of this one--it's been reinforced and hopped up with a bigger engine for way more speed.