3D PRINTED IOM BOATS - New Zealand Radio Yachting Association Inc.

It does seem that 3D printed boats are here to stay. These boats are class legal and the biggest drawback is that the boats are not able to be built as light as the glass ones, although they still can be built under the weight limit. Glass is also stronger in impact resistance, however, as time goes by it will be most likely that the materials used for 3D printed IOM boats will get better. What is great about 3D printed boats is the big saving in labour time to build a new shape. Instead of having to make plugs and moulds, once a drawing is complete you can turn this into a STL file.The printer uses this file to start building your boat while you are asleep or doing other things. So this is very good to produce new designs for trial.

Construction of D5 3D deck

I’m sure in the future it will be very easy to buy drawings from different designers and print them out on your home printer, or even send the drawing to a be built commercially by a 3D printer. This has to be good for the IOM class as cost of boats will come down.

The other drawback for the home builder is the amount of time needed to learn the different programmes to design the boat and set up the 3d printer slicing software, however, once you have a handle on it becomes fun especially when you print out different components for your boat rather than going to the shop.

Below is my first attempt to build a 3D deck for D5. The completed boat with glass hull was about 60 gram heavier than the glass boats. What pleased me was how well the epoxy bonded to the PLA+ plastic. Also, the paint had good adhesion. The deck was built in three sections which included the bulkhead in front of the mast.

We are using Delft Ship for lines drawing

Fusion 360 to draw deck centre case and components

Printer is Prusa

PLA+ plastic Deck thickness is 0.8mm