Willard Arch and Bimini Project

[clloyd]

Radar arch and forward bars waiting for Bimini to be made.

Arch will be painted black eventually, this is pre-paint as there may still be welding to do.

[clloyd]

Bimini fitted with foward removeable side curtains.

Bimini folds into arch and has a cover to keep it contained when not up.

[clloyd]

Shots of the arch fabrication.

[Squid Boat]

Well done mate.

Cheers, Squid

[columbiachop]

Very nice. Hood river is one of my favorite towns. That wind chop is relentless on the Columbia up there. That rib should do the trick. I bounce all over the place.

[ncp]

Looking good!

Powdercoat or paint? How about some shots of how the bimini folds up!

[clloyd]

Thx everyone.

@columbiachop, your username says it all. Yeah, one of the reasons to get a decent sized rib was to not have to worry about the wind and wave state around here. She slices through it fairly nicely. Wil also be using her on the coast as much as possible.

@ncp Well it will be powercoat which makes me nervous but going with a salt water primer and boat will be primarily fresh water with incursions to salt. If it all goes to shit, I guess I'd be stripping and going awlgrip. I did have an annodized option for silver. Pre-annodized tubing, not fully dipped afterwards, but I'm going all black instead. The powercoat I've seen from this company looks pretty good.

I'll add pictures folded up when I get her back and everything done. Also the entire arch folds back including bimini to get her into the garage.

[clloyd]

Shots folded up.

Note that the bimini does not use full width under arch. That was because I was worried about too much windage but in hindsight, it would probably have looked better, especially folded. I'll have to try it out to know.

The bimini frame has quick releases, so very easy to take off the boat entirely. Going to add fast pins to the forward arch as well.

[ncp]

Originally Posted by clloyd

Shots folded up.

I'm impressed. It looks pretty rigid when it's out yet folds up into a nice small package.

[columbiachop]

...and doesn't waste space folded down into the bow interior. Nice.

[clloyd]

Ok arch is done, here are some shots bimini folded and unfolded.

Today I went out in some heavy rain and even without the side curtain up, stayed dry. That is a very nice thing in Oregon.

I need to take some detail shots as well. The fabrication company Samson has some amazing CNC machined parts for tilting the arch and disconnecting it etc. This is the first RIB they have done!! It's also a wakeboard arch and has the tow bit up top.

There are also some LED floods that light down and aft as well as onto the deck.

Radar, wind ammeter, VHF antenna.

[RyanPratt]

Great Job! It looks top notch!

[Squid Boat]

Outstanding fab work.

Cheers

[clloyd]

Thx guys. So glad it's finally done and in time for the summer.

[columbiachop]

You should shoot a video of how it handles that close chop. Plus the scenery in the gorge would be a great back drop.

[clloyd]

Speaking of serenity. Shot these at last night's weekly evening sailboat racing.

It had just dumped a bunch of rain. Bimini helped and I could get shots without getting wet.



More shots here

Weds Night Racing 2013 - a set on Flickr

[ncp]

Originally Posted by clloyd

Speaking of serenity. Shot these at last night's weekly evening sailboat racing.

Gorgeous

[columbiachop]

Beautiful. Wild weather up there.

[clloyd]

Well this is the wave/wind state in the summer in the same location as previous photo.

Good to have a RIB!! All the wimpy ski boats are all tied up for the summer except a few weeks of calm.

Windsurfer masts are 15' high. So that gives you some scale as to the "chop" we have here.

[columbiachop]

Ya, "chop" might not be the right word. Down where I'm at it doesn't get that big but we deal with dead heads and logs regularly. Not nearly as fun