fab boat : Green Boat Rapid Prototyping



Like bicycles, traditional handmade small boats rely on the production of considerable tooling/formwork. Like the fab bike, the fab boat avoids this now-unnecessary step by cnc cutting panels which are stitched together into the final three dimensional shape. With geometric optimization in the design process, the final shape is as straight and true as a traditionally crafted boat, and without any additional formwork. The fab boat also employs environmentally friendlier composite manufacturing techniques, using natural (i.e. linen) fabrics and low-toxicity polymer resins. Continuing work also looks at hydrodynamics of surface textures with meso-scale features, such as shark scale like features for the bottom of a surfing boat, instead of fins.