SIROCCO 30
The Sirocco 30 is designed for serious offshore cruising with a limited budget. The cost of building a cruising boat will never be cheap, but light weight helps reduce building costs and time. Both important factors for sailors on a budget.
The displacement / LWL ratio of the Sirocco 30 is 258, which is heavy enough to behave well in a seaway, while the sail area / displacement ratio is a generous 18.214. The boat will perform well in light air, and a cutter rig is an option for offshore work. Stability calculations predict a stiff boat, with a maximum righting arm of 2.8' at 62 degrees of heel. The limit of positive stability is 138 degrees, not counting the cockpit or cabin. An interesting side note, when I entered the Sirocco 30 in my data base, it made it into the "Best Cruisers" list with a score of .21. Pretty good company for a 30 footer!
The two chine design is based on computer generated "developed surfaces", and is built out of construction grade 1/2" plywood sheets, heavily glassed on both sides. With no compound curves, the plywood panels fit together much like a stitch and glue kayak and require no frames. The boat is built inverted over four forms, all of which remain in the boat as permanent bulkheads. Construction begins with the deck, which is formed with wood strips or plywood sheets shimmed and screwed into the proper camber and sheer. The cockpit footwell is positioned on the deck and then the entire deck is fiberglassed (including a 4" coaming for the cabin to attach to). The four permanent bulkheads are next positioned and glassed to the deck with bias ply tape.
The plywood hull panels can now be positioned, stitched to each other, and glued to the forms. Thickened epoxy is then trowlled into the wedge shaped gap between the panels and forced through to the insides where it is smoothed to form a large structural fillet. The keel is also built up out of plywood and epoxied to the hull (empty of course). The keel passes through the hull and extends to the level of the sole, wl -12". . The chines are then ground down to a pleasant radius, and the hull and keel covered with two overlapping layers of 24 oz. woven roving . An additional layer is added over the bottom, including the keel, with an extra layer of bias ply tape at the keel./ hull joint. Before turning the boat over, the inside of the hull to deck joint is glassed with several layers of bias ply tape. No leaking joints on this boat!
After turning the boat over, the deck is glassed, finishing up the outside of the hull to deck joint. The insides are cleaned up and covered with fiberglass, to the same schedule as the outsides. The floors are glassed to the keel and the sole bonded, fastened, and glassed in place, forming a structural grid with many redundant load paths. When finished, all wood is covered with glass, and you have essentially a fiberglass boat with a wood core. Very strong construction.
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