Nothing new*


In some ways we have yet to match what ‘boatbuilders’ were already achieving during World War II. Charles Lawrence looks back to the first days of autoclave-cured composite construction… and at some very durable results *With apologies to Dave Hollom, page 55


Fairey Marine and hot-moulded construction Most readers of this journal will probably have come across a Fairey boat at some time in the past, perhaps learning to sail on a Firefly or Albacore, or racing a Jollyboat or International 14, or comfortably cross- ing rough water at improbable speeds in a Huntsman or Swordsman? There remain quite a few fleets of Firefly


and Albacore dinghies and Atalanta cruisers scattered around the world and also a clutch of beautiful Fairey offshore motorboats lovingly cared for by their proud owners (including Seahorse). Apart from these boats, and a few aircraft in museums, the only visible remains of the once great Fairey company are the range of big sheds at Hamble Point, at the mouth of the Hamble river, their massing unchanged since the 1930s. It was in 1915 when Charles Richard


Fairey, later Sir Richard, left his job at air- craft builder Shorts hoping to fly with the Royal Naval Air Service, but was told that he would be of greater use building more aircraft. He promptly created Fairey Avia- tion, with a factory at Hayes in west London, an office in Piccadilly and the site at Hamble Point, originally created for the assembly and testing of seaplanes. The Hamble Point works produced aircraft and aircraft components until the 1950s, but the spare capacity immediately after World War II was taken up by the produc- tion of sailing dinghies, following the setting-up of Fairey Marine in 1946. Fairey’s sailing dinghies, based on


designs by Uffa Fox and developed by Charles Currey, were constructed using the hot-moulding process, in which the boat’s hull shell was effectively a single piece of laminated wood, formed to the finished shape of the boat, with little need for internal frames. Boats built this way proved remarkably durable over the years with Fireflies built in the 1950s and ’60s still winning regattas today. Similarly, many restorers of Fairey powerboats have discovered their hull


36 SEAHORSE


shell (unlike the plywood superstructures) to be in excellent condition after many years of hard use – Faireys were a common sight during the early days of offshore powerboat racing and won most of the premier events at some time or other. The hot-moulding process relied on the


curing of a new generation of thermo - setting phenolic resins, heated under pres- sure. The technique had been developed – and patented – by a furniture maker, Arthur Merron, whose company, Merron, produced aircraft components throughout the war, as well as supplying technology to the major manufacturers, notably de Hav- illand for the Mosquito fighter bomber, the so-called ‘wooden wonder’. A parallel development, known as the


Vidal Bag Process, had also taken place with aircraft builders in the States. Merron collaborated with Uffa Fox on the con- struction of his wartime Airborne Lifeboat, and also produced over 50 small sailing dinghies, which were the first boat designs of New Zealander Arthur Robb. The Merron process was shared with


Fairey during the war, who had the resources to instal the large autoclaves needed to manufacture aircraft compo- nents. Although Fairey’s first hot-moulded dinghies continued the wartime use of


birch veneer, when timber stocks ran low, agba, an African mahogany, was selected instead for its longevity, resistance to rot and light weight. A choice that has been borne out in the years since. This description is taken from the


original Fairey Review of March 1963: ‘In the Fairey Marine method of construction African mahogany is used in very thin planks each about 6in wide and one-tenth of an inch thick, layered across a solid wooden mould. ‘This mould is constructed from 4in


timbers which are glued and pegged together and then carefully fashioned and faired to the interior shape of the designed boat’s hull. From this basic mould all future hulls of this particular design are built – all of which will be exactly alike. One of these moulds has already produced over 700 boats which means that it has been in and out of the ‘oven’ – correctly called an autoclave – and subjected to a heat of 100°C over 700 separate cycles. ‘After the planks have been satisfacto-


rily layered up on the mould and tailored to fit they are numbered, and from them templates are made. Wads of planks cut to these templates are then stored in racks adjacent to the mould. ‘To hot-mould a hull the operator


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110