40' Retro Cruiser with planing hull
by Paul Katynski
(Las Vegas, Nevada)
Artists rendering
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This is the 2nd model that I built from Arne Borke in Norway. Arne is a very accomplished designer of custom boats. He also built his own boats prior to covid. He also worked as a Naval designer for Norway.
This boat he designed in 2009; however never became a reality in the full size. Arne helped me out with the details, the section layout to the correct ratio and actually mailed them to me from Norway.
Arne has a fiancé and her name is Monica; hence the name. The boat as I stated is built with 2" thick and 3/8" thick segments of stiff DOW insulation foam purchased at Lowe's in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A quick funny story: When Arne sent me the original file; I printed the sections and proceeded to glue all of the sections together. Arne is typically extremely busy at work and I was sending him progress pictures. I was already in fiberglass
when he asked me the widest part of the boat. I answered that it was 9 1/4". He then said that the scale is off and the only way to make it come out close was to cut so much off of the stern! I cut and re did the fiberglass but still didn't look right. He suggested that I build it in 1/10 scale.
I am disabled so I don't have a lot of money. I agreed and went and purchased another sheet of foam. I built my own horizontal foam cutter which worked out very well. He told me to take the program to a printer; expand it to a certain percentage and print the sections. No one would do this so that's when he printed it. He had stated that at the widest point would be 11 13/16". It worked out well. All of the sections were cut on the foam table and hand done for fitting and glue. "Number 78" 3M foam spray worked very well. There are 55 sections that form the hull.
After that I applied 5 layers of fiberglass to the hull. I sanded upon sanded and again more sanding. It's no perfect but it is pretty close. The model is 48" long total length from the tip of the front rail to the end of the swim deck.
The artist rendering and the model are pretty close but there are things I was unable to do with limited means but I believe I did a really good job. The boat was a challenge and not recommended for the beginner modeler. There are no instructions but he came through and helped me out with the difficult issues. Thank you again Arne!
The wood used throughout is walnut, bird's eye maple, and African mahogany. The African Mahogany is done on the front windscreen and interlaced on the swim deck along with the maple. The bow along with the swim deck are done in Z-poxy specifically designed for foam. The deck railing I did not secure because I was going to make the model remoted controlled.
Anyways as I stated earlier; the money ran out; however the boat when finished including the motor, all electrical, etc. will weigh 12 lbs. I figured the motor size, esc, batteries and all the running hardware. The motor alone would be a Leopard 5898 1170 KV brushless motor.
The remainder of the wood along the rails is all walnut with anchors in the holes to secure the railings front and rear. Each of the sides along with the windshield are actually screwed into place with nuts imbedded in epoxy. The swim deck has 4 screws across the stern and are the only holes made in the hull. There was a tremendous amount of wood working done to get to this level. all wood has a layer of plywood secured to the veneers including the deck. The entire bow has the foam remaining for buoyancy.
The wall in the cab is only Velcro to the foam for aesthetics. There are 6 portholes 3 each side that still needs installed but here again they will not be attached through the hull.
As you can see the stern is actually rolled to the inside with engine vents for detail. The windows are plexiglass and is sandwiched between the layers of the wall. The front and rear rails were all bent by hand made of brass 3/16" tubing, soldered, prepped and sprayed with chrome paint.
The rails, cabin sides, windshield, swim deck deflectors, exhaust ports were coated in 5 coats of polyurethane. A hand held foam cutter was a very handy tool when hollowing out the cabin. Again more sanding.
With the delays that I had, waiting to get paid to order materials, etc. the material costs were at $700.00. The hours invested were approximately 250 man hrs. but all in all I had fun. Any questions that you may have; please inquire and will be pleased to answer them for you.
