Up On Plane – Hacker Dash Two

Hacker Dash Two

By: Andy James, 2nd Year Instructor

Those of you who have followed the school over the years may find this article familiar. For those of you who haven’t, allow me to get you up to speed.

The second-year students of the 2011-12 school year lofted, redesigned, re-lofted and built a replica of the famed Hacker Gold Cup racer, Miss APBA, for Joe Adams in Mt. Dora, Florida. We completed the hull but it was a long way from a finished boat. One of the folks who added his expertise to the boat was Lance Wilson. He installed a fi re-breathing V-8 that made in the neighborhood of 500hp, along with all the gear necessary to keep this monster under control. Thus, Lance had an opportunity to examine the construction of the boat in a way that most people never do, and to say that he was impressed is an understatement. In fact, he was so impressed that he commissioned the school to build another one.

Lance had a few changes that he wanted us to make that would make his job easier. This one will have more room under the sole for the exhaust system and the dash will be removable to allow easier access to the wiring that goes behind it. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same boat. Lance hauled a trailer-load of African mahogany up to the school that will be used as planking. We took that wood to Steve Van Dam’s shop to re-saw it so that we could book-match the planks as on the first Hacker.

My students had a head start since we could use the existing lofting and patterns that the 2011-12 students HACKER DASH TWO by Andy James, 2nd-year instructor had produced. Making frames was a long process. There are 18 of them, and three of them have bulkheads attached. Each frame has about 31 pieces that have to be assembled so that they match the patterns exactly. Then they get a couple coats of epoxy before they are ready to become part of the boat. The transom, stem, and deck beams are laminated and vacuum-bagged. The chine logs and sheer clamps are laminated in place and then painstakingly planed to shape.

When all these parts are screwed and glued together, plank lines are worked out by eye, and each plank seam gets a batten let into the frames behind it to attach the planks to. Then the whole thing is sheathed in marine plywood. As I type this, my students are busy cutting notches in the topside frames for these battens. The bottom already has its ply skin and the rest of the boat will be skinned within the next few weeks.

Now for the best part of this article. When this Hacker leaves the school in the spring, our relationship with this breathtaking design won’t end. We already have a deposit for Hacker Dash Three for next year’s second-year students!