Building Triceratops

I chose Platt Monfort's "Geodesic" method to build Triceratops because I wanted a light, easy to build, inexpensive method of building a boat. I also thought it would be cool.

I started with Dow Blue-Board styrofoam insulation for frames



I would not do this again because the foam compresses to easily.

The frames were connected with fir stringers and wrapped with kevlar cord pulled from an old piece of 1/2 inch kevlar rope.



The hulls were then covered with dacron which when heated with an iron shinks to make a drum-tight skin. When covered with paint the skin is waterproof.

The main 36ft long hull breaks into two 18ft pieces for transportation and storage. The section are held together by the deck.

The first deck was a low structure built around a plywood box-beam.



This system failed while going over a large speedboat wake.



To stiffen up the structure I designed a bridge truss-like frame that reached over the oarsman.

We won the race the first year with the new deck, and came in second the following years.



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Nick Schade