Posted by Michael Hanson on September 10, 2002 at 19:53:44:
In Reply to: Mini Max hydro - anyone built one recently? posted by Jon Strom on August 17, 2002 at 21:19:21:
: I have Built several. None lately. For years (until about 1975) plans for the Minimax appeared in a paper magazine called "Boatbuilder Magazine". It appears unrelated to the virtual magazine of the same name now appearing on the web. The original plans called for fiberglass cloth tape (covered with resin) as the means of sealing the chambers. The original plans also called for fiberglass tape and resin as the means of sealing the seam around the rounded nose and the centerline slit that allows for the pulling together of the forward plywood that forms the vee at the front of the bottom. Until at least 1986, you could still find plans for the Minimax (and its sister the Minimost) in many public paper libraries by looking up the out-of-print magazine on microfiche, blowing the plans up on the screen and copying (printing) them. Please note that plans appearing free in magazines frequently omit detail so as not to defeat the purpose for comlete plans that are only available for sale. On a closing note, the original Minimax has a serious design flaw that impairs its performance. For cosmetic reasons, the designer chose to make the cockpit wider in the front and narrow at the rear. The designer designed the bottom of the outside walls of each side of the cockpit straight. If these walls were paralell, the bottom of the hull would be true. But, the cockpit is wider at the front and narrower the rear. Because the Minimax hull is a deminishing vee hull, these walls inadvertently create a bow inbetween the two outer walls of the cockpit and a hook outside of them and toward the rear. If you turn the Minimax over and take a straight edge and keep it paralell to the centerline and slowly drag it toward the outside edges (still paralell to the centerline), you will be astonished at how flawed this renders the hull. To correct this, just make the outside walls of the cockpit paralell to the centerline (the same width in the front as in the back). I also recommend an internal 1 x 4 right down the centerline of the cockkpit which is cut from the same piece if wood that forms the centerline brace in front of the "firewall". This insures a perfect tangent with the upward curve of the nose in front and creates a single brace stem to stern (the plywood skin itself is the only stem to stern "brace" on the original design). If you make the side walls of the cockpit two feet apart from one another (one foot away from the centerline each), and if you add the 1 x 4 down the centerline of the cockpit (1 inch wide and 4 inches tall), all three braces(along with the elongated triangular shaped sides or "chines") provide perfect framework front to rear, one foot apart, and render the hull the true slick diminishing vee (with no front to rear bows or hooks) that the designers intended (but, failed to produce). Call or e-mail anytime. Sorry about the typos. It's late.