Experimental development of a wood veneer encapsulated GRP process for the application of racing boats

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The overall objective of the project is to perfect a system for encapsulating a wood veneer into a glass fibre moulding for the application of racing boats. Many boat owners desire boats that have an aesthetically pleasing authentic wooden finish, which are still suitable for racing. However, in the recent years wooden boats sales have fallen due to their significant expense and slow production time due to the labour intensive building methods used, and time consuming and expensive annual maintenance of finishing the boats. There is a business opportunity for us to offer a Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) protected, infused wood veneer boat, which would have the benefits of a modern GRP manufactured process combined with the traditional look of a wooden finish. The advantages to the boat purchaser include a great looking “wooden” boat which is attractive to the traditional buyers at a competitive price with lower maintenance costs. It would also help open up the market to non-competitive sailors. The return on investment for this Experimental Development project cost is 200% over 5 years, helping grow our sales 50% above current levels and maintaining or even increasing our current level of exports from 80% by year 5 post commercialisation.