CAPABILITY

Capability is a function of people, processes, equipment and materials.

At Rapido Catamarans, we believe we have the right blend to ensure that our products are of the highest quality.

People

Rapido Catamarans, together with our builder-partner, Triac Composites, is an internationally owned and managed company based in Vietnam.

Two of the co founders (Paul Koch and

James Sganzerla) have a wealth

of boat building experience (more than

60 years between them) across three

continents (Australia, USA and Asia)

in which they have built more than 1,500

composite multihulls (see About Us).

They first started building boats in

Vietnam in 2006 with a local workforce

that they trained up into a highly

professional and dedicated group.

Many of the staff, who now number more

than 60, have been with Paul and James

since the beginning.

Image: Staff at a company trip in the Vietnamese coastal city of Vung Tau.

Peace of mind

The feedback we continually hear from our customers is that we give them confidence; peace of mind.

Our customers have confidence in the quality of the human resources and they have confidence in the equipment, materials and processes that we use to deliver an outstanding result.

Typical factories that manufacture composite products and components will do the following:

Gel-coating
Painting
Hand lamination; and
Assembly

But we can do a lot more.

Autoclave

The autoclave is used for prepreg to control a high

pressure, high temperature, cure profile.

Our machine is 2m in diameter and 8m long.

We have made high modulus carbon beams

for the Rapido 60 with a structural rating of over

100 tonnes.

We also build the rudders and daggerboards for our

own boats as well as for third parties as per

video on the side.

Kuka Robot

In June 2019, Triac Composites took delivery of a

Kuka 6 axis milling robot.

The robot has a working area of 22.5m x 3.7m and comes

with a 22.5m linear track (which gives it a 7th axis).

We use the milling robot to prepare the plugs

for building new moulds.

The robot is much faster - and

has a far higher degree of accuracy when compared

with traditional methods of building molds.

In the video to the side, the robot is being used to mill the plug for the Rapido 50 Trimaran.

RTM (Resin Transfer Moulding)

Added to our capabilities, in 2017 we acquired an RTM machine. The RTM injects a measured dose of resin into a closed mould using pressure.

The process is repeatable and faster than other processes.

The key benefit, however, is that we can get a good quality surface on both sides of the part.

Infusion

Infusion uses a vacuum to suck resin into the part whilst compressing all the plies tightly together.

This process is used for large foam-sandwich core parts such as boat hulls.

The process ensures there are no air voids and no inter laminar bonds - and sufficient time for staff to position the cloth and reinforcements before the vacuuming commences.

CNC Machine

We also have our own CNC Machine (Computer Numerical Control Machine).

Further information

For more information, visit Triac Composites.