"Gary" ) writes:
What does / could it mean to "fair out" the hull of a wood boat?

I assume that fair out means to sand it smoother? Sand it to take
out any dips or bumps? But can that be right?

Yes, but it covers anything you do to make the curvature of the hull smooth
with no dips or humps, for example when setting up the bulding moulds so
the wood will bend evenly over them, and selecting wood without any
defects which would cause it to bend unevenly or "kink" at a weak spot.
Builders check for fairness by laying a long flexible strip of wood or
similar over the hull in different directions to see if it lays flush
against the hull.

It's pretty much a cosmetic thing, can be structural, but it's also partly
left over from the days when people thought speed depended on smooth and
even flowing lines. Speed really doesn't depend on the curves of the hull
being really smooth (except maybe at very high speeds), although it does
depend on the surface being smooth rather than rough.

You'll see the term "fairing" applied to auto body work and there, as well
as for similar boatbuilding materials, it's as much filling in with fairing
compound as it is sanding off.


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-FreeNet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned