COBRA to partner with Skeeta Foiling Craft on composite hydro foiling dinghies

OEM manufacturer of composite products COBRA International (Chonburi, Thailand) has announced its partnership with Skeeta Foiling Craft (Melbourne, Australia) to build a new range of hydro foiling dinghies, including its 3.66-meter Skeeta and 2.9-meter Nikki dinghies, which are available in both foiling and displacement sailing configurations.

Jim French, co-founder of Skeeta Foiling Craft, was determined to build the Skeeta hull using an expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam core and the single-shot closed mold epoxy lamination process pioneered by the windsurf board market. COBRA International was selected as the building partner for series production.

For the Skeeta’s modern scow shaped hull, COBRA uses a molded EPS foam core blank, assembled with a mixture of woven and biaxial glass fiber fabrics, localized carbon fiber reinforcements and G-10 inserts, this is all wet laminated into closed vacuum female molds. This rapid construction process produces consistent hulls with minimal finishing required and a low hull weight of just 32 kilograms for Skeeta and 23 kilograms for the Nikki dinghies.

COBRA currently supply painted hulls with a molded EVA foam deck pad that provides a non-slip deck. This deck pad, as well as textile covers for the boat’s wings and custom-made protective bags for the Skeeta’s aluminium and composite hydrofoils, is produced by COBRA’s in-house accessories division and then shipped to Australia for final assembly and set-up of the finished boats.

Skeeta Foiling Craft have recently launched the smaller Nikki dinghy with hulls also built at COBRA. So far around 100 boats have been manufactured with production lines being configured for up to 50 hulls per month.

As production rates build, COBRA and Skeeta Foiling Craft are also discussing ways to develop a one-stop-shop supply option with sails, metal components and plastic parts being manufactured or sourced by COBRA so finished boats could be shipped directly.