Floor to Frame attachment methods

[Peter Jacobs]

Looking at Emiliano's Grey Seal construction pictures I see the floors are attached directly underneath the frames, with the frames being a continuous laminated loop from sheer to sheer. The Grey Seal frames are 2 inches wide, as are the floors, so this would appear to make a very strong structure.

In the Folkboat pictures I've seen the frames are attached to the the face of the floors and run down to the keel.

I realize the Seal is a totally glued-up structure, while the FolkBoat is of more traditional construction, but I'm interested to know the thinking behind each method.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

-Peter-

[mark ward]

I've been wrestling with the same issues in planning the floor/frame connection in my Alden Triangle. I'm not terribly familiar with designs you're working with. However, McIntosh's book, IMHO, gives a very detailed discussion on several floor types/connection methods. My thoughts on the subject are this: the connection from floor to garboard strake is of utmost importance. Submitting this connection through a secondary member (ie. the frame) seems risky, as the frames are more likely to fail than the floors. Therefore, attaching the floor to the face of the frame and to the inboard face of the garboard strake seems the strongest connection. But,I was wrong once before.

Mark