There is probably only one thing that is more special than driving an Cocktail Racer – Building one! Find below an overview of our prototype build. As you can see it is not rocket science. Within in a week you can get the body done, the sanding and varnishing you also could outsource, and then you are fairly ready to race.
Step 1: The body
You start stitching together plywood plates and force them into the base shape of the racer. Then it is about sealing the wood with Epoxy and strengthening the body with glass fibre. First the inside, later the outside part. Then you mount the deck and add last pieces (strip around the deck and a piece of wood to hold the engine). With good planning and some help you can get there in a week.
Then you have to let the whole thing thoroughly dry for 2-3 weeks. If you haven’t built any wooden boats before it is recommended to do this with some oversight. Working with epoxy and glass fibre is not complicated, but having an expert around will simply ease your life a lot.
Step 2: Sanding and varnishing
The final sanding can be tedious, but needs to be done really diligently if the surface should become truly smooth and even. Before the varnishing you do it again with super-fine sand paper. The varnishing itself I outsourced to a car workshop. Theoretically you can do it yourself, but hey – you better do not mess up
Step 3: Steering, Battery & Engine
Now, the test & learn part started. It is was quite tedious, but the good thing is that now we know how to get it done. You’d might think in these Elonesk times finding an adequate replacement for a plain-vanilla 8hp outboard engine would be piece of cake. But it wasn’t. We started with a Torqeedo Cruise 6.0 R, a 6KW/10HP engine with 48V. For the battery we have found a great solution from e-marine.at. The tiny case weighs cute 60 (!) pounds, but does exactly fit in the front of the tiny racer. BTW: The wheel is actually a “race wheel” of an old Fiat 500 screwed on a piece of epoxied wood.
Got interested? Wanna get started your own racer? Happy to help!
Just get in contact with us … (fullblast@cocktailracer.com)