The Tokyo Trash Baby Tale

The birth of a sportsboat

By The Man Himself… “Tokyo”

The Tokyo Trash Baby (TTB) is a 5.5 metre plywood sports boat based off an American design known as the i550. I came across her on the internet after a night of rum induced dreaming, scheming and a little bit of slurring with my father about a small high performance trailerable.

I showed dad, he looked at me…

“You know what? That thing looks mad and I reckon you and I could build that,” he said.

That night an email frenzy occurred between two continents and thus the TTB was born.

I struck a deal with the designer of iBoatworks. The plans would be supplied for free in exchange for photos over the entire construction process. How could I possible turn that offer down!? Finding out it would be the first one built in Australia and in a “turbo’d” mode was also a cool feeling.

I sent away my contact details and waited in anticipation… and waited… and waited… and finally!

Two weeks later the Tokyo Trash Baby arrived on paper.

I studied the plans endlessly looking over them and changing it to suit its new high performance orientation. I always liked the little sports boats such as the mighty “Orphan” and ”Shorty/Liquid Tactics” for their practicalities and most of all the awesome downwind rides I would often watch them achieve, along with the grins on the three blokes faces who ride those boats hard.

Building began one Christmas holiday Saturday morning. I really had no idea what I was getting into but all I knew was that I wanted a boat, and I was going to start this and finish it. The building technique used for the TTB is a well-known method known as ‘stitch and glue’. This is where the hull panels are literally “stitched”/pulled together at the chines and frames with either copper wire or more commonly now the good old garden zip-tie. When pulled together epoxy filler is pushed into the newly formed joins and coved along with fibreglass tape applied over the newly formed join to add strength. The boat slowly started off as just a bunch or frames on a jig, and slowly over the course of two years turned from a skeleton to a hull, to a hull with a deck, the finally to something that resembled a boat. Along the way we learnt many tricks and traps from friends and from our own doings, such as, mixing a big batch of resin for a job that will take an hour goes off in five minutes and gets very hot, don’t work with a hangover because you achieve nothing, and still feel like shit.

I spent a lot of time emailing the designer with my thoughts on the mods I wanted to do, and he was very keen to see them and know how they went once the boat hit the water. The most obvious performance mods were decided upon first. The keel was lightened down from the original 85kgs fin to a 71kgs bulbed fin to get the weight down low where it was needed. The addition of honeycomb composite panels were used in the floors and deck to help reduce weight and lightening holes cut in frames to do the same thing. Asymmetric masthead spinnakers were included as well as a rotating bowsprit to run deeper angles down wind. A simple skiff style rig with twin spreaders will be employed to power her, along with sails that I have been given, or bought off similar boats, as only being young I don’t have the serious cash needed for a new sail wardrobe.

The “Trash Baby” as it is starting to be affectionately known has been a journey and learning curve to say the least! Though I must say that I am glad I have chosen to do this and develop a new, untested design, as this is how many new innovations like canting keels have come about. She looks wild, and of course she has her doubting group of people, but it was always mainly a project to see if we could build a boat, and learn a few things on the way. Somehow I think we have achieved that and now there is another addition to the “6m and under division” to mix it up with the Liquid Tactics and the Rip It Up’s of that division!

Now we just have to finish her off and go sailing! Oh how simple it all sounds!