America’s Cup Race – We were there

This picture is taken from the BMW/Oracle Team website – congratulations for their America’s Cup Race victory. There were so many incredible pictures to choose from but this one gives you a very good idea of the scale of the mast we were involved with (yes, those white specks are crew members). You may recall in a previous blog post where I said there are many projects that we are involved with but cannot share those with you? This was one of those, however, we have recently been given the word that we can share this exciting project with our readers. Janseneering used our 5-axis CNC machines to cut the mast plug for the BMW/Oracle entry for the latest America’s Cup Race. Obviously, with a 35′ long working envelope we were not able to make it in one piece which is around 185′ long. Again, this is where the precision of CAD and 5-axis CNC come into play. We made numerous plug sections that were very accurately assembled by the Custom Composite Technologies crew into a single length plug. From that they crafted a carbon fiber/epoxy mold that was sent to Hall Spars in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA who then built the mast for BMW/Oracle.

I can tell you this – this is not the first winner we have helped make it across the finish line in first place. We plan on being there again, but …… you may never know about it.

A Day of Friendly Competition – Kart Racing

It can’t always be work and no play, so once a year we try to do something outside of the shop for fun. We headed over to Maine Indoor Karting for an afternoon of cart racing with some of our local suppliers/customers. These carts really haul and it gets pretty intense as you round the corners and get bumped into a spin, or you clumsily put your foot down a little too hard on either the brake or the throttle resulting in an adrenaline induced mess up. We had several races to test our mettle but as hard as we tried to beat him, Nate came out ahead of all of us. Did I mention Nate is probably the biggest gearhead of all and used to make a living as a photographer at NHRA events? Joining us were folks from Custom Composite Technologies and Menezes Marine Group. Trophies were awarded and celebrated with a couple of post race beers.

Who knows where 2010 may take us.