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CARBON FIBRE SAILING BOAT STEERING WHEELS
PATENTED CONTINUOUS SHELL CONSTRUCTION
(EUROPEAN PATENT)
Exit Engineering carbon fibre wheels are built in one piece, becoming an immensely light and strong monocoque structure: no weak joints nor secondary bondings.
The wheels are supplied with the suitable hub for any steering brand, built with aluminum alloy and protected with hard anodising against corrosion and wear.
It's easy to install like any other metallic wheel.
All Exit Engineering's carbon fibre marine steering wheels are CE certified (Notified Body n.614 ECB, The Netherlands).
EXIT ENGINEERING RANGE OF CARBON BOAT STEERING WHEELS
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ø 90cm |
ø 105cm |
ø 120cm |
ø 160cm |
ø 170cm |
ø 180cm |
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Overall diameter |
935 mm |
1050 mm |
1200 mm |
1640 mm |
1720 mm |
1840 mm |
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Weight* |
1.340 kg |
1.520 kg |
1.750 kg |
3.180 kg |
3.280 kg |
3.680 kg |
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Hub thickness |
60 mm |
60 mm |
60 mm |
60 mm |
60 mm |
60 mm |
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Rim thickness |
35 mm |
35 mm |
35 mm |
40 mm |
40 mm |
40 mm |
* The weights correspond to the carbon fibre steering wheels with anti UV coating without the hubs. Conical hubs weigh 200 g. Cylindrical hubs weigh 275 g.
Key features
- UV resistant epoxy resin with transparent anti UV coating
- High gloss carbon fibre finish as standard
- custom painting on request
Our carbon fibre sailing boat steering wheels are entirely made in Italy.
Shipping time is usually 15 days from order confirmation.
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WHY HAVE A CARBON FIBRE WHEEL?
Compared with lightweight fabricated wheels, which are easily bent, these carbon fibre boat wheels are incredibly strong.
The big outer section rim provides a more comfortable grip for the helm.
The massive reduction in weight results in much lower rotational inertia making for a much more responsive helm.
The power drain on the auto-pilot system becomes considerably lower too.
It is wear resistant.
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WHY CHOOSE EXIT ENGINEERING WHEELS DESIGN?
- It's elegant.
- It respects the boat style and architecture.
- The minimum number of spokes allows a clear view of the instruments.
- The big voids between the spokes amplify the perception of lightness of the wheels and let more visibility to the landscape.
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THE ORIGINS OF A CONSTRUCTION – THE REASONS FOR A DESIGN
Y or I? Two solutions for a problem
The question: Transfer the thrust from the rim to the spokes to discharge it onto the axle
It is a simple question but with numerous different solutions. If the thrust is in front of a spoke, the main load is exclusively flexion, but if the thrust is intermediate between two spokes, the flexion lowers as the number of spokes decreases and, as the figures shows in case D to A, it mainly becomes torsion. If we just want to use a few spokes, they must be designed to resist two types of load and they must have a very wide connection to the rim to do this. Just think of what happens if you try to unscrew a screw with a screwdriver that is too small.
As we can see the Y construction behaves like metal wheels with a lot of spokes.
The reasons why Exit Engineering have adopted the current 3-spoke construction, despite the greater structural complexity, are numerous and in our opinion fully justify the greater design work involved:
- A few larger diameter spokes require a rolling process that is very easy to control, meaning that the quality and reliability of the wheels is uniform;
- A few spokes without any forks reduce to a minimum the number of carbon plies, reducing the overlap between adjacent plies, because, in a carbon fibre wheel, the overlaps account for a significant part of the overall weight;
- The simplified internal vacuum bags means that our patented Continuous Shell system can be used, to make a monocoque wheel without any gluing work;
- The wide connections to the rim reduce tension peaks, meaning that minimum thickness can be used away from the hub, to the benefit of low rotational inertia.
Therefore we consider that the construction with a few spokes without any Y forks is superior, but attention must be paid to how the spokes are connected to the rim and hub. A good project should have wide connections to both. The alternatives are excessive weight and/or potentially fragile interface.
CARBON FIBRE SAILBOAT STEERING WHEELS
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