Learn more about
Castaway Customs and
VE Partnership
A design revolution to improve safety on boats
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Slips and falls are one of the most common accidents on a boat’s deck. In fact, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), at least 43% of reported maritime injuries are a result of slip and fall accidents. Flooring pads can help. These pads are plates usually glued to a boat’s deck to protect it from getting scratched by the anchor and chain. Also known as rub rails, these long, flat plates are designed using Rhino CAD software, a commercial computer-aided design and drafting software application.
Castaway Customs, headquartered in Rockledge, Florida provides custom flooring options for boats. They approached us for a boat's flooring. One of their customers wanted a premium non-slip flooring for their boat to achieve more traction, reduce the chance of slipping, and hence prevent any mishap. The flooring was also meant to keep equipment from rolling around, with the boat in motion. And that’s exactly what we helped them achieve, leveraging our Rhino CAD expertise.
Suraj Choudhary
Drop Technician
Harish Bisht
PhotoG Technician
Kamlesh Rathour
AutoCAD Engineer
Boats are amazing machines. They create order from chaos, combine art with science, and give us the power to explore and discover new worlds. Our talented team at Virtual Employee has been rewriting the CAD rulebook. Our goal is to make sure that every CAD requirement has the best possible design. We’re not building flooring CNC programs the same way we always have. Instead, we’re changing the way CAD is done to make the design process both faster and more reliable —and that’s not easy! But our small but talented team likes big challenges and believes in its mission: to make every piece of CAD design better than before.
It all started with scanning. The client coordinator maintained proper communication between the client and Virtual Employee. It made the decision making process of the project easier such as deciding its starting time and delivery dates, etc. It was also mutually decided when a person was to be sent for photographs. We required images of the boat (basic work – boat flooring/pads of different thicknesses). Once we had the photos with us, we sent the pics folder via Salesforce to our PhotoG team. We used different images for different areas – gunwale, bow etc.
Tracing and creating the files for production is just as important as design. Here’s what our PhotoG team did when entrusted with this important task:
The next step was pulled off by a designer who worked on styling and helped put the tracing files uniformly. The designer’s tasks also included placing different parts of the padding in the frame. Since it was a big boat, quite a few template sheets were to be used, handling which could be a nightmare, but thankfully, the designer was well-versed with the process and did it with remarkable precision.
Dropping followed. And then we moved on to posting.
Next up, we were to use Rhino CAM to assign tools to parts – for routing, logo, creating CNC files, etc. Once we were done, we then took to what is commonly known as posting – for the uninitiated, we transferred the CNC files to a pen drive, while ensuring that we had a hard copy of each of the files, before finally sending everything to the machinist. That in fact, concluded the process.
We sailed through the expectations and overcame some major icebergs. Our CAD experts delivered optimum safety through consistent planning, designing, and execution of the boat’s padding. And the result? Let's just say that if our Rhino CAD experts had been present in 1912, Titanic may have completed its 100th voyage by now.
